Madeleine takes one last bite before she goes

I forgot to mention ... that dang car ate one more of my tools. Blood, skin, respiratory distress - and then it breaks my tools too!! As I was putting the exhaust manifold in, I bumped something and broke the 'selector' switch off my 1/2inch ratchet. ping - something sailed past my sight line into the nether regions of my garage. I looked down, sighed, pulled the socket off, and dropped the wrench in the garbage.

 It was a fine wrench I really liked. One of my better tools. I remember the day I found it in the middle of the street next to a gas station. I did an illegal u-turn to park and ran into traffic to pick it up. We had great times together. Nice grip - long handle - loved its relationship with the cheater bar - selector stayed put even when I used it one-handed like a screw driver.

 You will be missed dear friend.

 Ha'makom yenachem otecha b'toch she'ar avelai tziyon veerushalayim

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Still in there, but coming out in pieces

Image
  I pulled the fan so I would have some more between the front of the engine and the hood support. Now I can come straight out to get the bell housing to clear the tunnel before I life the engine up I looked at the air runners and the water jacket tunnels -- YUCK I half halfheartedly tried to remove the bolts connecting the exhaust pipe to the manifold - no surprise those are stuck. So I just hack sawed the exhaust off. It was smashed and holey anyway, so I decided I would deal with those bolts after the fact. I pulled the valve covers to look Geasey evidence of gasket failure, and the valves needed to be lashed (the push rods are wiggly) - but otherwise everything looks to be decent shape. If it takes me too much longer to get the u-bolts off the drive shaft rear u-joint, I will buy an angle grinder and show them who is boss.
Read more

259, 260 ... whatever it takes

Image
Why does this have to be so hard? What is the point of inventing Google if it can't even decode your manufacturing stamps on your transmission? My transmission has LOTS of numbers on it: the transmission body: AF 7006 D 21 the side-cover: AB 7222 B the tail: WAR 7651 A And would YOU like to guess how many of those YOU can use to look up which parts YOU might order for a rebuild kit? NONE of them. If you want to know where to buy parts to do a rebuild on the 3-speed, manual transmission in your 1962 Mercury Monterey 4-door sedan, you can go through the following steps: spend 45 minutes looking up numbers that are flat wrong because the pictures you have are just not very clear until you go outside and take more pictures check - and try not to transfer the oil to your face when you go back in - it causes your daughter / the project manager to ask questions that have no answer know a guy who just knows check - that didn't take long to find the answer was "nope" know a gu...
Read more

Blood Sacrifice

Image
  I gave up my right index finger to the deity of car restoration. Turns out there are 7 bolts holding the exhaust manifold in place. I didn't bother to look at the manual or feel around - and so one was hiding in the middle of the header. Unfortunately, I foung it after I assumed it was just stuck - and so with that assumption in hand - I took a rubber mallet and whacked on the top of the header pretty good. What caused me to look for the extra bolt was that during the spirited beating, I flattened out my stroke a little and brought my index finger straight down on the electrical sender connections on the brake master cylinder. I was wearing gloves, but that finger & nail got a good Mortal Kombat punch right on those 2 spikey pins. Since I took a moment to think of all the latin phrases I knew, I went looking for another bolt. Sure enough - 1 more under the center where I could not see it. When I loosened that, the header fell right off. #1 seem to need a ring job - it was cer...
Read more