We had a sunny day today until it got dark at the ridiculously early hour of 5:00…remind me the incredibly important reason why we have to turn the clocks the wrong direction in winter, again? So I went out and did some work on my '73. I took five minutes and swapped the starter, 'cause the original was bothering me (small frame 4-series-wound with large coils…don't like 'em).

Then I popped the valve cover off. I wasn't happy with the valve adjustment I did last week; the engine was silent but the idle was a little rough — I was pretty sure I'd set them a little too tight (or at least a little tighter than this particular engine wants). Wound up setting them this time to 0.0115 and 0.0215 (that's a slide fit with a 0.011 and 0.021 and a tight fit with a 0.012 and 0.022), put the valve cover back on, and got a nice idle with 20 inches of vacuum…but a knock from the rear of the valve cover. Huh? I used the screwdriver handle stethoscope method and sure enough, one of the rocker arms was definitely hitting the inside of the cover. I didn't even need the stethoscope; when I got to the right area, I could feel the tap-tap-tap on the underside of the cover. Sigh. Back off with the cover, flipped it over…and found absolutely no evidence of anything touching the underside of the cover, anywhere. Ooooookeh…I made sure the (rubber) gasket was clipped into all its slots, put the valve cover back on (a little tricky with the A/C line in the way), rechecked the gasket and pulled it back into position, tightened down the valve cover bolts, restarted the engine, and no more knock. I donno. *shrug* :shrug:

I gave the kickdown linkage a little more length, then turned my attention to the headlamp switch. Now, all along I'd been disconnecting and reconnecting the battery negative cable, as I'd switch from disassembly/assembly mode to start-and-run mode. I had just removed the fusebox screw and begun to push it up out of the way to get access to the headlamp switch when that leetle voice in my head started to say "Maybe you should go check and make sure the battery's disconnected."

At exactly, precisely the same moment as that thought was forming in my head, the back of the fusebox contacted something it shouldn't. There was a noise like a firecracker's lit fuse, a burnt smell, and then I said something more or less equivalent to "Oh, fiddle-dee-dee, I seem to have caused a short circuit. How annoying." I scrambled out of the footwell and grabbed off the battery cable, and found the temporary repair wire I'd used to make the previous owner's shoddy repair a little less shoddy was both warm and…empty. I'd noticed the insulation was kind of oddly rubbery when I installed it, but hadn't really thought anything of it. Turns out it was fusible link wire with hypalon insulation. And it did exactly what it was supposed to do. I've repaired the circuit temporarily (there's that word again), but now it's clear I really need to make a proper job of it.

Let's hear it for disasters that don't quite happen!

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

I've used the fiddle-dee-dee vocabulary repeatedly this weekend.

Got called into work for an acid scrubber. Dealing with old computers that take too dang long to do anything, while a regulatory compliance control point and the associated analyzer is all borked-up tends to make me testy.

Did you put one of those starters on that you had wound?

CJ

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Part of Tyrde-Browne Racing

I only ever had one of those starters made. It first went on my '62 Lancer, then I swapped it off that car to try out an Australian Bosch unit and the specially-wound starter went on my '71 Dart. The buyer for the '71 arrived about 4 minutes after I swapped the special starter off. Now it's in my '73, cranking quietly, quickly, and steadily.

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

hello dan- never heard of that word in my vocabulary lessons. fooling with volare door latch dismantling this weekend , i had numerous opportunities to use descriptive adjectives of the part and its mother. synonyms for frustration and aggravation. since you must have experienced similar frustrations, could you clarify the meaning of this new term? if canadian let me know. learned my adjectives in jersey. love to learn new things. paladin

It's just a substitute for another family of words that begin with the letter "F".

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

wow dan- guess all sl6ers are musicians, skilled in the use of f sharps. music man

If you want to improve you langauge,try being a fleet mechanic on a fleet of 70 FORD vans for about 10 1/2 years!Ford is a 4 letter word,so is F### what a coinsidence!

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V8?? We don't need no stink'n V8!!

big sl6 fan- how does being a fleet mechanic help you to improve your language skills over being a shade tree mechanic? probably more practice. we can all learn to be more articulate. paladin

Dealing with tire and ball joint eating 40 year old design "twin I beam" suspensions,E4OD transmissions,and 4.2L V-6s for 10 years does wonders for for your vocabulary.

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V8?? We don't need no stink'n V8!!

The earliest use of the term I can recall was by Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With the Wind. She had to make do with Fiddle-dee-dee, while Rhett Butler got to say the risque, "Frankly, Scarlett, I don't give a damn!"

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/6 '67 Barracuda convertible, electronic ignition, 4-OD, street cam, SBP KH discs, 3.55 SG 7.25" 1" t-bars. Bilstein.
340 '67 fastback, Doug Nash 5-speed.
1988 Toyota pickup work truck