(10/28/96)
The Memphis PCA had an event last week. I sent my check off as soon as they announced it, two weeks ahead of time. I had planned to take the Capri to the BMW event earlier this year and had almost finished prepping it. What the hell, it has had a long hard life, might as well go for the glory. Besides, I still have the 3.91 rear in TRX.
"we're all self employed; we work at nothing all day... takin' care of business, and workin' overtime."Plenty of time to get the car prepped. I thought. I wound up putting in 6x12s doing a fairly simple little distributed database that wound up as three different winapps under Delphi, ten different databases, and had to work over a store-and-forward email system as well as over a LAN. Some of the files I had to access were in a network hammerlock by some unfriendly apps; we haff vays off dealink mit dat, Microsoft slime! Super-whoopee-network-object-GUI code builder stuff, and I'm using BIOS calls to backdoor the whole mess. I couldn't do that under Unix. On the other hand, I wouldn't have *had* to do that under Unix. These things take time, though.
"ticking away the moments that make up the dull day you fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way"And, of course, I get the flu. Not the Martian Death Flu like back in March, just one of those that sap your energy and make you want to sleep all the time.
Jay came down Sunday and Monday to play with the tire machines some more and lend a hand to prep the car. He mounts the four new 205/50- 15s and cackles madly as he puts the balancer into super-precision mode to balance them down to 1/10 ounce. Hmm. There's some play in the steering, like 1/16 of a turn. That'd be okay for most cars, but it should be zero. It *was* zero. I popped the rear end cover, swabbed out the housing, reinstalled, refilled. Topped off the transmission. Adjusted the clutch. Disassembled the rear brakes. Hmm. *That*'s why the parking brake had decided not to work. One of the springs in the drum had broken and let the adjuster adjust itself all the way in. No '72 Capri springs being handy, I made one. Reassemble. Redo the rear sway bar end links. Check the rod ends on the Panhard rod. The play in the steering bugs me. Yank the rack. Aha! A few years ago Doug had used the car for about a year. He'd replaced pulled the rack to replace the outboard bushing, which had croaked. Apparently he hadn't properly torqued the splined U-joint yoke onto the steering shaft. Unfortunately, the splines on the shaft were worn. No problem - I scrounged a spare shaft out of the shed, and Jay yanked the column to replace the shaft while I disassembled the rack. U-oh. It's full of rusty, nasty stuff. Boots are fine. Looks just like the stuff I found in the rear end earlier this year. 10-year-old Mobil 1 hypoid oil, and it apparently had no corrosion inhibitors of any kind. Shit. The ball bearings don't look so hot, but they'll have to do. Everything goes through the solvent tank, some of it meets Mr. Wire Wheel, I find a brand new Ford outer rack slide bearing, still in the plastic baggie (when you own weird German Fords you keep spares), and reassembled the rack, setting the tierod and input shaft preloads by the manual, and even measuring the new hypoid with a buret before filling it back up. All the ball joints and stuff are still tight. We get the front end hooked back up, pack it all up, and Jay heads back to Memphis.
"no time for revolving doors no time for the killing floors no time left for you"As luck would have it, I managed about three hours to work on the car before the night to leave. I aligned the front end, tightened the fan belt, bled the brakes with my shop air adapter, repacked the wheel bearings, tied some wiring out of the way a little better, and went over all the fasteners on the steering and suspension one more time. We're ready, Freddy. I would have vacuumed it out except I was dead tired, and it's raining, why wash it? Changed the oil and filter and called it a night.
"Louisiana rain soakin' through my shoes will I still feel the pain when I reach Baton Rouge?"Thursday. It's raining. It was raining yesterday, and it's supposed to rain tomorrow, though it's supposed to clear off and dry up. Memphis Motorsport Park is in what is now (politically correctly) called "lowlands", what we Southerners still call "swamp." Specifically, anything more than a heavy dew and the 3000 foot front straight becomes Lake Millington. Perhaps Jay will bring his R/C speedboat. At least it will provide some entertainment if we don't get to run. I pop some Tylenol and go to bed early.
"Hello darkness my old friend I've come to talk with you again"Not enough sleep. Still getting over the flu. Got a short nap, 9PM, the Capri is loaded up, gassed, and ready to roll. I kiss AB goodbye, fire it up, turn on the lights. Hmm. Something is funky here. We have high beam. Wiggle the lever. Still have high beam. Shit. I remember Jay was sitting on the floor with the pieces of the steering column, poking at the turn signal switch, which is also the high beam and horn switch. Damn. It's raining. It's cold. It's dark. I get out the tools, rip the steering wheel off, remove the switch, bring it in the house. Damned if I see anything wrong with it. Wiring is *not* my thing. I've had cars where the lights went out, but not cars with more light than I can handle. I call Jay to see if he pulled any wires loose and stuck them back somewhere. He says no. He wants me to pull the plugs on the high beam lights, but that won't really do much good. I'm running 90/130s in the low beam lights, and 130 watt "low" beams is asking for some redneck to put a load of buckshot through the windshield. I decide to wait for dawn; if I'm lucky I won't miss more than one session.
(continued on next rock)