12/18/13

I'll just get this part out of the way at the beginning: still no word on the new job.  And now I don’t really have anything to say.  I ordered four speed-loaders for the .38 revolver the other day.  They arrived… um, the other day.  I really like that gun.  I'm not sure what it is about a little snub-nose revolver, but I really like it.  It fits the hand so well, thanks to the Hogue grips, and feels right.  It feels right the same way a 1911 feels right, but in a totally different way.  I know that makes no sense, but pick each one of those guns up and you should feel what I mean.  I have zero regrets buying that little revolver.  I still acknowledge that it was a totally stupid thing to do, but I do not regret it.  So, what else can I talk about?  Oh, the little rubber cover for the Trijicon optic I have on the 7.62x39 Saiga has never fit right.  It has, molded into it, a bulge over the front lens which made no sense to me… until I perused them intergooglewebs a little bit.  Apparently there are optional filters Juan can screw onto the front of the optic.  One is that honeycomb anti-glare device seen on the front of some tactical optics, while the other is a polarizing filter to cut down the transmitted light entering the optic… supposedly to make the aiming point “Pop” more when looking into a bright area.  I went to various places on the interwebs to find them and wound up buying the polarizing filter.  It arrived yesterday.  I installed it and it really does make the aiming point stand out when looking at a white wall with lots of light shining on it.  It dims the image just a bit when fully “open” but not so much that I think it will be a hindrance.  I like it.  I wonder if the threads are the same on the Meprolight.  I might try it on the Tavor and see if I need to buy another one.  I might buy the anti-glare thing this time though.  We’ll see.  Anyhoo, with the filter in place, the rubber cover fits much better.  I'm quite pleased.  Did I mention the rest of the Summit order arrived Monday?  Well, it did.  I will now be able to do some more stuff on Lil' Wiggly Saturday.  I still need the actual hoses for the radiator, but those should be available locally.  If the nuts for the transmission cross member don’t arrive by Saturday, I'll probably go to the hardware store for a pair to mount that up.  I do need to get washers for that project so it might behoove me to just plan on buying nuts as well.  I'll probably do that.  I need to find a muffler shop nearby so I can get the down pipes from the exhaust manifolds flared, then I can get back to work on making the zorst.  I'm going to need bolts for the flanges as well.  The manifolds should have had studs but they don’t.  I need some oil lines to mate the engine block adapter to the remote oil filter thingy too.  I'm thinking that while steel braided lines are cool, I'll probably just go with pressure rated rubber lines.  We’re also thinking that we’ll run the oil pressure sending unit on the spare port of the filter housing.  It will read the pressure AFTER the filter, but that is the pressure the engine actually sees so I think it will be fine.  That little modification will eliminate the little standoff thingy I cut down and failed to weld back together properly.  It leaked.  Oh well.  I'm going to have to put some welting of some kind around the holes in the fender where the oil lines run to and from the filter, but that shouldn’t be any great shakes.  John is convinced that the speedo sending unit we have should thread up to the speedo cable if we remove the electronic sender from it.  If it doesn’t, we have a couple options.  Option the first: buy a speedo cable which WILL thread up to the sender and hope it fits the Autometer speedo.  Option the second: replace the speedo I have with an electronic unit and hope that it hooks up to the electronic sender on the transmission.  And option the third: replace the speedo with a GPS unit and not worry with any connection twixt gauge and transmission.  Those, of course, are in ascending order of spendiness by the way.  I've been studying the water situation and it looks like I need to run the top heater hose on the water pump to the thermostat housing and cap the bottom hose.  Apparently, if the bypass hose is not there, hot spots will occur in the heads and blown head gaskets will result.  I don’t want that.  I'll finger out a way to cap that lower hose even if it means running a heater line from it to the intake manifold and fool it into thinking there is an heater core.  We’ll see.  Well, as it is now 1600 h, I think I'm going to call it an rant and go home.