blog413

Wednesday, April 3, 2013

I spent another cold, drizzly, sleety day inside, continuing my engine dismantling. Getting the old rusty valves and lifters out was slow going, but I got most of them out. At the end of the day two valves and their lifters were still in there, but I expect I'll get them out tomorrow. I squirted a nice bath of peneterant on them to soak overnight.

Thursday, April 4, 2013

The day dawned clear, with a forecast for warming up into the fifties. I finished dismantling that spare engine, finally getting those last stubborn valves and lifters out. By then it was time for a trip to town for a dental appointment. During cleaning, the dentist found three fillings that need to be replaced, so I'll go back next month to have that done. It will come to almost $500! That's why so many poor people have bad teeth. When I got home I took advantage of the nice afternoon to cut and split firewood to last a few more days. It took a little longer than I expected because my saw got pinched in a sagging limb, which I had to cut off with an ax. Don't you hate it when that happens? This could be the last wood I need until fall. We're in that time of year when some evenings will be chilly enough for a fire and some won't.

Friday, April 5, 2013

Another morning in the shop. I cleaned up engine and transmission parts and put way tools, and got started organizing the parts, and cleaned some of the dirt off the floor. In the afternoon I did my first real yard work of the year, planting trees. Two sweet gum trees I planted last year didn't survive the drought, so I oredered replacements which arrived yesterday. This year I hope I'll be more alert about watering during dry weather.

Saturday, April 6, 2013

I started the day visiting South Haven and Oxford to check out the two auctions of the day. Neither one had enough of interest to keep me there, so I was able to come home and spend most of the day sandblasting engine pans. That's plural because the first one has some worn threads in the bolt holes, so I started a second one. The forecast calls for a few warm and dry days, so it looks like a good chance to do several parts.

Sunday, April 7, 2013

Morning's chore was rinsing the bolts and other fasteners I put to soak in carburetor cleaner overnight, then putting them to soak in rust remover. Next was preparing my roadster tranmission cover and pedals for sandblasting, duct taping the parts I didn't want to blast. I sandblasted from noon to three. I finished the first oil pan I started yesterday, did the pedals, and did more of the second oil pan. It was a perfect day for blasting, overcast enough for even lighting. I had to stop for grocery shopping. Tomorrow I'll buy sand and do some more. I have a lot more parts to do.

Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Oh boy, is it over! Yesterday at five the temperature was 73º. This morning it was 23º. This day was mixture of drizzle, mist, and occasional sleet, never getting much above freezing. I woreked in the shop all morning cleaning nuts, bolts, and other small parts. The mail brought a new terminal block I ordered Monday for the touring car, and when I went to town for groceries I also shopped for a rubber grommet to put in the firewall where the wires pass through. I wasted almost an hour going from one store to another looking for a grommet, and never found one to fit. This is why I despise shopping.

Thursday, April 11, 2013

I spent the day on wiring. I installed the new terminal block, took out the tacky modern plastic-coated horn wires, installed new horn wires with the proper Model T era appearance, replaced all the tacky plastic insulators with black rubber, and started tracing which wires go where. The wiring harnesses in this car were made by some geniuses who decided to get "creative" and use wires with the wrong colors. Not being able to go by the colors, I'll be checking every circuit with a meter before I turn on anything.

Friday, April 12, 2013

This was one of those days when I never went off the place. I spent all the morning and part of the afternoon finishing up my touring car wiring project. I found that the switch is bad, so I had to order a repair kit. I finished the day cleaning and painting small parts and fasteners.

Saturday, April 13, 2013

Like many Saturdays, this one began with laundry, then an auction. The sale at Oxford included a milling machine and a couple of lathes. I was tempted, but not greatly. The prospect of moving items that heavy and finding room for them cooled my enthusiasm and I didn't even bid on them. So I came away from the auction with a pair of sledge heads and several steel punches for $1 and what will probably be more than a lifetime supply of steel rivets for $2. When I got home I spent most of the rest of the day dealing with trees. When you donate to the Arbor Day Foundation, they retaliate by sending ten free seedlings. So I spent the last of the afternoon scouting locations. Some of the little trees will be near the house, and some will be down in the wood lot.

Sunday April 14, 2013

This morning I did taxes. I finished about one and went to town to mail my returns and buy groceries. I spent the rest of the afternoon planting seedlings. I got four of them done, so I need to plant the other six tomorrow.

Monday, April 15, 2013

Once again, everything takes longer than you think it will. I thought I'd have those other six seedlings planted by noon, but I got the last one in the ground a little before two. I had a doctor's appointment at 2:45, and when I got home I finished watering all the plantings. That was my day. I'll hit 'em with the watering can again tomorrow. The weather forecast says they may get a good soaking later this week. After rain on Wednesday, we're supposed to have a high in the forties on Thursday. It's good to have the moisture, but I'm ready for the chilly days to be over.

Tuesday, April 16, 2013

It was another good day to stay inside, with a chilly wind and a bit of moisture in the air. I repaired the headlight/ignition switch in the touring car and finished installation. While I was at it I took off the headlight lenses and polished the reflectors. Before I put the lenses back on I rubbed candle wax on the buckets and inside the rims. Maybe that will make removal easier the next time. There are parts I still need to sandblast, but for now the weather says no.

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Indoor weather continued. After some sanding and painting of parts, my main project of the day was the horn from my touring car. Sometimes it worked almost normally, sometimes it uttered a pathetic little croak, and sometimes it didn't work at all. I took it out of the car and opened it up. After seeing how it's supposed to work, I oiled the little motor's two wicks, made a new gasket, put it back together and installed it, and tried it out. Mission accomplished. Now it sounds the way a Klaxon should sound.

Sanding, sanding, and more sanding, then paint. That's how I spent my morning. I finished an oil pan inspection cover, two valve covers, and a timing gear cover. My main afternoon activity was shop cleanup. I did some sorting and putting away, and there's more to do. That's a job that's never finished. For now I'm content to stay with indoor work while we relapse into winter for a few days. Tonight we're supposed to get below freezing, probably for the last time until next November. I'm ready for the warm weather that's forecast for next week.

Friday, April 19, 2013

More puttering in the shop ate up the morning. By noon the temperature warmed into the fifties and I moved to outdoor work. I carried water for the new seedlings in the wood lot, and started picking up trash along the road. There always seems to be a plentiful supply of beer bottles. If I had nothing else to do, I'd set up a camera to identify the guilty party and dump all the collected trash in their yard. I finished the day working on the pile of scrap lumber in the front yard, cutting it into firewood. It will take several sessions to get through the whole pile.

Saturday, April 20, 2013

Today I dealt out death and destruction. I spent about four hours with the clippers, cutting off little trees that were sprouting up in the lawn, and poisoning the stumps with Tordon to keep them from coming back. I needed to get that done because the grass is taking off and I have to mow soon. With that job done, I pulled all of last year's sunflower stalks that were in a patch beside the house. Then I spent a couple of hours collecting trash along the road. Somebody's a major lush. I gathered up fifty-one pint-sized Heineken bottles. For my last chore of the day I took the clippers down to the wood lot and started trimming small branches off a hedge tree that's fallen down across a road. I need to clear the road, and that tree is going to provide lot of next winter's heat.

Sunday, April 21, 2013

My morning job was gathering scrap lumber from the pile in the front yard and putting it on the front porch where I'll cut it into firewood. I spent the afternoon in Oxford at an auction. I came away with a buggy foot warmer and a Champion spark plug tester/cleaner.

Monday, April 22, 2013

With mowing season upon us, today was oil change day. I started up the Allis Model B, and while it was running to warm up the oil I went to try the Dixon mower. It didn't have enough juice in the battery to start, so I put a charger on it. I changed oil in the Allis, then went back to cutting up the front yard scrap pile while the battery charged in the Dixon. I cut up enough wood to fill seven boxes. I'd show you a picture, but Wally showed up for a visit and we chewed the fat for an hour or so, and I forgot all about taking a picture of my wood cutting accomplishment. I finished the day getting the Dixon started to warm it up, then changing the oil. Now I'm ready to start mowing whenever the weather permits. Tomorrow is supposed to be rainy, so mowing will have to wait a day or two.

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

A cold north wind and a high in the low forties kept me inside today. The first job was getting some tools ready for a trip to New York. I cleaned up and packed some Ford pliers and wrenches a T guy on Staten Island wanted to buy for his Model T. After a trip to town to send the package and buy celery, I took care of some rear axle bearings I bought at Chickasha last month. After scrubbing off all the grease and dirt, I measured them, gave them an oil bath, and put them in snack bags marked with the amount of wear.

Wednesday, April 24, 2013

An overnight freeze had me inside again this morning. I spent the morning in the shop cleaning and repairing a jack, studying rear axle bearings, and cleaning some Model T wrenches. By noon the outside had warmed to 50º and I moved to outdoor activities. I took a walk in the woods, checking one of my wood gathering roads. I found a few places where trees or large branches have fallen across the road, so cutting those up for some of next winter's firewood will be a job for this spring. My main activity of the afternoon was getting that pile of scrap lumber off the front lawn. Some of it was soaked from the recent weather, but cutting it up and leaving it in a pile on the front porch will dry it out soon enough.

Thursday, April 25, 2013

Another morning in the shop. I finished cleaning up and straightening a Ford jack that was rusty and bent, and painted all the pieces. In the afternoon I aired up the tires and greased the Allis Model B and did the first mowing of the season. I spent about two and a half hours at it, and finished about half of what needs to be mowed. That may take a few days, as there are some places where I want to cut and poison some little trees before I mow. It's been a more chilly spring than normal, but we're starting to get more days above 60º now, and there are several days in the seventies in the ten day forecast.

Friday, April 26, 2013

The wee hours of the morning brought rain. It came as intermittent showers and went on most of the morning, making nice puddles in the driveway. I filed. For months I've been letting pictures and other files accumulate on my desktop, so I spent all morning filing and trashing everything, then installed a new desktop background photo. I used a picture of the Great Sand Dunes in Colorado, one of my favorite places. After two I made a trip to town to get this week's Shopper's Advantage, an advertiser that lists the local auctions, and to gas up the car. When I got home my afternoon project was going through my picture files to pick out a dozen shots to use as a screen saver. My next clerical catch-up task will be filing this month's paper receipts.

Saturday, April 27, 2013

After doing laundry I drove up to Udall for an auction. As usual, it started with all the household junk you'd have to pay me to haul off. That gave me time to wander about and inspect the rest of the goods. I spotted several things worth waiting for, so I got a number and stayed. The forecast was for a high of 70º today, but that was a fantasy. Heavy clouds and a chilly breeze from the north kept the temperature in the forties until after noon. I used up a couple of dozen tissues because cold turns my nose into a snot fountain. But it turned out to be worth the wait. I ended up with a level for $2.50 and a good old wooden kitchen chair for $1, and a roll of R-13 insulation for $2.50. But even better was eleven web chairs for $7. These chairs are no longer sold in stores. I suspect that's a liability issue. I think today such a large part of the population today is too heavy for the aluminum frames to hold them that the chairs are considered unsafe. But the big purchase of the day was seven bundles of wood shingles for $20. That's a fraction of what they'd cost if I bought them retail at the lumber yard. Those will go a long way toward replacing all the old shingles on the house. The big question posed by all this stuff was whether I could fit all of it into the car and not have to make two trips to take it all home. Fortunately, I was able to squeeze it all in.

Sunday, April 28, 2013

After a morning run of three miles in 30:21, my best time since November of 2010, I spent part of a lazy morning browsing online. About eleven I took the clippers down to the wood lot and went to work on that big fallen hedge tree, trimming off twigs and small branches. About one I drove over to Oxford to check out today's auction. I spent a couple of hours there and didn't buy a thing. There were too many high rollers willing to spend more than I was. This was grocery shopping day for me, and by the time I finished that the day was over. After the cold and windy day yesterday, today's high in the low eighties was wonderful.

Monday, April 29, 2013

Having my roadster engine and transmission rebuilt in Tulsa, I spent a good part of the day making an engine stand that will ride in the back of the suburban. I won't need it right away, but I want to have it ready when I do. My other work was cleaning and painting parts. It was nice having a warm day in the low eighties, but in a couple of days we'll be back in the refrigerator.

Tuesday, April 30, 2013

I spent the day in Tulsa working on my roadster engine and transmission. I'd have stayed there until tomorrow, but I had to come home and get the mag ring I forgot to take down. I'll be back there tomorrow, and maybe Thursday too. I'll show some pictures later.