1/14/14

I didn’t get around to talking to y'all yesterday.  I was running around doing stuff pretty much the whole time.  In fact, around 1600 h I was asked to attach the microphones to the table in the Bored Room… unfortunately the new CEO was having an executive team meeting in there until 1700 h.  I had to wait.  While waiting I got a call from the home office to go look into why the sound system in the People Eater Training Room didn’t work.  They were going to be around until 1830 h so I figured I'd go after the Bored Room.  Yeah, I bailed on waiting for the Bored Room group at 1730 h and went to look at the sound system.  I fingered out the problem and got that working then went back to the Bored Room at 1845 h or so.  I finally finished in there at 1930 h and went home.  The rest of the day was pretty much the same as that… fighting fires and saving lives all day long.  But y'all are probably wondering about the weekend, right?  Well, I'm going to tell you anyway.  Saturday morning I eventually made it to the shop… by eventually I mean 0830 h instead of 0800 h like we say we’re going to meet.  Anyhoo, I got cracking on… wait, what did I do?  Oh!  We installed the starter.  After an initial test fit, it was obvious we’d need to re-clock the thing.  This we did… wrong.  We had to come out again and re-re-clock it to a third position.  This time it fit.  I'm glad I bought the mini starter because a regular one would not have.  We made a pig-tail for the energizing circuit and screwed that in place as well.  Then I installed the transmission cross member.  I crawled under the car and bolted it to the transmission then got the drill and drilled through the frame and floor.  The bolts we were going to use were too short so I went to the hardware store for longer ones.  With those in hand, John assisted me in installing them.  While I assembled the shifter, John removed the support bracket and we watched to see if the transmission sagged.  It did not… yet.  I'll have a look this weekend to see if it did over time.  Next I installed the shifter… well, I say “installed,” we need to put some silly-cone under it and get two more bolts, but it is in enough that I could try it out.  The angle of the shift knob was just a tad too… wrong.  We had a look and John pointed out that filing the top hole would allow the lever to tilt forward quite a bit.  I got to work with the rat-tail file and converted the top slot from vertical to horizontal.  We bolted it back in and it works perfectly.  I sat and made racecar noises… in my head.  After that was done I had a go at squashing some zorst tubing to go under the engine cross member.  It turned out… well, meh to be honest, but it think it will work.  I fiddled with it until I found where I thought I liked it and tack welded it together.  I now have a very leaky (only tack welded, remember?) zorst from the driver’s side manifold down and under the engine cross member.  I'll zook it the rest of the way… sometime.  When we finished doing what all we were going to do, John and I took off to have lunch at Wing Stop.  We discussed tires for Fiona and he showed me a Disco Tire site I didn’t know of.  I went there when I got home and ordered a set of Hankook Ventus Ultra-Mega Whiz-Bang tires.  They should be arriving this week.  Since John won't be joining me at the shop, I'll probably spend Saturday having those installed.  Well, since it is now 1630 h, and mom is on her way to go to dinner with me, I guess I'll shut it down.  Why is mom coming all the way over here for dinner?  Well, I have to work late, again, finishing an installation which was supposed to be done last week… by the installation teams, not me.  I'm not happy about this new development… except for the overtime of course!