August 02, 2009 - Down to the wire!
We leave for Bonneville in 4 days. Though we haven't even started the engine yet, we always have time for a photo op with a beautiful lady.
I'll apologize in advance for the crapitude of this update. Time is so short I really should be doing other things!
Ed and Carol Bauer stopped by to see how we were doing and drop off the Moon disks we left up in St. Cloud. My picture of Ed was all blurry but he took this swell picture of us. Left to right that's Bob, Tom, and Greg.
The last few weeks have seen lots of activity. We found a fantastic tow vehicle. It's a '94 F350. Greg essentially traded his ST-1100 for it. It began life as a state vehicle in California so it sports the plastic Cop Interior without even a cupholder! Other than some brakes, it just needed a fluids and filters. We need to install a CB and some extra dash-holes so we can power the CB and a GPS and things like that. The only thing it doesn't have is Cruise Control. We'll see how much we miss that in the four days it takes to haul a car to Bonneville and back.
We had a visit from Bill Taylor (that's Bill in the middle), the starter on the short course. We wanted some advice on how to build the head restraint which is a new requirement since the last time we raced. He helped us out and also gave us some advice on what we could do with a hole in the hood since the engine now sticks out a little. And that head restraint has been troublesome. You have to have it just right. Greg carefully adjusted it to get just the right fit.
Tom Fritz and his son also stopped by (and helped cut the hole in the hood). Unfortunately we didn't have a camera with us!!! He did such a great job on the intake manifold. This is the part that connects the plenum to the individual cylinders. THis is beautiful, hand-done work. You have to see it in person to really appreciate it. While there will be pictures here and there of it, I promise a full page devoted to it after we come back from the salt. Greg is in love with this thing.
Greg's been working on the water pump situation. Here's a picture of an early incarnation of it. It looks a bit different than this now but the principle is the same -- two separate electric water pumps -- one for each side of the engine with a crossover in case one fails.
Gary Nelson stopped by and here he's giving Jake a hand with something really important. Gary might be out in the area during Speed Week so we hope he pays us a visit on the salt.
Shoe swung by with the new driveshaft. He also got some extinguishers ready for us.
CT came over and ground off the old tranny mount. He and Greg fabbed a new one.
The new fire suppression system went in and boy did the old one look bad!
The battles with the rust are never ending. Here's a picture of the hitch we use to tow the car around the salt with. This saw VERY light duty and yet it was frozen solid. The front end is all painted black now.
Keith Wynn stopped by a couple of times -- he lives nearby. He kindly brought us a Tach and a Carb for parts. He was out there with us in 2006 and plans to stop by with his Dad this year.
The engine went from bare block to having a cam to having a cam, valves, and a crank. The next thing you know it was painted orange, getting a transmission attached and, hey, it's in the car!!!
Tom made some headers 1, 2 and Greg drilled a hole in the intake because we didn't have any way to get oil into the motor!
Lots of people made lots of sparks:
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Finally, Greg had a chat with his nephew Alex who was particularly interested in the car racing thing!