6/25/14

It does appear as though we’re moving to a “one rant a week” format here… mainly because I just can’t be bothered to try and think of things to say every day.  Meh, waddayagonnado?  So, Saturday morning I actually made it to the shop before John!  I got to work on Lil’ Wiggly, removing the down pipes and exhaust manifolds in preparation for final installation.  Then I started looking at running the positive battery cable from the battery, duh, to the starter.  1) The cable was way too long and b) the terminal wouldn’t fit through the hole in the fire wall.  It was a head scratcher.  John, having arrived by this time, offered one of the lugs which came with his battery relocation kit so I could shorten the cable.  I took him up on this offer.  I cut off the end I had installed previously and fished the cable through the fire wall to assess what length I needed.  I cut it to length then staked and soldered the terminal onto the cable.  A dose of heat-shrink finished it out… and sparked a crusade to heat-shrink a bunch of other connections on the car.  I finalized the starter solenoid wire as well as the main “Big Assed” wire from the alternator/fuse box and hooked all of that up… or at least tried.  I had to remove the starter, which was tightened to “Banjo String” torque settings for some reason, and re-clocked the mounting face to get better wire access.  Oh, before John arrived I sent him a text asking if we (he) had any barbecue black spray paint for the exhaust manifolds.  Shen he arrived, he went on a quest for it around the shop.  From the other room I heard him sarcastically ask, “What about white?”  I perked up.  Racecars paint their zorst manifolds white all the time… ok, the cars themselves don’t paint them but their builders do, sort of thing.  Anyhoo, I yelled back, “Yeah!  That would be cool!”  We hung the manifolds and he coated them in 1,500⁰ white paint.  They.  Look.  Awesome!  As if he needed to say it, he told me to not touch them until next week… which is to say this week.  Of course I still need gaskets but I also need an alternator plug to finish the wiring under the hoo… hells bells!  To finish the wiring… period!  Oh, no wait.  I still have to wire the electric fan.  Never mind.  So, with all of that stuff done on LW, and some stuff on his car too I’m sure, we took off to have lunch… somewhere.  I don’t really care anymore so I’m not even going to try and remember.  Suffices to say it was NOT the little barbecue joint with the most awesomest ribs around!  That will be important in a bit.  After lunch… ok, it is bugging me now, I’ve got to remember where we ate.  Oh, right it was Mexican Inn on Lancaster.  Whew.  So, after lunch I went home to find mom packing a bunch of food and stuff from the fridge into bags.  “I’ve lost my mind,” she says to me.  Apparently one of the “strays” from the church whom she has “adopted” called to say that they were out of food and asked if she could help them out.  She agreed to scrape together some stuff but refused to drive all the way across town to deliver it… until I got home.  She asked if I were willing to drive her there to make the delivery.  I agreed and we loaded the car.  She wasn’t sure of the location except that it was on East Lancaster.  Why yes, right down the road from where I had just eaten lunch an hour before.  Good memory.  We found the place and dropped off the care package then headed back home.  On a lark, I decided to drive by the barbecue joint with the most awesomest ribs around to just show it to her.  She said she was willing to give it a try.  They had the most awesomest ribs around… again.  From there we swung by the shop for some reason and then went home.  Ok, so it does look like y’all will get two rants this week since I’m going to save Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday’s tales for tomorrow.  Have a day.