In the Laboratory

After spending a year and a half getting Frankenhealey in one piece and running, I turned it over to Gabriel for paint. He of course tore it all apart. So here it is, in pieces.

Complications

Women are complicated creatures.

Mrs A wants to get out of Dodge this weekend. Doesn't have a destination in mind. Just hit the road and go anywhere that isn't here. I am of course supposed to come up with THE PLAN. If it was just me, the plan would be to throw a change of clothes in a gym bag, a sleeping bag in the back of the truck and hit the road. Throw a female into the works and it becomes "complicated".
Fourteen pairs of shoes. Twelve changes of clothes. A whole suitcase of mysterious fluids and creams. A fancy cress "just in case". If we are going overnight, it must involve a shower and clean bathrooms. Roughing it means no room service.

Men on the other hand are simple creatures. (Hey, I heard that snicker, hold it down, you don't want me to come back there!)

I would just wander, sleep in the back of the truck. The extra clothes are only in case I fall in something or get caught in a torrential downpour. The world is a guys bathroom. A shower can wait until you get home, but a handy dip in a stream or lake will do in a pinch. No soap required. Fire is your friend, and smoke is almost as good as deodorant. Sometimes better.

And don't get me started on the dog.

It's Friday......So What?

Which translates that I am working both days again this weekend.
The weather, for Latteland has been outstanding lately. I think we are working on our fourth week withour rain, which is pushing the record.
I think the weather on the weekends has been good because I am working. On the other hand, I am taking off next weekend, which pretty much guarantees it will rain. After all, next weekend is Father's Day weekend. I really don't expect my kids to do anything for me. R is not talking to me, which is fine with me right now. Mrs A and I were filling out our wills the other day, I seriously considered cutting her out of my will.
But then I remembered how I promised myself that I would never be the kind of person that uses that as a way to punish/reward my offspring. Then again, her mom has told her she isn't even mine.
So have a beer or glass of wine for me this weekend, because I'll be here at the gulag.

Frankenhealey

Here is Frankenhealey. Most of the paint stripped off, running and moving, and of course a picture of the engine compartment.

Hopefully, pictures of it after paint will follow soon.

Steps

One foot in front of the other. You can't take more than one step at a time.
Frankenhealey is running. You can actually get in it and turn the key, and it starts. It runs like crap, and the idle is way too high, but it will continue running until the key is turned off. It does not appear to be leaking any fluids. If I wanted to, I could drive it around, except that it has no brakes.
Brakes are overrated anyway.

GM Bankrupcy

When the production of an Icon is taken out of the hands of the visionaries and given over to the accountants, it becomes doomed. No passion in, no passion out.

Just as true for aircraft as it is for automobiles.


http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203771904574173401767415892.html

An excellent article in the Wall Street Journal today.

Nothing Much

Things have been thankfully quiet around chateau Warren the last couple of days. It has been a little warm for my tastes, but I really don't want to complain. It was up in the mid eighties today. A little too warm for me too want to get out and twist a wrench on Frankenhealey, but just right for sitting around vegging.

We went to a lawyer today to get wills drawn up. I have seen what family can do when there is money involved, and it seems to bring out the worst in everyone. We just want everything nice and cut and dried. I die and she gets everything, she dies I get everything, we both die and everything gets divided evenly among the kids. Living will, power of attorney if one of us is incapacitated.

I will probably be working both days this weekend and next. I'd really like to have some time off to get Frankenhealey running, but I took it on as a long term project, so there is no tearing hurry. I still want to get it running good enough to take it to the employee car show this summer, but that is several weeks away. If I don't make it, I can still take the Z with it's new body kit on. I still need to take some pictures to post.

R has called and everything is back to normal. She is working and going to school as well as raising a couple of kids, so her plate is more than full.

My nephew is graduating from Seattle U with a business degree in marketing. He is an outstanding kid with a bright future. I am sure he will do well.

A nice quiet week is just what I was looking for.

On Track

Nothing is ever easy for me. There is the plan, there are contingencies, and then there is reality.

I did the timing, and installed the new carb setup. Hooked up the lines, and got in and turned the key. One cylinder was firing, but the car wouldn't even come close to running. I decided that I knew nothing about the condition of the carbs on the new intake, so I replaced them with the other set of carbs that I had already rebuilt and rejetted.

I sprayed some starting fluid in the throat of the carbs, and voila' after a couple of trys the car fired up and ran. I still need to adjust the idle, and put on the water pump and radiator and hoses, but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. The guy across the street is still in the middle of stripping the car down to bare metal for the paint job, but is making good progress. I think now that my goal of having it ready for the Boeing Car Show this summer is absolutely possible. That would be sssooooooo cool. I have about six weeks. It all comes down to how much overtime I have to work between now and then, and what other things I need to take care of.

I need to figure out why the lawn mower won't start so I can mow the back 40. I need to get someone to repair the siding on the South side of the house, and I need to get a new heat pump installed.

Oh well, I guess I won't get bored any time soon.

Two Down

Now the Truck is all complete and runs like a top.

The Z has the ground effects kit installed and painted.

Two down.

The third is underway.

The guy across the street started doing the body work on Frankenhealey last night. I worked on the timing. Problem: Timing lights only work when the car is running. I have to time the car so it WILL run. There is an easy way to do this with a light bulb and breaker points, but I have replaced the points with a magnetic trigger system. After messing around for a while I decided that the way to get around this was using an ancient circuit tester I had laying around.

This is the really old type that is a bullet shaped plastic thingie with a gas bulb inside, and two leads with straight probes on the end. It was made for testing wall outlets. Put one probe in each slot of a wall outlet, if the bulb lights, you have power.

So, if you turn the engine over until the timing mark lights up, and pull number one plug wire, and loosen the distributor, if you rotate the distributor until the bulb lights, the timing will be right on.

So I did that, and finished up setting up one carburettor and intake setup and installed them. Tonight I will hook ou all the hoses and the gas line. I might even see if it will fire up.

What a Nice Weekend

The weather Gods and the calendar aligned in a weird convergence this weekend, and we had three days of perfect weather. It was so great to have time off and good weather. Not that I accomplished a great deal, just a little here and a little there.
We went to see "Angels and Demons". We both enjoyed it. I had read the book, and it was vastly superior to "The Da Vinci Code". I have always felt that "The Da Vinci Code" would not have been such a literary and cinematic success if it wasn't for the Fundamentalist Christian preachers making such a big deal about it. Forbidden fruit always tastes sweetest. Of course the movie wasn't as good as the book, but that is almost always true.
We had company on Sunday and I cooked pork tenderloin in cranberry chutney. It turned out just fine.
I got Zelda the Z back from the neighbor, who had installed the ground effects kit and painted it. It is spectacular. I have had the kit for a couple of years, but never could get around to putting it on. I pulled out the radio and got it working again. Can't be running around without tunes. I drove it to work today, and whenever I stopped someplace, people approached me and wanted to know about the paint and stuff. Pictures to follow soon, but today was overcast, and I want full sun to take the pictures.
I got back to work on Jenny the Jensen Healey. I am currently tearing apart two carburation systems to assemble the ultimate out of two good systems. No hurry here. It will get done when it gets done. I also futzed around with the water pump and got everything ready to start putting things back together. Next I need to retime everything to make sure I have the timing right. Then put on the intake manifold and carbs, put on the waterpump, hook up the hoses, install the radiator, and fire it up. Then finish with the brakes. If everything went right, it could be on the road in a couple of days.
HAH! When have things ever gone right?

Hats off to Mrs A

I haven't been around much lately. Just too much going on, and stuff I didn't really want to get into at all.

We rescued "i" from the clutches of CPS and bought him home. When they release him, it is into protective custody, so you can't just give him back to mom until CPS says so. The protective custody is for 72 hours while they sort things out.

R wanted to be bailed out, but I told her I had something more important to take care of, getting "i" taken care of. Mission Accomplished. We had him for the next couple of days, but we both work. Mrs A volunteered to stay home and take care of him. I told her I would do it, but she insisted that I go to work, and she stay home.

So she stayed home and took care of him. I love her so much for stepping up and doing this. He is not her biological offspring, but she has a big heart. By the end of three days, she was more than willing to turn loose of him. So was I. I love the munchkin, but I am getting a little long in the tooth to be raising an infant. Same for Mrs A. I just hope R understands just how much she owes Mrs A.

CPS in their usual arrogant irresponsible manner, accused R of all sorts of things and threatened her with taking "i" away from her. They lied about what we had told them, and generally terrified her. They let her know that if there was any hint of drugs they would be taking "i". She blames some of this on us, and seems to have lost sight of the fact that if it wasn't for us, things would not have turned out so good.

Mrs A is a little more than pissed that R can't seem to recognize how much we went out of our way to help her out. I can't say as I blame her at all.

Needless to say it has created a great deal of tension at Chateau Warren. Once again I am caught in the middle, trying to make peace and generally getting beat about the head and shoulders from both sides.

Oh well, it's not the first time, and probably not the last.

Word of the DAY

Giberate (jib-er-ate) To create or write dowm gibberish.
I fat fingeted a word today, I meant to type generate, and it came out giberate. I liked it so much, I want to keep it.

Hey ma, it followed me home, can I keep it?

Giberate.

Stories

Story One: "This is the Police, we have your daughter in custody. She is being charged with two counts of leaving a child unattended in a car, and one count of Shoplifting. She is heavily intoxicated and uncooperative. Can you come and get your Gransdon, or do we need to contact social Services?"

Story Two: "Crystal went into the store and stole the food, and then ran off she was supposed to be watching the kids, but got scared"

Story three: "I wne into the store and Crystal was supposed to be watching the kids, but she left to go over to the gas station. I never stole anything and I had one beer".

Story Four: "I ran into XXXX down at safeway and she said she would watch the kids while I ran into the store real quick and picked up a couple of things. Evidently she took off. I was in the checkout line, when some people came in talking about a bunch of cop cars in the parking lot. When I looked out I saw they were around my car. I ran out to find out what was going on. I still had the groceries with me but had not checked out. So they charged me with shop lifting. I had money and every intention of paying. I had one beer."

Eye witness: "I saw a young woman pull into the parking lot. She had to climb out of the passengers side of the car. There was no one else present. She went off into the store and left the two little ones in the back seat of the car."

One Done (Again)

I took yesterday off. When I got up to go to work, the truck wouldn't start. It is also my last chance to take a day off for God knows how long, so I wanted to get the truck up to snuff.
Having fixed everything else, I had decided to bypass the clutch cutout switch, regardlless. There are times when I want to turn over the engine when the truck is in neutral, and I don't want to climb in the truck and push in the clutch.
So I bypassed the switch. The truck still didn't start, so it has to be in the ignition switch. In order to pull the ignition switch, you need to diable the airbag system and remove it from the vehicle, remove the steering wheel, and remove the switch. Too much work.
For $7.00 you can buy a solid brass starter button. Since I never use the cigarette lighter, I utilized the hot wore and hole from the lighter to install the button. Cut the wire to the solenoid out from the wire bundle, made a jumper wire to go to the other terminal on the button, and voila' you have a pretty much bulletproof starter switch, The rubber boot blends in nicely with the dash, and no wires show.
Mrs A said "You're a kind of McGuyver, aren't you?"
I was sooooo proud

None Done

When I was coming home from work today, I got as far as 7-11, and when I went to leave, the truck died, and when I went to start it back up.........nothing.
Having eliminated the battery, battery cable, alternator, starter, the fault can only lie in a couple of places. The cutout switch that is attached to the clutch, and the ignition switch itself.
No mere mechanical object can out-stubborn me. I WILL WIN. Eventually.
As soon as it stops raining, like maybe June, I will go out and do some diagnostics and figure out which. Having eliminated all of the other possibilities, I should be able to figure it out.
All I have to do is make a jumper wire to go from the battery to the solenoid, and jump it. If the starter turns, the problem is isolated to either the clutch cutout switch or the ignition switch.
It should be easy to find the clutch cutout switch. That being easy, it is probably the keyed switch itself.
Oh, and my laptop keeps freezing up.

One Done

The truck is back on the road.
You can't imagine the relief when I got in it, turned the key and the starter worked, the truck started right up. There are lots of things that could have gone awry, then I would have had to tear it all apart and do it again. I think I might have said a few bad words if that happened.
The next thing is to fix up the Z after her little temper tantrum the other day. I still have no dash lights, and one turn signal does not work. I put a new bulb in the turn signal, but it isn't working sounds like a lazy Saturday project to me. If the truck proves to be reliable, the Z will be going across the street to have the ground effects kit installed and painted.
That leaves Frankenhealey. I need to get busy on the car. If everything went right (and it never does) I could have it running in one day, but with reworking the distributor, installing the new carbs, figuring out a new linkage system, installing the water pump, it looks like it will be some months to get it all together. The goal is to get it running enough to drive it to the company car show this summer.
Unfortunately, I will be going back to seven days a week soon, so it limits my time to work on the cars. Even when the sun is out and the temperature is good, I find that I have a limited amount of energy. No more can I consistently work my eight and come home and put in another four at home. I think it is more mental than physical, not that it matters, because the result is the same.
At ant rate, one down, to to go. It must have been all the fingers crossed.

Hiway Robbery

Because I am very anal about my cars, I overdo sometimes. I could have gone to the local parts house and ordered a generic battery cable and cobbled it together with the various wires and been reasonable certain it would work. I have done this many times, but it always ends badly. The contacts aren't perfect and it leads to things not working as well as they should.

Since the battery cable has three wires, and a couple of them go to things like the alternator and starter, I elected to buy the factory original replacement. I mean, how much could it be? So I called the Chevy dealer and ordered the part. I was told it would be $65. Well, since I have worked a lot of overtime, I had the money. The part came in today and I asked for "The ridiculously expensive battery cable" the had on back order. Somehow the $65 cable had suddenly become an $80 battery cable. I swear they jacked up the price just to get back at me for my smart mouth.
I was robbed, and they didn't even use a gun.
I went back home and got to work. Nothing went right. After a couple of hours, I have the starter roughly in place, but my right arm just got too darn tired to hold the starter up, twist it and push it in place, so I called it a night. After a day of work I am only good for a couple of hours of hard labor. It's hell getting old.
Maybe after I get the truck running, finish updating the Z, restore the Jensen(s), I will have to think about selling them off and buying only one toy.
NAH, I don't think so.

On The Move

Monday, I moved from one desk to another. Since there is no aircraft on the line right now for P8-A, I moved back to the other side of the house for a couple of weeks. I have plenty to do, and I have no real idea why they thought I could do it better from a different location, but I really don't care where I hang my hat.
I will be in my new location for about two weeks, and will them move back to my old location. I also have a bunch of on-line training to do. I really don't have the time to do it when I am supporting the plane, so I had better take care of it now.
The cars are temporarily on hold. The weather is not particularly nice, and I am waiting for a part from the Chevy dealer which isn't due in until Thursday, so it makes for a good excuse to drink beer and watch baseball (Mariners in first place!) When the part comes in, I need to put in the new starter and cross my fingers that the truck starts. I will have eliminated all of the possibilities except for a bad relay or a bad ignition switch. When I get through with this latest iteration, the truck should be good for a couple of years of trouble-free operation (fingers crossed here!)
My parts have all come in for Frankenhealey, but I need to but a couple of gaskets and such. I also want to pull the distributor and remove the vacuum advance, but am just not in a big hurry to do anything.

Great-Grandparenting

This Saturday was A's twenty-first birthday, so Mrs A volunteered to take care of Neeko for the weekend. Friday night, Saturday, and Sunday morning. She had such a great time taking care of him overnight a couple of weekends ago, that she figured it would be fun.
HAH!
Neeko is six months old, and just learning to express himself. As in expressing his displeasure at not being entertained constantly. He has quite a temper. He can also out-stubborn a couple of aging grownups.
We have gotten used to our peaceful, quiet home, and three days of disruption was a bit too much. Mrs A reached her limit and beyond, but still troupered through. I admit that I chickened out and went down and worked on the truck just to get away.
I tore out the starter. What a giant pain in the ass. I have everything torn apart, and the new starter ready to put in, but I want to put in a new battery cable, which I want to get from the Chevy dealer, and their parts department is closed on the weekend, so it gave me an excuse to knock off early and drink beer. I should be able to get the part tomorrow, and then I need to start putting it all back together.
We very much enjoy having out nice peaceful house back to ourselves.
One evening and overnight is OK, but I don't think we will be volunteering for any extended babysitting any time soon.
Neeko is the pukingest baby I ever did see. Every pair of PJs, every blanket, my sweatshirt and jeans, as well as every piece of clothing Mrs A wore. The washing machine has done overtime this weekend. The rug will need a good shampooing.
I'm looking forward to a good night's sleep.

Cars Are Revolting

In both senses of the word.


Yesterday after work, I got in the truck, and it would not turn over. I had to go to Security and get a push. I am getting awfully tired of this. Having replaced the battery and alternator, the next step in the sequence is the starter.

So I got in the Z, the good old trust reliable Z, this morning and of course it started right up. Then the lights started strobing. Bright, dim, bright, dim. Then off. All the dash lights went out, the marker lights, the turn signals. The car still ran just fine and the headlights and tail lights worked, so I went to work. When I got home I started trouble shooting. The fusible links were fine. None of the fuses were blown. WTF????

Got out the multi-meter. The hot wire to the light switch was getting a good strong 12 volts. The output turned on and off when you operated the switch. Went out and pulled the lens off of one of the marker lights, and the bulb was blown. Tested the light, and it was getting 12v. Somehow a voltage spike had blown all of the bulbs. Markers, turn signals and dash lights. I replaced all the bulbs, tested the lights without the engine running, and everything works just fine. Got to be the voltage regulator. Ordered a new one, but it won't be in until tomorrow. Took apart the voltage regulator and tweaked it. Everything worked just fine. Of course I have no dash lights, since replacing the bulbs is a major pain in the ass, but I pretty much drive by sound and gears anyway, so it is no major deal, except that the stereo is out, It has an in-line fuse, which is probably blown, and to get at it you need to pull put the unit, and I just didn't have the time.

I will start it up in the morning and drive it to work with fingers crossed, get the new voltage regulator after work and put it in. Tearing the radio out and replacing the dash lights will have to wait.

Meanwhile the truck lurks in the driveway waiting for it's turn.

Sometimes I just have to ask myself why I love cars.

On the other hand, a new group of Mexicans has moved in across the street. The head of the household also has a Z. Through an interpreter, we talked Zs. He is a body and fender man. Just what I need. I have a ground effect kit for the Z that I just can't seem to get the time to get around to installing. I asked if he wanted to do some work for me, and we haggled over a price to install and paint the kit. We settled on $650.00 which is a very good price. Most quotes I had were over $1,000.00. I have to wait until after I get the truck fixed, but it will be nice to have it done.

In the meantime, I needed to get the hood for Frankenhealey straightened and ready for paint, so I asked him for a quote on that work, and he said $200.oo, so I told him to take it and do it. No hurry. It is kinda a test case. If he does well, he can do the Z, and after that, Frankenhealy.

It's nice to not be working seven days a week, I get a whole heck of a lot more done when I'm not dead tired.