Tonight, The Gods smiled on me

Ready for the hood
Originally uploaded by The Put-Man.

Azzie is till a long way from perfect. No doubt about it. But once again, we have "significant progress", and honestly, I couldn't be happier.

Well - YEAH - I'd be happier if the car ran without bleeding to death...

...but more on that, later.

Today, at long last, I got my replacement passenger-side mirror from Moss Motorsports. With both fender-mounted mirrors installed, and both the new headlight eyebrows in place...I have to admit that I REALLY LIKE THIS LOOK! I ordered the parts sight unseen, and I pictured it JUST LIKE THIS in my head!

I love it when a plan comes together.

Mysteriously, today, the horns decided to work. I have no idea why. Maybe I should offer a prayer to Vishnu, or The Great Pumpkin, but either way I am eternally grateful. I started by adding a 3 foot section of fuel line between the compressor & the "Y" connector at the horns, doubly secured with zip-ties. I re-did the positive connection on the compressor, and neatly zip-tied EVERY loose looking wire in the grill area. I pulled the steering wheel off, cleaned and bent the copper connectors in the hub, then placed the wheel on, and with the socket and a hammer, made sure the wheel was as far smooshed down as it could go. I tightened the bolt, put on the spring, snapped on the horn button, and BWAAAAAAHHHHHH. Music to my ears.

Then I went bannanas, and neatly zip-tied EVERY loose looking wire in theengine compartment. Someday I'm sure I'll need to trace something out, and I'll curse every last one of the 347 zip ties I put on tonight, but at least they look cool.

Open areas around the engine got cleaned and scrubbed nicely. DAMN, but that old paint color was pretty!

The grills went back on nicely, and the front trim-strip of stainless cleaned up VERY nice - THANK you to whatever body shop put that protective layer of paint on there. I appreciated that. Now it stands out nicely, and I LOVE how you can see the horns, just as I planned, behind the grill!

S W E E T ! !

Next, I figured out the old-school hood prop. The three-screw mounted base on the engine cowling was a piece of cake. Much more complicated was the bit on the hood. Fortunately the clever engineers never changed part of the hood design -THANK YOU – there was a little flat spot, JUST where the bit needed to go! In the old days it was spot-welded in place. However, there is no longer any way to get to the other side of that to weld, or even bolt anything. I was reluctant to use sheet metal screws, so I used my dusty old pop-rivet gun. It worked like a charm! We’ll see how it holds up, long term. In the meantime, I don’t have a hood that’s flopped 1/3 down…like the car has a E.D. problem.

Nope, not mine!

Getting the hood on with the extra hands of a friend made things a LOT easier. A few other loose ends were tied up – all regarding Azzie’s appearance.

However, the gushing oil leak is still an issue. You should know, I took the coward’s way out, I admit it freely.

Tonight, I dropped her off at a local hole-in-the-wall mechanic's shop. I asked if he could look at it tomorrow, and fix it with HeliCoil, or whatever professional version of that they use. I also left him my flex disc, the tune-up components, and the shop manual (just in case).

I know I could figure out the HeliCoil process, but I am short on time, and I need it done RIGHT, and right NOW. For some reason, doing the flex disc scares me. The tune-up components were a cop-out, THAT I’ll admit to also. However, I want a professional with a timing light to get things tweaked “just so”. These are not overly complicated or unique tasks – I should not need to use Giovanni at his $110.00 per hour shop rate. The local boys are $70.00 per hour, and they let me provide my own parts.

This could be the beginning of a beautiful relationship...

...as long as they don’t fuck it up.