9/18/14

I am both excited and… um, trepidatious?   Sure, we’ll go with that.  I’m both excited and trepidatious about the “new” Subaru.  I’m excited because, well c’mon, new car dude!  I’m trepidatious because I cannot find those door seals anywhere.  Not door seals, the window seals between the front door glass and the rear quarter windows.  I have an idea which I hope will work otherwise this car becomes something of an albatross.  I have decided that it is going to displace Lil' Wiggly for a bit while I assess the viability of the car.  What I need to do is avoid buying the Weber carb adapter, and rebuild kit for said Weber carb, until I know that I can seal the cockpit from the elements.  Of course we all know I won’t do that, I’m going to order those items tomorrow.  I can’t order them today because I am $5.00 short with shipping and stuff.  Tomorrow is payday so I will be buying them then.  I am in a bit of a quandary about the air conditioning.  Being R-12 based, I’m never going to be able to get it recharged if it has leaked down.  On the other hand, taking all of that crap off will save some weight.  But on the gripping hand, if it does work it will be pretty awesome.  It is nice to be able to de-fog the windshield with some conditioned air.  We’ll see.  I mentioned to John that I am thinking of running 175/70-13 snow tires on the thing for an aggressive tread and to give a bit of that rally-car look I have wanted for… well, forever actually.  I need to go online and see what the intergooglewebs have to say about running snow tires year round.  I can’t help but think someone will say it is a bad idea.  Lettuce look now, shall we?  As I suspected the general consensus is that the soft compound will wear out if used during the summer months but it isn’t unsafe.  So, we’ll just have to see what we can see.  Of course if I could find some 15” wheels for the thing, the off-road tire world is my oyster.  I’m not going to do that though.  For one thing, the car has a weird bolt pattern, 4x140, which was only used by Subaru and Peugeot… neither of which are very thick on the ground these days.  There was a dude making adapters to go from 4x140 to 5x100, which is a relatively more common size, but I’m not sure he’s actually up and running with the things.  Well, like a dumbass I just went to e-Bay to look for adapters… and found a set of 15” Peugeot alloys.  I’m going to have to check my finances really closely tomorrow to see if I can swing buying them.  Shipping will be a bitch, I’ll bet, so it might not be feasible.  Of course I sent the link to John so there’s no telling what he’ll come up with as an alternative.  He has also said he will sort out the window seal situation.  He’s good folk, that John.  So, I think my plan for Saturday stands as how I set it out the other day: go to shop “early,” make Lil' Wiggly outdoor safe, call upon Patrick to get the Subaru, put it in Lil' Wiggly’s spot, and get cracking on reviving it.  I think I’ll concentrate on yanking the carb and having a look round under the hood.  Maybe I’ll put it on stands and yank the wheels to grok the brakes.  I can’t think of a way to test the “I think it may need a clutch” theory until the engine runs so… I won’t be checking the clutch.  Oh, the side molding, that will be coming off… you know, those dealer installed bump strips which the rubber always falls out of leaving a channel of aluminum running down the sides?  Yeah, it has those… and the rubber is falling out.  Gots to go I tells ya.  Hmm, what else can I plan on doing while John is away, leaving me at the shop by myself for two weeks?  I suppose that is enough since it always takes much longer to move a car from one location to another so I won’t be doing half of that shit this week anyway.  Yeah, that’ll be enough planning for now.  I’m sure I’ll have more on the to-do list once I have had a chance to spin a wrench or two on the thing.  Oh!  And the carb adapter should probably be here before the second “No John” weekend!  Yeah, that will be cool.  Ok, jinx time… ahem, I could probably have this thing running when John comes back and then we can tackle the clutch!  There, I completely fucked myself going in.  So we’ll see just how long it actually takes to revive this thing now that the universe has been set against it.  And on that note…