6/17/13

“Hi, I'm Tim and I'm a total fuck-tard.”  “Hi Tim!”  This is how my first “Fuck-Tards Anonymous” meeting will begin.  Why do I need to join FTA?  I think you know.  Yep, we went to Little Elm and came home with a Mini.  On the plus side, John did get the guy to take $500.00 less than he had it advertised… so there’s THAT going for me, I guess.  Feh, I've now annoyed myself by starting to talk about it.  I'm going away for a little bit.  Ok, I'm back.  So here’s what I think I want to do.  First off I want to go buy a set of trailer wheels and tires so we can make the damned thing roll.  Northern Tool and Supply has some really awesome 10” wheels with 205/50-10 tires on them.  They.  Are.  Awesome.  I want them so friggin’ bad.  The problem is I can't go very big with the brakes if I stay with 10” wheels.  But they are so friggin’ awesome!  Anyhoo, what would make the most sense would be to buy the 12” trailer wheels and tires just to make the thing roll.  They are something like 145/80-12s though and are so ridiculously skinny that they would only be good for rolling around and possibly as spares.  And they are only $10.00 a wheel cheaper.  The others are definitely $40.00 more awesome.  I don’t know, we’ll see.  After we have the thing rolling, we’ll probably drag it on the trailer somewhere and yank the engine.  Hmm, I wonder if we could use Kevin’s place some Saturday like we did when we changed Lil' Wiggly's clutch.  I'll ask him sometime.  I'm thinking we’ll also yank all of the Lucas wiring and nasty interior out at the same time.  When we have the car stripped, we’ll drop it off at John's house.  He has said he’d like to have it there so he can work on the body in his spare time and get it ready to paint.  Since the thing isn’t rough enough to be a Rat Rod after all, I think a nice paintjob is in order.  Oh sure, the right fender and door are rough enough, but the rest of the car really isn’t.  It isn’t “nice” by any stretch of the imagination, but it isn’t rough enough to leave alone as a Rat Rod.  Forget it, it makes sense to me.  Oh yeah, there is one more reason why John volunteered to do the bodywork on the Mini at his house: it’ll make it that much easier for him to take possession of the car when I flake and sell it to him!  So, with John working on tarting up the body, I'll do some cipherin’ and figgerin’ on what I want to do about an engine.  This engine has, supposedly, a Spridget head and intake setup.  Well, it definitely has the Spridget dual SU carburetor setup so I am willing to believe the guy that the head is upgraded as well.  He also said it was a 1275cc engine but then went on to say the engine number matches the VIN.  If that last bit is true, then it should have an 895cc bottom end.  Anyhoo, this is why I want to get in there and strip the engine apart.  However, until Lil' Wiggly is back on the road I'm not going to do anything major.  Besides, if John has the car, I won't be tempted to go out and buy suspension and brake bits for it… I hope.  Speaking of brake bits, there is a kit to put disc brakes with 7.5” rotors on the thing and supposedly they will fit under 10” wheels.  Of course the 9.5” brakes would make the thing stop that much better but would require 13” wheels.  I think it is kind of funny that I can get a set of 205mm wide tires on a 10” rim but only 175mm wide on a 13”.  What I otter do is buy one of the badass 10” wheels and see if it will even fit on the car.  If it does, I'll go buy three more.  If it doesn’t, I'll return it and buy four 12s.  I suppose, since the car is on the trailer, I could load up a floor jack in the back of Fifi and do a test fit at Northern… if they’d let me.  Well, once John is done with Fifi of course.  He’s driving Fifi until his 610 is roadworthy, y’see.  I guess I otter ask how that is coming along… not because of Fifi, because it is the neighborly thing to do… sort of thing.  Feh, this is boring me.  I think I'm going to call it a rant.