10/7/14

Well, Lil' Wiggly is officially a back burner project.  John and I pulled the engine out last Saturday, an hour and a half I believe, and the buyer picked it up Sunday.  Fortunately this timing kept me from shopping the Beenbroke gun show with money in hand.  Of course it wouldn’t have mattered; there wasn’t anything at the show I wanted very badly.  I did go Sunday before meeting the buyer just in case.  It was five dollars down the tube but I like supporting the shows by giving money to the organizers so that they will keep having them… sort of thing.  So, let’s see, shall I do a travelogue of the engine removal or just leave it as read?  Hmm, I guess a short run through wouldn’t hurt.  I arrived at the shop around 0815h to find John futzing with his 1200… or something, I don’t remember.  We rolled the Subaru out and Lil' Wiggly in and got cracking on the removal.  Radiator out, shifter out, tranny cross member out, starter wiring disconnected, zorst down pipes off, cold air intake off, clutch disconnected, and motor mounts undone then we were ready to hook up the hoist.  It came out with little fuss and sat on the engine hoist legs nicely.  We buttoned up the chassis and rolled it back out.  We set the engine on that long skate thing I built and rolled it into the welding room to await the buyer… who turned out to be Marty Mary from AUTOCOMP by the way.  We rolled the Subaru back in and had a look at draining the fuel tank.  The gas was still “gas” but it was very stinky.  It had not turned to varnish but it was not something I’d want to run through the engine.  We had a look at the brakes and found that the right front was dragging.  We got the caliper off but the piston was seized up pretty good.  I decided that I’d just buy some rebuilt calipers from Rockauto.  They were $39.00 each and are on their way now.  I also ordered a carburetor base gasket, distributor cap and rotor, plugs and wires, and a dashboard cover.  Of course that purchase puts the kibosh on the wicked-cool Extar pistol I was talking about last week, but it is probably for the best.  After we had done all we were going to do at the shop for the day, we went to Mexican Inn for lunch.  I went back to the shop to install the +1 magazine extension on the 870 bullpup.  It needed to be shaved down to clear the fore end slider thingy so the gun would go back into battery.  After grinding on it for a while I refit it and gave it a test rack.  Yep, works fine now.  I put the gun back together and closed up the shop.  I hopped in the car and began driving home.  “Shit!” I said because I forgot to drill out the dimples in the tube which prevented the follower in the magazine to allow the +1 extension to work.  I turned back and reopened the shop.  I re-disassembled the gun and did that.  The follower will now slide freely from one end of the tube to the other… as will shells.  I re-reassembled the gun, re-closed the shop and re-hopped into Fiona to go home.  “Shit!” I didn’t say because I had not forgotten anything this time.  At home I put the gun away and had a look online at some other gun gubbins I had been grokking.  I decided to order a Volquartsen accurizing kit for the Rugr MkIII pistol.  It contains a new trigger, hammer, sear, slide lock, and magazine-disconnect bushing to eliminate the magazine “safety” on the gun.  Sure, I could have bought just the bushing elsewhere for $10.00 but the rest of that stuff should make for a really sweet shooting gun.  While I was perusing the intergoogles, I decided that I’d take a look to see if anyone made a magazine tube extension for the Auto5 shotgun.  Well, lo and behold, they do.  I bought a +2 extension for that gun as well.  Someone online says that it actually adds three shells to the A5 so I’m keeping my fingers crossed that it will.  With +2 the gun will hold six in the mag, +3 gets the gun up to the same capacity as the bullpup 870 and Turkish TriStar Cobra it shares cabinet space with.  This will make me very happy.  And on that note, I think I will call it a rant.  Have a day.