Gauging Interest

Well, finals are over… finally… and it is time for summer to allow me to really see what I can get done on this car. The weekend after finals were completed I headed out to Valarie, and got some help from James’ dad installing the gauges. Things went much smoother than I thought they were and we were able to get everything done and working in just 5 hours, including one hour break for eating and resting. Now, unfortunately I did not get many pictures and much of this process is a little foreign to me so I do not know how much help a guide will be when I get it up, but any hints are better than no hints. Taking up another guy’s time on a weekend, then asking to stop every 2 minutes and write notes / take pictures is a little hard to ask of someone, so I didn’t. After all that hard work we also installed the thermostat cover neck, curing the problem of the engine leaking coolant while running. So all the gauges run and are working with the exception of the speedometer because the speedometer cable I had was a bit too short (and I also didn’t have the gears needed for proper calibration), so as soon as those two things are done I will have a working speedometer as well. They look fantastic in the car and I am extremely pleased with the way it turned out. Also, the car runs just fine as we drove it on and off of a trailer and brought it over to my apartment for easier access for me to work on it over this summer.

See you on the flip side.
–Sooner Dead

We Interupt Your Usually Scheduled Silence

Happy new year and whatnot. So far it has been an interesting year; I made the dean’s list and James – my roommate – has decided to move in with his girlfriend, Jen. But as I try to see the silver lining in the clouds, it has become apparent things are not getting done on this car and there is really no way with the current situation that they will get done. So I have a new plan: get the car up and running enough to drive it to my new apartment, and work on it there. While I will not be able to get any of the major things done that require a lift and such, I will be able to get a lot of little stuff done over the summer when my love (Shelley) is back home. Any kind of progress right now would be good for momentum, and I have outlined about 30 or so projects that I feel reasonable certain I could get done during the summer, working on the car in the apartment parking lot (small jobs which would be unlikely to get me in trouble). As far as the rest of the (more major) work goes – the stuff I can’t get done reasonably in the parking lot for the prerequisite of jacking the car up (a no-no in this county as well as many others) I will find some place to work on the car in the meantime. If this doesn’t pan out I will have to steal someone’s driveway, this will be difficult I think, but if I use the cover of darkness I may get away with it. To be reasonably drivable by May, I need to get the gauges in and working, a new carb with electronic choke, the door locks changed, and the linkages in the transmission looked at. If I can somehow get help from the man kind enough to of let this over-ambitious young student keep his car there for about a year, then I think it is very possible, if not, I will pray for a miracle – if that falls through, I will have it towed to the parking lot. What I can say, though, is Shelley has been most supportive of this whole situation, and hopefully when it all comes out and (hopefully) all the pieces come together, we will be know a ton more than we do now and it will help her when she gets either her 1968.5 Mustang Fastback or 1979 Trans Am. With any luck I will have small progress each of the next months until May. Once school lets out I really hope to kick it into another gear and get done a lot of projects – one of which will be refurbishing some 15×8 snowflake wheels (to accompany the large tires I want). I would like to write up a guide for all the projects planned up until May, then again until the end of summer. This would really get this site going again and possibly help some people out there that are just like me (over-ambitious and car-dumb).

Same car channel, same car time.
–Sooner Dead

Spring Cleaning

Its a good day when you wake up after a long night to the UPS girl (yeah, I’m shocked too) delivering your long awaited (5 days) parts. Now I just have to wait for the weather to break in order to go out to my car and start installing everything, except maybe the Del-A-Lum bushings because I would like to do that at the same time I install the KONI shocks and Eaton Springs. Currently, it looks as if the weather will break Thursday, but that is a while out and things can change quickly with the weather.

What happened was I got bored Saturday, and James and I went out to the car in order to clean his car and wheels off, and I was tinkering with a few things on Valarie. During this tinkering I took off a few parts and decided they were in desperate need of cleaning, so I loaded them up and took them home. I then spent the next 8 hours or so soaking, scrubbing, and cleaning off years of dirt, debris, and road grime from the parts, which I must say was no easy task. I even took both taillight assemblies apart and cleaned the lenses and reflective coatings so the lights would shine better. I fully believe it is the attention to detail that separates a good car from a great car, and I want this to be a great car.

I will do another entry after I install some of these things with before and after pics, which will hopefully be soon.

Torque, don’t touch th- **clank** BAD KITTY!!!
–Sooner Dead