Fishing and stuff.

Sick today, ugh. Don't know how I got a cold in the middle of the summer? Who knows? Usually it is my sinuses, I constantly battle them. Pollen in spring, weeds in summer, dry air in winter. Never bothered me as a kid, I hope they stop bothering me again.

But this gives me a chance to blog, something I haven't done in a while. A brief look at what I normally blog about. The Chevette, runs great, exhaust still isn't on it, and there is a loss of prime at the fuel pump, so you have to prime it every time. Other than that the engine is good to ok. The master cylinder is shot though, so it needs that replaced. I've taken a break from it, so it is parked awaiting a more motivated time to arrive.

The VW, well it is leaking coolant out of either 1. The water outlet elbow or 2. The head itself. It started losing power, so I think the head maybe screwed, but it still runs great so not sure if it is the head as it has power in low. We wiped out the exhaust the other day and had a new piece of pipe welded on. Other than it's normal problems it is doing all right besides overheating. But I can't see spending any more time and money on it, the wife works 45 minutes away, I go to school about 45 minutes away in the opposite direction, so we need mileage and reliability. So we maybe looking at new cars soon.

The Nova, plug 3 and 4 are giving me problems, with my headers I can't run any kind of plug boot but short wells. And they fall off or burn through. Besides that she is a dream, whoever designed the headers is an idiot.

I did a quick tape up job on them for now. Going to look for plugs that may work, but 45 and 90 degrees are out, so are straight boots. So maybe something short with a heat shield?



Well away from mechanic work, I've been busy hunting and fishing.





So been fishing, lot of fishing. Kind of wish I would have got that trout fee, I've caught two of them. Lots of bass, and other pan fish like blue gill and perch I've caught, so many I've sharpened my fillet knife a million times. I've got a few, very few channel cat, I hate cleaning them so that’s ok with me.










Been fishing in several lakes, and on the Mississippi river. Had some hot spots, and then they go cold. But I've been taking quite a few fish; I have about 15-20 pounds of frozen fillets in my freezer. The wife is going to make poor man lobster, and fry up the rest with the pan fish. Should be a good time, a few beers, fried fish, and maybe family and friends . . . whenever we get around to having it.











Also done some hunting, thanks to year round pest/rodent/varmint hunting to protect your fields and crops. I've been protecting fields. I've took four rabbits this year on three ten minute trips.







First of all if you’re going to tell me I can't eat rabbit this time of year your wrong. I've heard you can't eat them in the summer they have worms, I've heard you can't eat them in the winter they have worms. So evidently you just can't eat rabbit. I've always eaten them year round. If you cook them properly they are fine, and tasty.






Besides know what else has worms year round? Pork.

South they take them in the spring and summer and won't take them in the winter, head north and it's vice a versa. I've eaten them both times and never once have gotten sick. But I carefully clean and the wife carefully cooks them.



That being said, my wife makes a mean rabbit salad. I'm looking forward to it again. The trick is to clean them well, soak in salt water for a day, freeze them, then thaw and cook to at least 180 degrees internally. That kills anything.
I almost have enough fur to make me a set of rabbit mittens. The good kind with fur inside and out. Well maybe, unless my determined dogs ever get the furs first.

So other than that, we've been cleaning our house and yard. Mower is giving me fits, may tear it down and get some pictures. Been lacking on taking pictures lately, just doing the work and then when I want to blog I wish I had pictures. Oh well I can't be perfect all the time.

Chevette Rescue Part 1.5

So worked on the chevette, fired her up, dropped the old radiator in and put some water in it. Engine ran strong, but the water pump spits out water like anorexic duck. So I ran her until she warmed up adding water, watching the timing belt and fan pulley, didn’t want either to fall off.



She ran strong, good to work that oil through since I just changed it. But the water pump is shot; one will be coming in, on order. Good thing to find out before you get ready to road test her though. Also you get that lovely water spray everywhere, that happened to leave white residue on everything in my garage. But the old one is about off, waiting to be replaced.







I have an exhaust to start piecing together. I haven’t decided what kind of system yet, thrush tubes, turbo muffler, just no stainless steel resonator that will make it sound like a moped though. I don’t care what people think is cool.

But I got the front calipers on, need to bleed them. I got my suspicion that a front brake line is leaking too, I’ll find out when I bleed them if I see any drips. Knowing my luck the worst possible, hard to get to, impossibly bent, line will be leaking.



She sounded strong though, loud of course, there is no exhaust, but the engine ran a lot better than it previously did. Well the dizzy isn’t flopping around so I expected an improvement. I'm sure the new lug made all the difference though.



There is a story to starting her though.

I got her together, good enough for a test fire, and cranked it. The occasional pop, but no fire. Hmmm, come to find out the fuel pump isn’t priming, still it isn’t but I haven’t funneled fuel into it, having to prime it manually at the carb. Figuring that out fuel pump will come later. But for now she is just tossed together to run, the pretting' up come later.



So I put gas in her carb, and still, pop . . . . pop. . . . crank and crank.

Well that sucks.

So the wife got home and I had her turn it over while after I loosened the distributor, after turning the distributor way back past TDC she started and ran like a champ. Then I underwent the major task of tightening the dizzy, which is a pain. So with that clamped down she purred, loud as all get out, but still a loud purr.



When the sticker says 8 degrees before TDC, it means it.

That made me happy. Fuel, spark, and time (besides having to prime the carb) and that car is a go. Now I am onto picking at the brakes, and the coolant system. New water pump is on order; the new radiator is out in the garage awaiting its installation.

Right now the choke is just kind of hanging out, it has no power, but still opens up which is concerning to me. I may end up killing it, it’s electric anyways, and putting a manual choke on. But then I have the whole idle stop floating cam therory goes out the window . . . maybe I’ll leave it and bend it so it starts tighter. No, no, I’ll find the wire; it’s off the oil sending unit, wherever that is. Once I find that though I may kill off the idiot light and run my own tach.

But she lives; right now she is in pieces again, awaiting that water pump. But once I get the water pump and radiator in,I have the exhaust to figure out and then clean up the wires, and put the new tach in, oh yeah and the front brakes bled at least. I may park her for a while and take a break.

So right now I am waiting on some parts, and have lots of things to do, like tach, brake work, still haven’ gotten to the rear end yet. It has new gas shocks and wheel cylinders in line at the very minimum. But once she is together, and all that I have left is cosmetics, I’ll have to shoot a vid of her running.

I do need to start picking up my tools, my entire tool box is all over my garage. Since 80% of the engine work is done I won’t need everything, I can go back to picking and choosing out of the drawers, versus let’s get everything out because I need standard and metric everything.

That’s the update, not a lot new, as the engine is the biggest task, I’m pretty happy with how it is going. I will be happier when she is road ready and I can start gutting the interior and doing some body work though.