Wednesday, December 26, 2007

The day after

It was a very nice Christmas. It actually snowed here yesterday. Doesn't happen that often up here in Latteland. It was just enough to turn the lawnns white, not really enough for even a good snowball fight. But the last time it snowed on Christmas was in 1996, so it was nice. We laid back and ate,ate,ate until we couldn't eat no mo'.

My first two tasks for the post Christmas vacation were to get the white Jensen to turn over, and to drill out the bolts of the ignition switch of the other one so we could turn the steering wheel. The first was easy, the second was a pain in the butt.

There are two bolts holding the keyed switch and steering lock mechanism to the steering column. When you install the switch and collar, they have a small head and smaller shank, which you tighten until the head snaps off. The end result is you have two medium size very hard bolts that cannot be removed by coventional means. The only way to remove them is by drilling them out.

Did I mention that they are very hard? Conventional drill bits won't do much. You have to get a special extra-hard drill bit. It still takes a long time and a lot of muscle to drill them out.

It took about three hours of drilling to get them to the point where I could get them to snap off, but it got done. The car is ready now to park under the deck. I don't have quite enough muscle to push it myself without damaging myself, so I will wait until tomorrow when V. is home and I will chain up the car to the S10 and pull it out in the street and then push it under the deck.

Then I can finish puting the white car's engine together and see if I can get it to fire up.

Maybe I don't understand the concept of "Vacation".

5 comments:

Stacy The Peanut Queen said...

Hell, that word "vacation" might as well be written in ancient sandscript as far as I'm concerned. It's been far too long since I've had one! ;)

Sounds like your vacation is going to be a working one!

Al said...

PQ: I take the occasional adult beverage so that it seems more like vacation. I may even take a day off.

Sarah said...

Vacations are all about doing the fun stuff (and some of the not so fun stuff) that you never have time to do otherwise. Hope you're enjoying the cars, the snow, the festivities, and the family. Maybe another medicinal gin is in order....

Al said...

Sarah: I have most of the things done that I wanted to do. I got my two cars home, rebuilt a lamp for my mother, didn't ever work any harder than I wanted to, slept in, had a wonderful Christmas eve with my family. Had a chance to spend somme quality time with Mrs A.

Now if I can just get the Jensen Healey to start.

Sarah said...

Good luck!