11/3/14

Saturday morning… sucked, for a while.  I got up in plenty of time to make it to the shop by 0800h but the process of rounding up the guns I wanted to work on after we had played with cars, getting my laundry together and down to the laundry room, and cleaning myself up after not quite making it back up to the shitter, took way longer than it should have.  Needless to say, I was not in the best of moods when I finally arrived at the shop.  John and I looked at the two Datsuns which seem to have followed him home and discussed options about them.  We didn’t come up with any definitive plans.  Eventually I got to work wiring in a relay for the fuel pump on the Subaru.  John stopped me and had me test whether the thing was actually able to pump fuel from the tank so we jumped across the battery and pumped until fuel shot across the engine bay.  I hooked up the hoses and got back to work on the relay.  Once I had the relay wired, he made me stop again to make sure that worked.  It did.  I then tarted up the looks of the wires and we tried to start the car.  Eventually we got the float bowl full and fired the thing up.  Apparently this pump has a back-pressure cutoff because once the float bowl was full, it shut itself off.  With the engine running the thing would just go “Duh dut… duh dut…” every now and then to keep the bowl full.  “Drop it on the ground,” John said.  “Let’s drive the thing.”  I shut off the engine and bean installing the wheels we’d removed to do the brakes.  John meanwhile went back to work on the rear end of his 1200 as the jack was supporting his differential.  We got that bolted up and I jacked the Subaru back onto its wheels.  The tires seemed to be holding air so I got in and started the engine again.  I put the clutch in and tried for reverse gear.  It dropped into reverse so I released the brake and eased out the clutch.  The car moved!  I backed out and took off out the parking lot.  It pulled second gear up the hill by the elementary school just fine.  There is nothing wrong with this clutch… well, it could use a bit of adjustment to get it to catch a little higher, but engagement seems fine.  I ran up through third on Forrest Hill lane back to the shop and pulled in.  The brakes are a bit spongy but they worked fine.  I hopped out and told John to take it around.  He came back and parked it in the shop.  We watched the gauges for a while and when the temp got about halfway up decided to shut down and see about the fan situation.  We had repurposed an inline fuse which we thought ran the stereo or something but when we applied power to it the fan came on.  We rewired a new fuse holder into that circuit and fired up the engine again.  The fan came on when the temperature rose above a preset temp and shut off again when it cooled back down.  I would call that a success.  I drove it around the block one more time and then we parked it for the day.  We tested many, if not all of the various systems and the car checks out good.  I am farting rainbows I’m so happy.  I told mom about it and said that it needs new tires.  Then I said, “Oh!  That’s what I can ask for as my birthday gift this year!”  She agreed to buy tires for it but asked me not to choose the most expensive ones I could find.  So, that means the rally tires from Demon Tweeks in England are out, I guess.  Well, the tires themselves aren’t too bad, it’s the shipping which doubles the price.  I sent the link to John and he found some more affordable options in Firestone snow tires.  They aren’t as aggressive as I’d like, but they are agro enough… I think.  I found them for $50.00 a tire this morning and went ahead and ordered them.  They should be here this weekend.  Perhaps we’ll take them to be mounted Saturday.  We’ll see.  I have gun “news” but I think I will save it for tomorrow.  Yes, in fact that is exactly what I am going to do.