And don't call me Ishmael, either
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And don't call me Ishmael, either |
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The end was near, however. Sometime in early 1992, I decided to replace the oil pan on this car. The old one had been severely dented by the previous owner. I swear! It would only hold 4-1/2 quarts of oil. But sometime during the operation, I forgot to fix the take-up on the oil pump. It didn't take real long for that baby to start knockin. I parked in the yard sometime in April, and against everyone else's advice commenced to rebuild it. I'd read about rebuilding cars and seen pictures, but never done it. And really! how often does this opportunity present itself? It was a 3 month ordeal. Here's a picture of my crack team of surgeons on a short break. |
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I honestly don't remember putting the sign up, but I'm glad someone did. Of course, my Dad was a great help
and Mom pitched in by keeping us fed. As I recall, this was a Saturday. Bright and early off to the rental place
to rent a hoist, drop the block and the tranny in, back to the rental place, and then begin the job of bolting all
the other stuff in. This must have been the initial pre-assembly beer. That's JJ on the left, me in the blue, and
Ed on the right. My "attorneys". I think one of them had some kind of appointment later that day, so we didn't
quite finish the job. But you can bet I was at it until late Sat. night. Fired it up around 11 pm. Oh what a sweet sound.
I'm sure the neighbors appreciated it. Bolted the headers back on Sunday morning. And put the finishing touches and cleanup
into it, too. But the fun wasn't over..noooooo.
Ya see, in most states, you have to keep your license plates current in order to drive your car. And in North Carolina, you have to have a safety inspection (now emissions, too) to get your plates renewed. Both mine had expired. Monday morning, I chance driving to work, and promply request to go get the Whale inspected. My @#$$#@@ supervisor tells me to wait until lunchtime..like all the other yahoos in town. So I was gone for 2 hours. When I got back to work..my time card was missing. This only means one thing, there. You're outta there! Now I know they were trying to get rid of me...imagine being "randomly" picked three times in a row for "random" drug testing. Out of 7 people picked, total...I was the only one that ever passed the damn test. Anyway..that ended my days at United Tool & Stamping. I was mad as hell, until I woke up the next morning and realized I never had to go back to that Hell Hole and work for that "tool" again! And it presented the perfect opportunity for properly "breaking in" the newly rebuilt engine. You have to baby it along for a few miles, change the oil, baby it a bit more, change the oil, and then a long, consistent run at your chosen "break-in" speed. This will end up being the speed the engine will "prefer" to run at. I know it sounds like I'm anthropomorphizing here, but it's true. So I bided my time, built drills for Black & Decker and sent out resumes. And whaddya know? Just in time for the "break-in" run, I have to drive 400 miles to Atlanta for a job interview! Can you imagine? 400 miles of interstate at 70mph, stay the night, interview, and 400 miles back at 70mph. And I was going slow! Then change the oil. I think I then immediately motored up to my attorney's places to show off the ride. The Whale was purring. Well, I got the job in Atlanta. And I've made numerous trips back and forth in the Whale. And, but for one incident involving the starter in Augusta, the trips have been a pleasure. Rain, snow, or the heat of summer, that V-8 purr made quite a companion for my travels. Now I needed to do some serious body work. But I never got that far. |
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