8/27/13

I still don’t give a shit, but I'm going to fight through it.  Saturday I met John at the Ford dealer so he could get the oil changed in the Focus.  While there, we had a look at a Mazda 2 for him.  When we’d exhausted the enjoyment of that activity, we hopped in Fiona and headed towards the shop.  He had mentioned a Ford dealer in Arlington having the Fiestivus ST he really wants so we decided to go there instead.  They didn’t have it after all.  From there we went to the Hyundai dealer to look at Velociraptor turbos.  If I remember correctly, they only had the “F-Series” or “Ladies Model” in the turbo, none had manual transmissions.  We had them look to see if there were any at the other dealers but there weren’t.  We then went to look at a used Mazdaspeed Mazda 3 then new Fiat 500s and Kia Optimæ.  As we were hopping back on the freeway, John got a text from a dude from Denton who wanted to come by and look at our shop… he was there waiting for us.  We hauled ass to the shop and showed the dude around.  He agreed to buy George from me but it won't be for a few months.  Whatever, it isn’t going anywhere.  I rolled The Seven out and John locked up the shop while I folded myself into the cockpit.  When I'd driven out of the gate, he locked that and we all left.  It. Was.  Friggin’.  Hot.  I wicked up to an indicated 80 miles per hour intending to ask John our speed when we got to my house.  He said I was hovering between 76 and 80 so I finger the speedo is pretty accurate.  We parked The Seven and went for sushi before picking up the Focus at the Ford dealer.  We decided against talking to the Mazda sales people at that time because we’d already burned up most of the day.  So, needless to say, we didn’t get any work done on Lil' Wiggly after all.  I'm not sure just how much we would have accomplished anyway since it was so friggin’ hot.  I headed home and took a long cool shower before napping away the rest of the day.  Sunday I met Larry at the credit onion so we could go to the gun show.  I pulled the last $80.00 out of my checking account at the CU ATM and then we headed to the convention center.  I paid for parking and we went in.  It was the big show so they had rooms on both sides of the concourse.  We started in the small room.  On the first row I found a Trijicon tritium powered optic I wanted for the 7.62x39 but there was no one working the table.  We kept walking.  I priced ammo a couple places but wound up buying 150 rounds of 9mm and 100 rounds of .45 ACP from my reloaded guy then taking all that to the truck.  I resisted the urge to put a metal-frame “Baby” Dessert Eagle .45 ACP on the credit card at one booth.  It was quite bitchin’ though.  I also resisted the urge to buy a single-shot rifle in .45-70 caliber because I don’t have room for it in my gun case right now.  I'll hold out for a lever-action .45-70 gun in the future.  I did buy four more 30-round magazines for the 7.62x39 to finish filling the leather pouches I'd bought at the last show.  After we’d walked half the show, we went to the tamale lady and bought some hot tamales for lunch then sat down to eat them.  They were quite tasty.  We finished the rows and started our usual retracing of steps to look at stuff.  I wanted to see that Trijicon optic again so I sought it out.  They usually sell for over $500.00 so when he was asking $350.00 I said I'd take it.  Unfortunately he didn’t take plastic.  I had to go find Larry and borrow four Benjamins from him.  I bought my optic and then bought Larry $350.00 worth of 9mm ammo.  Yes, I still owe him fiddy.  I'll pay him back eventually.  By now I'm flat wore out so I sit down while Larry looks at a couple CZ pistols he didn’t wind up buying.  We leave and head back to the credit onion where I transfer my purchases to Fiona and head home.  Last night, John picked me up in Fifi and we went to the Mazda dealer so he could buy the 2 they had listed for cheap.  They tried to up-sell him to a 3 but he held his ground.  Without going into details, which frankly aren’t any of your business, or mine for that matter, but I was there so I'm telling the tale anyway, he didn’t buy the car after all.  We walked out with the intention of going to Razoo’s for dinner… until we were hit with the heavenly aroma of barbecue!  “Where,” John asked, “is that coming from?”  I pointed to the Cousin’s BBQ across Bryan Irving and we went.  I had the three-meat combo, not realizing it would be three full servings of meat on one plate.  Oh, I'm not complaining, it was fan-damn-tastic a) quantity for the price and 2) Q.  We ate and I left stuffed to the gills.  So, that gets y'all pretty much caught up to what’s going on with me… oh wait!  When the dude agreed to buy George, I half-assed decided that gave me room to keep the Spit.  Today I read on line how to “fix” the inherent death-trappedness of the rear suspension.  See, the Spit uses a swing-arm rear suspension where the drive axle is the control arm and the wheels always stay perpendicular to them.  That means they go negative camber in bump and positive camber in droop.  The issue is once the outside axle reaches a certain angle, it kind of reaches a “tipping point” and really goes crazy with the positive camber.  That angle is just past horizontal by the way so it is reached pretty quickly in a turn.  The car then “jacks up” on the rear suspension causing both wheels to go super positive camber and the car snap-oversteers around and tries to kill you.  I've been worrying about how to fix that for some time.  Well, apparently the fix is pretty simple… sort of.  If a “lowering block” is installed between the transverse leaf spring and the differential, not only is the car lowered for better looks, but the swing axles are angled downward from the wheels and won't go into the dangerous jacking situation.  There is something about the roll stiffness that I'm still unsure about, but it looks like a “Z-bar” fixes that issue.  A “Z-bar” is like an anti-roll bar but instead of being shaped like a “C” to add roll stiffness, it is shaped like a “Z” to add load capacity without effecting roll stiffness… sort of thing.  A stiffer front sway is needed though to balance things out… apparently.  So, I guess what I'm saying is the Spit is back on the to-do list.  And with that, I think I'm going to call it a rant for the day.