Sunday, September 27, 2020

"It is through humility that hope enters in"

One picture per post going forward - I'll try to make them good.

Today - I got the seal adhered to the pan and then got all of that stuck to the body.  The left front curve of the body/pan somehow shifted the seal partially out of place during the installation - the rest of it went in as expected.

I've tried to stay focused on getting this 4 wheeled boat (as in it's just costing me money) put back together and mobile so I'm not going to fuck with trying to get the seal perfect.

I'll focus on dry fitting things in the back - ordering what needs to be bought and send out things for work - then swap over to getting the front end dialed in since I have all of those parts and it's a matter of putting it back together while I wait for the other shit to happen.

Once I finished the subframe and transmission install - I spent a few minutes staring at it all - trying to figure out if I could fast track the engine installation and fire it up but there's no clear path to getting that done without screwing up a bunch of other things and I've cut enough corners already.  I'll stay the course and see what I can get done.

"There always comes a time when one must choose between contemplation and action"

Let's get one thing out there - the new Blogger layout blows chunks.  I can go on for 20 minutes about all of the things that I don't like about it - and maybe, just maybe, some of it is me 'growing old' and not adapting to new technology but holy shit is it way too fucking hard to get pictures to post in a specific order...used to be as simple as 'click on the pictures in the order you want them to appear' - that shit was too easy and now it doesn't work.
I had a nice deck of pictures for this post but I've fucked around with this post for a solid ten minutes and I'm over it.

Back to the subject at hand: I got the pan holes painted and today - expecting an absolute hassle, I was able to get the main brake line installed in what felt like 5 minutes.  The front lines are installed and I need to fiddle with the rears a bit - the brackets on the trailing arms and the pan don't align (one is swing axle, one is IRS) so I need to figure out what I'm going to do there.  The goal is to get the pan back in the car tomorrow and then fuck around with the other 50 things that need to be done to get it running.  I mean, at this point, I'd be happy to get it back on tires.  I should be able to get the pan back on tomorrow - barring any other weird shit from getting in the way.  It's the last warm weekend before Fall storms in and kills off any work that requires above 60°F temps.  Overall, the condition isn't up to my standards but I've had to get over that to get this car back together.  It's about getting it back together so it can sit all Winter in the garage.  I would like to drive it before snow falls but there's a lot to do to get to that point so I'm not getting my hopes up.





Sunday, September 20, 2020

“All that is transitory is but a metaphor.”

Got my shit together enough to get the pan outside, cleaned off and a coat of paint on the area that I hogged out around the holes.

I haven't done the underside yet but the plan is to let this dry for a couple of days then flip it over and do the underside.  Once that's done, I'll mock it up and see if I can get this thing mated back to the body.  

Still fighting with the expanding list of things to get done on the house so this is going slower than hell...so slow, in fact, that if I were actively trying to make it take longer, it wouldn't take this long.

The goal here is simple: get the car back together and functional as quickly as possible.

Saturday, September 12, 2020

“The absurd is lucid reason noting its limits.”

With a minor delay - the newly housed transmission has returned.  I don't have the slightest fucking clue when I'll have the time/energy to put the car back together.  I do know that I'm running out of time if I need to do any painting to the pan - the weather is cooling rapidly and paint days will be gone soon.
This is a wide angle shot of my garage at the moment - a collection of the way too long list of things I have to do in the near future.  The bathroom project continues on and remnants of that creep into every void in the house, taking up space and reminding me that it's not done yet.

The transmission is currently sitting on a shelf that's normally used to store the two saws that are out of frame - intermittently used to cut framing, trim pieces, PVC pipe for the bathroom projects.

It goes without saying that I've got far too many things to get done and not nearly enough time to get it all done.  This mess will reach a peak soon and I'll spend several hours putting all of this shit back where it belongs - only to be pulled out again next weekend when I try to get something done on my ever-growing list of shit to do.

The one real realization I've had lately - there'd be a lot less shit on the floor if the car was put back together.  I was originally hoping for restoration but I've lowered my expectations to getting the car back together and running.  I need to find the time/energy to get something done and soon...