I enjoy wednesday nights at the shop. The local community radio station,
KRCL, has a show from 8:30 to 10:30 called "Aural Decay." Dave, the host,
is a big Bruce Springsteen fan, so you hear a lot of that, and some of the
Rolling Stones, and Jackson Browne or Tom Petty or who knows what. If you
had a Jimi Hendrix poster on your dorm room wall and a few Pink Floyd and
Beatles albums on your shelf, you'd probably like this show. At 10:30 one
gets "Grateful Dead and the Family Dawg" which is another couple of hours
of audio entertainment you won't find on the commercial airwaves. Great
stuff to help pass the time.
But the sweet sounds from the stereo were interrupted for a bit by an even
sweeter sound. As some of you may recall, I've recently wasted vast amounts
of time and energy moving the shop from Unit 22 on the north side of the wall
to Unit 59 on the south side of the wall. The "new" shop is still a long way
from being useful. True, I have gotten a few shelves put up, some of the
boxes are not quite as underfoot as they were, and there is actually about
twenty feet of compressed air piping set up. Scant progress indeed, but it
is progress.
One problem is that the red racing Spitfire is right in the way of getting
things shuffled about. So I figure that what I need to do is get the car
mobile again. This is the car that was driven into the pits with the rear
brakes on fire at the IVR Enduro in May. Some of you may remember, though
there's one list member, aka 'Hot Shoe' who'd really rather forget. Anyway,
after the IVR meeting tonight I set about getting the red car mobile again.
It should be easy - just isolate the rear brakes from the front hydraulics,
the front disks should be enough to stop the car on the planned 20 foot
journeys in and out of the shop. No problem.
In a momentary fit of tidyness during the course of the move I chucked a box
of bent and rusty brake lines and fittings into the dumpster, thinking "Why
on earth would I *ever* reuse this junk?" So it took me a while to unearth a
piece of bent and rusty brake line and some fittings I could use to seal off
the rear section of the plumbing. It may have been quicker to find a short
3/8" x 24 bolt and a crush washer, I guess we'll never know. And after some
further searching I did find a small torch so I could braze the end of the
now treasured bent and rusty brake line closed.
Cut to the chase - I'm sitting in the red Spit, turn on the ignition and the
fuel pump, and get that sweet little 1296 motor fired up. Nothing quite like
an unmuffled race motor in a confined space. It shakes, it rattles, and it
roars. Maybe tomorrow I'll air up the tires and we'll see if she rolls!
mjb.
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