Sunday, June 12, 2011

Moving on!

Well, the time has come to move on. I enjoyed working on a small block Chevy. It reminded me of when I just got off my Mission and was building a Nova. I built a really wild small block in that car. At that time in my life I wasn't concerned about money and didn't blink an eye at spending it. I am a little more conservative now, well OK a lot more but that's OK. The motor that was put in the corvette ended up being very low cost and should be a good motor for a long time. I am finished except for 1 small fuel line that I am waiting on parts for and the vette has been kicked out of the garage. Dixie was able to park the van in there for 1 night and then the garage kinda got filled up again. It is only temporary and She should be back in it tomorrow night.

I had 3 projects to choose from.
1. Change a timing belt on Dixie's van
2. Install the engine I have in Isaac's Baja Bug 
3. Fix a couple things on Ed that I haven't had time to do.

Well, Dixie says I will always work on Ed first if I get the chance and She is kinda right. It's not that I don't want to change her timing belt but it just doesn't have the same coolness factor as working on a 42 year old car. So I decided to work on the bug. It has had a couple of problems. I needed to fix a stud on the oil sump and I just found out that my back passenger tire was bald on one spot. Hmm, that gives me the opportunity to remove all the tires and wheels and powdercoat the wheels black. Right now I powdercoated the front ones silver but decided I didn't like that and I never have got around to doing the back ones. I bought some new back tires and this week I will take them to work and break down the tires, powdercoat all the wheels and reinstall the good tires. It should be a good week. Here are some pictures.
 Here is the engine I picked up a few months ago for the baja bug. I borrowed a couple parts off it for Ed.
 Once again Ed is up on jackstands.
 So here is the bald spot that is kinda weird because it is only on 1 spot. These tires are original to the car when I bought it so they are pretty old.
 Here i discovered why I had a bald spot. The rim is damaged and it is right where the bald spot is. The damage has been there awhile. I am surprised I didn't see it earlier. I thought I was going to have to buy another wheel but then remembered I had a good spare. I will switch wheels and this damaged one will become my spare. It holds air just fine and will work good as a backup if needed.
 Here is the front wheel I powdercoated with a new tire on it and the new tire for the back wheel. I had to buy new tires for the front because they are a lot smaller since I lowered it.I am going to powdercoat all 5 wheels satin black and run them with beauty rings. I think it should look good.
So you never know how our driveway is going to look at any time. This is how it looks now. I try to keep most of the cars fairly hidden so I don't upset the neighbors too much. I often tell Dixie that we are the white trash of the neighborhood. She usually just smiles in silent agreement and then I tell her I should grow a mullet.

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