3/24/14

Well, I'd like to tell y'all that the Mini sold Saturday… but it didn’t.  The first guy said he’d have to consult with someone about it and the second didn’t want it because of the 850cc engine.  The third never showed up.  So, I'm still sitting on a Mini I don’t need which needs more work than I'm willing to invest.  Also, with the sale of the Honda engine, I'm “stuck with” the Austin donk if I do decide to move ahead.  I did go price “power units,” as the engine and transmission assemblies are called, from Mini Mania and found that a used 1,500cc PU from a UK car, with the only guarantee being that it will start, would set me back $1,500.00 or so.  John is in favor of rebuilding the 850cc engine we have but I'm not so sure about that.  That isn’t much motor for hooning around on Texas freeways.  I suppose I could try to keep it to surface street hooning, but we all know I'd take a jaunt up to high speed at some time.  I don’t know, maybe the tiny motor would be ok.  I also priced carburetor setups and found that the Pierce Manifolds price for a DCOE Weber and manifold was less than the Mini Mania price for the cheaper DGV carburetor and manifold.  Of course mine already has the dual SU carburetor setup which would probably be the way to go.  This morning I had a look around on an electric vehicle site I used to frequent and began giving that some thought.  I sent John an e-mail asking how cheap he could get “us” into a Honda manual transaxle.  My thinking there is that all the work has already been done to mate that transaxle to the Mini’s hubs as well as to the electric motor.  My main problem with an electric conversion is all that added weight… well, and the misconception people might get in thinking that I give a passing shit about the environment.  And then there is the cost!  Hory mackelor!  That shit is spendy!  No, I think if the Mini is still around when the Chickenhawk is running we’ll look into either rebuilding the 850 or buying a replacement “Power Unit” for it.  Well, I've got to go do some actual work for a bit.  I'll be back later.  While I was away, John received an offer for the Mini which will be a bit of a loss for me.  I think having $2,000.00 in hand will be better than a money-pit Mini tempting me though.  I told him if he wants to haggle, gopher it… but I'll take the $2k.  I think I'll only be losing about $500.00 taking that offer.  And, like I said, it will remove the temptation to drop another huge pile of money into the car.  I doubt rebuilding the 850cc motor would be any cheaper than buying the used “Power Unit” from Mini Mania, and it does need so much more than just that.  No, walking away from that car is the right thing to do.  I'm going to discuss with John my suggestion of putting up a Craigslist ad for The Seven, somewhere north of $17,000.00, to get a feel for the market.  I seriously doubt it would sell for that kind of money, even as a running driving car, but we’ll never know unless we ask.  I don’t want to sell The Seven but, like the Tavor is my gun which could fetch the most money, this is my “Toy Car” which would bring in the most.  So, with all of that said, I'll tell y'all what I accomplished over the weekend.  Saturday morning, as I was heading out to the shop, the phone rings.  It is the dude I'm supposed to meet at 0815 h.  It is 0755 h and he’s at the shop already.  I haul ass across town and make it there by 0810 h… technically five minutes early.  I open up the shop and show him the Mini.  He has some niggling little nitpicks but says he’ll ask “his boss” to see if she’ll let him buy it.  I told him there were supposed to be two other guys coming to look at it.  That didn’t cause him to crack open the wallet.  Oh well.  When he left, I decided I'd go ahead and build the zorst down-pipe for the passenger side of Lil' Wiggly.  I cut a “U” bend in half and took one leg to the hydraulic press.  I smashed it about the same as the driver’s side pipe… intending to go a little less, unsuccessfully.  I fitted it up to the stub bolted to the manifold and fingered out where I needed to zook it.  I tack-welded it and did another test fit.  I liked what I saw so I finished welding it… if that is what you want to call what I did to those pipes.  I refit it to the car, a total pain in the ass by the way, and moved on.  I began to work on a throttle-cable bracket.  The short version of that story is: the “Tim can’t weld day” aspect got to me and I wound up melting the shit out of the metal and shoving the “part” into a fire-ant mound out front.  The second dude eventually showed up to look at the Mini and I was hopeful.  He had a trailer!  He grokked the car quite a bit but when he discovered it was an 850cc motor he decided to pass on the deal.  I was in no mood to try and put the hard sell on him so I let him walk away.  The third dude never showed.  At about 1300 h I decided I'd had enough and closed up the shop.  I went to the church to help mom pack up the book sale they were having and then went home for the day.  Sunday was mom’s 85^th birthday so my sister threw a big spaghetti lunch for the church.  Of course I had to attend/work that.  By the time that was over, I was beat.  I napped the rest of the day and now we’re here.  And with all that told, I'm going to call it a rant.  Have a day.