More Than Just a Poet

Just a few weeks ago I dared predict that when my wife left to visit family over the holidays that I’d have loads of time and energy to commit to my project. Since that time, I’ve been flooded with unexpected demands on my time. Plumbing problems, heating problems, insurance problems, pool problems, and unexpected honey-do expectations, to say nothing about rain storms, cold, and high winds.

As I sit here sapped of energy but needing to post something, I decided to research the accuracy of a quote by poet Robert Burns that I vaguely recalled from my high school Literature class.

                 “The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry”

It described my situation and seemed the appropriate way to begin my post. Like so many things I attempt lately, I become too easily distracted, and while reading the best 150 Burns quotes, I was amazed how little our human frailties have changed since the 1790’s!

In my case he had an even better quote for my Plymouth project, though it better describes highway construction today:

                      “The best laid plans take 40 years to complete.”

Or another reality for those of us brazen enough to make predictions:

                       “There is no such uncertainty as a sure thing.”

Then there is one for the followers of my blog who faithfully log on expecting more progress on my part:

                      “Suspense is worse than disappointment.”

Yet another describes my less-than-precise method of engineering and fabrication…the Burns Hog-Weighing Method:

             “(1) Get a perfectly symmetrical plank and balance it across a sawhorse"             

               (2) Put the hog on one end of the plank.

             (3) Pile rocks on the other end until the plank is again perfectly balanced

               (4) Carefully guess the weight of the rocks.”

If that doesn’t work, just remember this:

“When matters are desperate, we must put on a desperate face.”

While I wasted time reading Burns, I could have routed and terminated a few console wires, but then I decided I might have more energy to work on the car if I eat lunch first. Maybe I’ll get a little more done in the remaining days of 2018…or maybe not. If not, Burns had something to say about year's end too, and in a couple of days we’ll be reminded:

“Should auld acquaintance be forgot,

                         And never brought to mind?

   Should auld acquaintance be forgot,

                        And auld lang syne!”

                              Chorus: 

                             For auld lang syne, my dear,

                             For auld lang syne.

                             We’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet,

                              For auld lang syne.”

As for you, dear readers, I have only one comment about what you claim is my procrastination:

                “Critics! Those cutthroat bandits standing in the path of fame!”

Console Wiring

The console is fastened in place again, and now I’m installing the last fuse and ground terminal strips. To isolate a new fused circuit for the LED lights, I removed one of the larger fuse blocks and replaced it with a smaller 2-fuse block with 1-amp fuses per the instrument manufacturer’s instructions. Two of the other circuits are original ’56 and are breaker protected to 15 amps, while additional added circuits require 5 and 10 amp fuses.

I routed nearly all the wires to and through the console, so the next step is terminating inside the console, but the seat control module wiring could be another headache. The seats used in my Valiant were from a 1999 Sebring and those in the ’56 are from a 2001. I still have the wiring info for my Valiant, but the new module has more and different colored wires. I hope it will be as simple as cross-checking functions to terminals. The important ones are those that control the seat belt locks from the inertia switch. I don’t need the time-delay relays and door activated switches the Sebring used, and the power seats are easy to identify. I’m keeping my fingers crossed!

I’ll have to locate a schematic for the 2001 Sebring convertible, but the Google and Microsoft search engines gives priority to Ford, GM and Toyota, so it’s a tedious search. If anyone has a 2001 wiring manual handy, I’d love to have a scanned copy of the seat wiring pages, or a link to a source online.

It's the Dog, Ray, the DOG!

You are almost right Ray about slacking, but it’s not me, it’s the dog that’s holding up progress! I waste my time trying to teach her some smarts, and that eats into my car building time. All she does is follow me like a shadow, stopping occasionally to scratch an ear or lick her butt. She won’t get out of my way when I’m working and always sticks her nose into whatever I have in front of me, or she hops around on her back legs hoping to look cute enough to talk me into giving her something tasty to chew on. She is far too annoying to look cute!

Gracie took it upon herself to claim the hierarchal position held by Bonnie, my Shar Pei that died this past July. She doesn’t realize that her dumb looks with the underbite, too long nose, bulging eyes, and bad breath can never replace the wrinkled face, graceful style and lady-like dog manners of Bonnie. 

My wife’s Maltese, Cricket, is sweet, photogenic and smart and she favors my wife. Unfortunately, Gracie looks and acts like my side of the family.  I think she picked me because she’s more my style too…untrainable and ugly! She got her name by being so clumsy that she’d fall over just walking along.

She turns three-years-old this month, so I guess its been long enough that I’m stuck with her. Now that she thinks she's my dog, she wants to ride in the car all the time, but I’m embarrassed to take her anywhere with me. People think I should have a big working dog sitting in the seat beside me, and then the break into laughter when they see her sitting in my lap like a damn princess!

Ah well, I’m getting to old to worry about trying to look cool anymore, so I guess I’ll have to put up with the little white monster for a while.

Oh yeah…my car progress. Still working on wiring, but mostly Christmas shopping and fighting with insurance companies.

Update 12-1-18

I took my wife to the airport today, so with her gone for a month I should be able to spend more time on the car, but it's a mixed blessing as I sort of like having her around.

With the weather so nice the past few days, I actually accomplished a few car things, but no pictures to show yet.

Most obvious is the right side fender bolted in place, and roughly adjusted. I misplaced the original body spacers, so had to order more. I imagine I'll find the misplaced parts right after I install the left fender, but I'll wait a while to do that as it's much easier to work in the engine compartment with it off.

Not so obvious is the wiring. As I mentioned several times, it has been a hair-pulling,  confusing mess trying to electrically merge three different vehicles and at the same time upgrade things like lights, charging, and ignition circuits.

I'm finally at the point of routing wires to the console bus and to the back of the car. The more I'm able to install, terminate and tie in bundles, the less time I waste on research.

White Christmas - I Wish I was Back in the Army

With the serious observation of Veterans Day behind, and Christmas not far ahead, I'll post a  scene from my favorite Christmas movie. It sort of reminds me of myself in the mid-late sixties.

I left active duty in May of 1963, before any serious fighting began in Southeast Asia. When the shooting began, I tried to reenlist, but the Air Force recruiters were swamped with draft-avoiding applicants who had no desire to serve in the infantry. With all those eager-beavers hoping to get into Air Force and Navy technical jobs, the AF wasn't taking prior service vets unless they were already qualified in the combat career fields. To top it off,  they weren't even letting those guys retain the rank they held previously. I had been on a tactical  missile combat crew, but my missile was being phased out, so I couldn't even get my old job back.

Since I was married with two kids, there was no way I could afford losing a stripe in any situation. Military pay really sucked in those days, and promotions were very slow. I even considered joining the Army, but would have had to start all over by going through basic training again as a private E-2! Despite being on the AF recruiter's list in two states, it was 1972 before I was able to reenlist as an Active Reservist, but I retained my old rank. It all worked out well in the long run, and I spent another nineteen years having a job I loved.

Getting things  around here ready for winter has brought car restoration to a screeching  halt. When I do get a few minutes of my own, I work on wiring hook-up charts, but have hardly picked up a tool recently.

Winter has already arrived with a blast. From hot and rainy a few days ago, to heavy-coat weather the last week. Tonight we are expecting our first snow flakes to arrive, but nothing serious...with the exception of a cold north wind! My remaining tomato plants survived the first freeze when I covered them last week, but I doubt they will make it when the temps hit the low twenties tonight.

It looks like it will be early December before I can get back to the Plymouth, as my wife will be traveling to Las Vegas to spend the holidays with her son and his family. One dog and I will take care of things around here while she's gone, and the dog won't have a list of things she wants done every day! Besides, she only weighs ten pounds, so I'm still her boss.

How High's the Water Mama?

Not five feet high yet, but my entire yard is a few inches deep and it's still raining. The ditches are running like trout streams!

This is the wettest autumn in the Texas record books. With 2-1/2 months to go this year, we are already 11 inches above the average annual rainfall!

Worse than the rain is the wintery temperatures. I've never had to turn on the heat before November, but it's now been on for two weeks. When this latest cold front moved in two weeks ago, it was 16 F in the northwest panhandle, and 98 F in South Texas!

Car-wise, I'm still working on wiring. Seems like every time I install a few wires, I think of a better way to route them, so rework is the order of the day. If I could find better schematics online, it would go faster, but the search engines are so biased, whenever I look for Mopar diagrams the vast majority that come up are Chevy and Ford.

Final Answer!

If you’ve followed earlier posts about my steering wheel quandary, it looks as if I finally made a decision about what I want.

I started lacing the leather steering wheel cover in place a couple days ago, and despite many interruptions and a few frustrations, it is finally done.

The reason for a different steering wheel was partly because the Hollywood style rim was crumbling junk, which meant an expensive repair. The optional horn ring was surprisingly nice, but still needed re-plating, and since it’s pot metal, that too would cost a lot. Also, the splines on the stock Plymouth shaft were not the same as the truck shaft, meaning one of the parts would have to be reworked. More expense.

This is the Hollywood style horn ring:

 

Since I wasn’t especially fond of the chest-crushing point on the Hollywood horn ring, I decided to focus the wheel choice on a later, stock Mopar wheel for a base to build on, and do my best to customize it to look a little more like a possible fifties style.

I decided the stock wheel I removed from my ’73 truck was the best choice. It was the same depth as the one in the Plymouth, and it was the same 17” diameter. The other wheels I had available were smaller and without power steering I needed a larger wheel.This is the way it looked in my truck:

The seventies-style plastic-look didn’t seem right for a ’56 interior that boasted lots of brightwork, so the wheel I designed had to better fit in. The main styling feature I wanted to keep was a stock ’55-’56 center cap from the standard equipment wheel. As mentioned in a previous post, I did that using a road wheel aftermarket cap that I cut to fit. Since I also wanted a large expanse of chrome, I made sheet metal pieces to fit between the spokes, and after seeing them plated, I’m pleased to see them look so nice.

This is what I ended up with, and I think it fits in quite well with the modified Fury interior:

If I had used an aftermarket steering column and wheel, or restored the stock parts, the bill would have likely been well over $3,000. Using all Chrysler parts from my collection and mostly my own labor, the bill came to less than $500, including plating and leather cover!

Steering Wheel Status

The chrome shop delivered my horn-bar parts at 0900 this morning, and they did the usual beautiful job of plating. I can't say enough good things about the way they treat their customers.

 I epoxied the mounting hardware in place on the back of the chromed parts, so they will be dry by tomorrow morning and I can fit check everything.

When the mail arrived, I was surprised to find the leather wheel cover in the mail box, especially after the Monday holiday, so it took only two working days from California to my door! I now have all the parts I need to complete the steering wheel, so I got anxious and started lacing the cover in place. It's a slow process, and brutal on the fingers that I use to pull the lace tight, so I'm not sure when I will be done. I'll hold off taking pictures of the wheel until it's complete.

Wiring continues to be frustrating. I'm more than a little bit unsure about the column-mounted ignition switch in the '73-'76 truck column I'm using. I just noticed that the pigtail wire that carries power to the windshield wiper motor is AWG 14 on the hard-wired ignition switch, but the '56 body wiring diagram shows a 10 gauge for that circuit. Sounds like melted wires waiting to happen. The stock truck wiring was not well designed, and melted wires inside the column and fried switches were far too common, so I might have to reroute or add some new circuits and pick up the wiper power from a different source.

The wiring issues are quickly becoming my least favorite part of the project!

Shock and Awe!

More than once I've decided against a part or a modification because of price, but the price I was quoted by Dallas Steering Wheel to install a leather wrap on my steering wheel about put me into cardiac arrest! Their website ads show several European Super Cars, and I suppose I should have expected that those were the target customers for their products. Whatever, their prices are way out of my league.

The shock: They wanted $500 plus tax and shipping for two-tone leather and 1/8" padding. That's $475 more than what it cost for me to wrap the one on my truck. So, I decided to also do this one myself using a Wheel Skins single-color wrap over the 1/8" padding I had left over from when I installed the generic leather cover on my '73 D100. The high quality, custom made leather cover I'll use this time will be around $60 plus shipping. Not quite as pretty as the two-tone would have been, but for ten percent of the cost, it will do just fine!

I got started installing the padding yesterday, and the cover should be here in about a week.

The awe: I took the homemade horn bar parts to the plating shop in Gainesville, Texas yesterday. They quoted about $150 to plate the two parts, and a three-week wait, so I'll be getting back to wire routing for a while. Then, this morning they called and said they had squeezed them in between bigger jobs, and that I can pick them up this afternoon!

I'll go after them sometime tomorrow, and maybe I can have some pictures to post if I can get them mounted on the wheel.

The guy I dealt with at the chrome shop was interesting to visit with. He's eighty-one years old and works as a consultant two days a week after a lifelong career in the plating business. Four years older than me, and still working, while I've been retired for twenty-one years!

What made him interesting was his hobby as a top-fuel and funny car owner-driver for many years from the late fifties until the mid-eighties. It's interesting to hear the stories from the heyday of drag racing. He said he left when it was no longer a sport between friends.

Catching Up One More Time

Now, where was I when the demands of daily life interrupted my old-car playtime?

Ahh, yes…several things. First, a four-day visit by daughter and her family from Washington state. They felt right at home as we received a record September rainfall total. Other things included the better part of a day installing security cameras and hanging pictures in granddaughter’s new rental house, building shelves in wife’s art studio, lawn cutting, weeding and trimming between downpours, repairing plumbing, repairing lawn equipment, and a dozen other unexpected honey-do’s helped put a crimp in my car-related plans.

Computer problems also returned. Everything in my browser locked up and it took half a day to figure out how to unlock it. It wasn't hacked, it just lost all the settings and I had to reset everything, including every password!

The rains have made this part of Texas the greenest I’ve ever seen it at this time of year. Of course, that means mowing my acre and a half every five days. More work, but I love the  fresh look, and watering grass and shrubs in this clay soil is expensive. Some flowers that normally bloom in spring are even making a second appearance!

Yesterday, I managed to fabricate the remaining custom parts needed for the steering wheel, but the epoxy adhesive I used to bond parts inside the center cap apparently didn’t like the damp weather, and never set up properly. I’ll have to find a product that tolerates high humidity better or wait for the air to dry out before bonding metal to metal.

At least the horn rim parts that will be chrome plated only need final tweaking and polishing before I take them to the plating shop.

Then it’s back to wiring the interior, since I now have connectors and terminal lugs to finish the steering column bundle. I hope other demands for my time don’t pull me away from the car again, until I at least reach the point that I can install the dash and console.

While I'm at it, there was a Facebook question about the location of a body part on a '56 Plymouth. I took a picture of my installation on posted it there. If you don't visit Facebook, here's the picture of the rub strip that protects the quarter panel window frame.

Finally, here are some photos that Geir Broen sent me of his Plymouth projects in Norway. His clean '56 Savoy is in storage for the winter, and he's working on the '55 station wagon body while the chassis is also in storage. The engine for the '55 is a 241 Hemi from a '54 Dodge.

As usual, body mounts are badly rusted, so he had to make replacements for the rear. I'm really impressed by the quality of the fabricated parts!

Steering Wheel Mockup

It’s been an interesting wait for parts and materials to arrive. Since I couldn’t do much with the wiring until I got parts, I took off in a completely different direction.

For literally years I’ve been trying to decide what style steering wheel I wanted. I didn’t really like any of the aftermarket designs, as they don’t look right on a ’56 Plymouth, but after I changed the original plan to use an aftermarket Ididit steering column in favor of a 70s Dodge truck part, there were suddenly many different stock wheels to choose from, but despite a wider selection, none of the stock wheel looked like it might have been a factory product in fifties.

A couple of the smaller diameter OEM wheels might have looked good enough, but with manual steering, I decided that one  a 17” rim was almost a necessity. While waiting and procrastinating, I suddenly visualized what I wanted, and I’m glad to say that it’s based on the stock ’73 part from my own truck when I replaced it with one from a ’76 Cordoba!

So, for much of the last three days, I’ve been designing parts to make modifications using the OEM center cap with the Plymouth ship logo that came from the Fury parts car and a horn switch from a Volare wheel.

To make the horn bar design appear more period-correct, it had to be bright to match the dash and interior trim, so I started with a stainless-steel center cap from a big truck road wheel and cut it to fit.   Horn bars are made from 18ga sheet metal that will be chrome plated to match the center cap. Not sure if I will need to add anything to make it look more stock. I'll decide that after the rim is leather wrapped to match the upholstery.

I know the description is confusing, but here’s one photo that shows some of the basic parts loosely assembled. 

Meanwhile, I received the new fuel pump for my truck from Rockauto, and got it installed. Like everything else, it took three times as long as it would have when I was younger and more agile, but at least it’s in, and the engine fired immediately. One other good thing that was discovered was that when I removed the filter, the short rubber hose that attached it to the tank line was badly deteriorated and would have soon sprung a leak. It’s funny that the piece between the filter and the carburetor line was like new, yet they both came with the filter and were installed at the same time.

Last, but definitely not least! Geir, the knob you sent arrived on Saturday and it’s mounted, so here’s a poor photo of the completed tach panel.

Thank you so much for your generous help, and if I have any parts you might need for your project, just let me know and it’s yours!

Waiting Again

Once again, I’m awed by the number of things it takes to essentially build a car from scratch. With temperatures remaining near the 100*F mark again, my days in the shop are short, so instead of attacking bigger and more visible jobs, I’m taking care of many little things that have been put off at various points. There are wire bundles to re-tie, screws to install or replace, paint to touch up, clamps to install, etc.

My recent effort was to finish all the under-dash wiring. By the time I was 90% complete, I found myself with a tangled and ugly mess in the area above the steering column. Too many individual crimped-disconnects to keep the bundle looking neat, so I decided to stop and replace the disconnects with a couple of multi-pin connectors to terminate wires from the steering column outward.

I first tried to locate mating connectors from my stock of salvaged parts from other cars, but nothing really worked out well, so I ordered a set of Delphi Weather Pack connectors that use the same contacts and tooling as the new bulkhead connector. They won’t arrive until next week, but I think the wait will be worth it.

The wait for parts will give me time to revise and update my hookup block diagrams in the cool of the house. Once again, I’m having to make wiring changes to accommodate integration of stock OEM switches, additional new equipment, and modernized circuits.

And just to add annoyance to my life, my truck decided it didn’t want to start. I was going to back it out of the garage so the door will open far enough for me to crawl behind the dash to verify some color code differences in the main bundle. My truck is a ’73, while the column I transplanted into the Plymouth is from a ’77 or ’78. The new ignition switch I installed is common to both columns, but is wired differently and I can’t check the differences until I pull the truck far enough out of the garage to see the connections.

In this hot Texas weather, if a car sits more than a day or two, all the fuel in the carb evaporates and the engine must crank until the carb is pumped full. The truck has been sitting for about two weeks, so I didn’t think too much about it not starting immediately, but I finally realized that apparently no fuel was getting to the carb. A shot of starter fluid made it fire off to verify the ignition is fine, so now I have to pull the fuel line to see if it’s pumping. To do that, I have to move some junk from in front of the truck so I can crawl into the engine bay to reach the lines. Everything I've done lately seems dependent upon doing something else first!

Even though the fuel pump was replaced when I rebuilt the engine about 2,000 miles ago, I’m guessing it died. It came from Rockauto, so is probably another quality part from China.

Console Switch Mods

Console wiring took a back seat to a need to design a different way to mount the HVAC switches. Originally, I mounted them directly on the front plate with the aluminum trim in place. When I tried to wire the switches, I found it difficult to see the wired terminals, so I decided to mount the switches on a smaller bracket that could be removed from the console for better access and visibility.  I threw together a quick mockup and it works fine. In fact, it works well enough that I’m not going to make a neater permanent bracket. It won’t be visible when the trim is installed, so why waste time making it pretty when it functions perfectly well as is.

 I finished wiring the switches in place and installed a few other wires that route to the console bus.  I also ordered a bussed terminal strip to use as a central ground point under the dash, and it should be here late this week.

While I wait for that I’ll make a few wiring changes in the dash bundles before the dash is installed. I expected a need to revise some circuits as I got deeper into the merging ’56 and ’66 parts with the truck steering column wiring, and it was a good guess.

FWIW, I still need another knob like the ones shown in the last photo. If anyone has one they can spare, please let me know. It can have any engraved legend, as I will fill the engraving with Muggyweld before having them re-chromed.

It Must be Raindrops!

Rain at last! 

I had begun to think we had seriously angered the rain gods. There have been several heavy rains within a few miles of us in the past two weeks, but we received nothing more than sprinkles until yesterday. Yesterday morning I found 1.35 in the rain gauge, and over last night, another 1.40 fell. Then it started again this morning and so far, we added another 1.25 to the total. We could use another inch or two before it quits, but I'm very happy with what we got! The three-inch wide cracks in the clay soil should close for the season and I can probably stop hauling hoses around  to water shrubs every few days.

Before the rains began, the temperatures were in triple digits again, so a couple hours a day working on the car was all the air conditioner and I could handle. I'm still routing and terminating under-dash wiring, and it’s still a slow process as I have to create hook-up information as it happens, so I can keep track of the configuration for future reference. I'm nearing the point where I can permanently install the console frame, and soon after that, the dashboard can go in. Hooray!

With luck, the weather should moderate soon, as the nights are getting cooler and longer and I can open the garage doors in the morning to cool it off. Now if I can just pump up my enthusiasm a few notches! Seeing the interior come together should help that problem a bunch.

Interior Wiring Progress

The weather has cooled somewhat. Today it was 95 compared to 105 last week, so I’m slowly easing back into harness. My little window air conditioner keeps the garage comfortable until mid-afternoon, so I’ve been able to spend a few hours on the wiring. 

I’ve moved to the interior and now have the bundle to the firewall connector mostly terminated. Most of the wires left to install are those coming from the switches after the dash is mounted, and I'm nearly done with terminating those already attached to the dash side.

It looks like a rat's nest now, but it will look better once I start forming and tying the mess into neat(er) bundles.

Next  priority will be the A/C controls  and console wiring.

Nature's Revenge

Nature’s revenge for a mild spring has been over a week of 100F -plus heat. Not that it’s uncommon in North Texas to have stretches of temps over 100, but the last two weeks of June were drier in our immediate area, and July so far has had spotty precipitation. It was about ten years ago that it was over 100 for 45 consecutive days, and we are still far from that this current year. Not time to complain too much yet!

Despite having a lawn irrigation system, it’s been dry and hot enough to require watering shrubs. Mine are four years old, but still need supplemental watering, so I’ve been dragging hoses around for the better part of three days. Oh, well, I’m the one who decided to buy a treeless lot and create a place that looks like it was landscaped decades ago.

The A/C in my workshop cools fine when temps are in the 90’s, but works too hard when it gets hotter, so I’ve chosen to stay in the house when I’m not watering. Next week the afternoon temps are forecast to drop 8-10 degrees, so I should be able to work on the car then.

I have been working on interior hookup details for a few hours while I’m stuck in the house, but now I need to spend time inside the car verifying my plans before I transfer the info into a MS Publisher drafted format.

The lousy television programming  today has convinced me to watch more old movies, and I'm amazed at how may cars were provided by Chrysler Corporation. A black and white movie...with a quickly forgotten title...starring Jeff Chandler as a county sheriff featured lots of '56 Mopars. His patrol car was a '56 Belvedere that was a little upscale for a cop car, and the main bad guy drove a '56 New Yorker station wagon, so Chrysler didn't go cheap cars on the cars they provided. A '56 Dodge pickup, '56 Dodge wagon and a '56 Imperial were others that showed up in several scenes.

Speaking of other '56 cars, this one-of-none Minnesota-licensed Fury convertible was interesting. While I yearned for a set of "cruiser skirts" for my '53 Plymouth in about 1958, I don't like them on a '56. I don't mean to criticize the owner's choice, and they do accurately portray the era, but my mind has changed over the years. The stock lines are too graceful to deviate much. I know some will think the same about mine, so I guess I shouldn't judge.

Life

Probably not a subject for a car blog, but I guess I need time and a place to just talk a little about life.

A week ago, my oldest granddaughter and her husband became first-time parents of a healthy baby girl…our first great-grandchild. It made me feel even older than I normally do, but it also made me thankful and proud. Another generation for her parents and grandparents to love and nurture…a generation destined to take my generation’s place in the family structure. Sadly, most of my family lives over two-thousand miles away, so it will be some time before I get to see more of her than pictures.

Then comes the kick in the gut to make you remember the other side of life…the end.

It seems when a new life arrives, nature demands balance. First, my granddaughter lost her little dog only a couple of weeks before he could meet their new baby, and now, our fourteen-year-old Shar Pei...my dog by her choice...is gone.

A few days ago, she staggered into my office in obvious distress. She had almost no control of her back legs and she was hurting. A quick trip to the vet, several X-rays,and nearly four hundred dollars later, we learned that arthritic bones in her spine had bridging that aggravated her spinal cord. They could treat, but not fix, so we came back home with three different medications and the vet’s assurance she would improve. 

She spent a restless night on the floor by my bed, and by morning she could only stagger around in confusion and her right side appeared partially paralyzed. We called the vet and said that since she was in obvious pain, wasn't eating or drinking, and was spitting out the medications, we thought that maybe it was time for her to go and asked if they could come here so she could die at home without the cold stainless steel of an examining room table under her, and scary smells around her. The answer? “Sorry, we’re awfully busy and can’t come until tomorrow”. 

My wife asked if one of the vets could stop by after their office closed, but they said no. Now, I certainly understand not wanting to inconvenience other patients, and even to work after the whistle blows, but if not for one house across the street, I could see their hospital about a half-mile away from here. I guess animal pain isn’t a good enough reason for one of their three vets to take a few minutes on the way home to stick a needle in a suffering pet.

The next night she was much worse, and I spent the entire night on the floor beside her. As long as I was touching and petting her, she was mostly calm. Then, in the middle of the night, she had an episode that had her groaning and wailing in pain. All I could do was hold her. I couldn’t ease her pain, and I couldn’t bring myself to shoot her. All I could do was cry like a baby and curse the vet who couldn’t spare a minute. 

After an hour, she relaxed, and I thought she was gone, but instead, she seemed to have passed out.

When morning came, she was still not moving, but she was breathing.  When she awoke, she appeared slightly improved, and staggered around the house looking confused. 

A different vet came at 8, and after seeing her said she could probably still recover, but that she could, and likely would have another episode that could be days, weeks, or months away. He asked if we still wanted to euthanize her. That was a horrible decision to have to make.

She had gone deaf in the last year, and had cataracts that had already limited her vision and were getting noticeably bigger. Her hips were arthritic, and she had difficulty jumping down from the bed where she had slept by my feet since she was a puppy. Her mind and her disposition were as sweet and loving as always, but she had been getting old very quickly.  With torn hearts we told him to go ahead, even though there was hope we might be able to keep her a little longer.

As if I was being punished for that decision, as I was driving her to the pet crematorium, my van had a blowout in a highway construction area and I couldn’t get off the road for nearly a quarter mile. By then the tire was shredded. AAA road service quoted an hour and a half, so I braved the 100-degree temp and wrangled the donut from under the belly of the van and did it myself. I was filthy, stinky and disheveled by the time I got there, but I didn’t really give a damn.  

So, that’s a long, unwanted explanation of why I have nothing to report about my project. I haven’t been in the mood to do anything. I question our decision and wonder if it was merciful, callous, or selfish. I don’t know that I will ever accept that we made the right decision. She’s no longer in pain, but ours is worse...at least for now.

The house feels empty and everything I try to do is missing something important. I didn’t realize what a huge part of my life that old dog had become.  Bonnie was a good dog.

                                                                      About one year old                                                             

                                             

                                                                           A few days ago

A Peaceful Alternative to Deafening Fireworks

Underhood Wiring Done!

All the underhood wiring is complete unless I run into something that needs to be repaired or modified, or if I decide to add another circuit. It was a slow process, but I'm pleased with the results so far.

I also got a start on the interior wiring. I'm laying out the wire bundle routing and making hook-up charts and plug maps. Most of this part of the wiring should be a bit easier, but then I've said that before and regretted it!

This phase will require installing the console and dashboard, so I'll have some design problems to resolve during installation. I've been putting that part off until I was confident the basic structure would work out, and I think it will with minor tweaks.

Got a few photos, but had the usual camera issues.

Glacier Speed!

I keep thinking that I will be able to work on the car if I just finish one more thing for my wife, but she always seems to find more projects to replace what I finish.

Last week it was storage shelves in her studio for hundreds of bottles of resin colors and inks. She also ordered two unassembled drawer cabinets and asked for more lights in her work area, so those things got done, but little was accomplished in my car wiring. Add 100*F heat and the weekly yard work, and...well, you get the idea.

I did get a couple more small bundles routed and I actually began terminating wires at the bulkhead connector, though you can't really tell much from the pictures. The horns finally arrived, so I got them installed. Won't be long before I can install the fenders!

Good intentions are cheap, but I seriously intend to accomplish more next week! 

So What's New?

I received the following message from BlogSpot this morning. At the time of this posting, I don't see a BlogSpot notice posted on my page, nor do I know anything more than what it says in the message.

I don't intend to do  more than  post this, so if my blog disappears you will know that I some way violated their rules and that I don't intend to do anything more to placate them. I'm sure all of my readers already know that Google, all world governments, millions of hackers, and every spammer on the planet, have already learned everything there is to know about us, so what's new?


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Quarterly Bitch Session

Anybody love DHL as much as I do? 

It’s a miracle any service based company can survive in an age when survival is so dependent on good service. 

On may 14^th, I ordered new horns for the Plymouth from good old reliable Rockauto. As usual, they filled the order within hours and I got an email saying it was shipped. The following day DHL notified me that it was on the way from Illinois. Taking it's time, the order arrived in their Grand Prairie, TX warehouse on the 18^th and has been sitting there since that time, with no further communication as to status. 

When ordered, the standard shipping information stated that it would arrive no later than the 23^rd, but as of this morning it still sits gathering cobwebs thirty miles from my house. A call to DHL gets an answering machine saying to contact the sender if I have a problem.

It’s not that the order is critical for me to proceed, but they are the last parts I need to finish installing wiring forward of the radiator and I’ve been holding off so I can wire the bulkhead connector before moving on to the next step. I had a similar DHL problem with an order last year when it took ten days to arrive from Georgia.

Another thought with mixed emotions on this day is that fifty-nine years ago I was a seventeen-year-old kid raising my right hand and swearing an oath to defend my country from all enemies, foreign and domestic. Before I took off my uniform, I had sworn it five more times. From starry-eyed kid to tired and cynical old Master Sergeant in twenty-three years of service. Starry-eyed kid..back row, on the left in 1960.

I’m proud of my service, but disappointed that I, and others who swore that oath, were unsuccessful in keeping our promise. Though no foreign troops have landed on our soil, we have been unable to keep those who would subvert our constitution from gaining power. No, that’s not a one-sided slam at any political party, it covers the political spectrum. 

Everyone who chooses to partake in American government does so only after taking a similar oath to the one we made when we enlisted in the military. Most who served in uniform still proudly honor that oath, but it’s sad to say that too many who chose civilian service ignore duty and honor in favor of personal wealth and power. They ignore our wonderfully crafted constitution whenever it suits their desires as long as the party is served, and their bank accounts grow. Their efforts are focused on those two goals, and their success is assured by convincing ignorant people with voting rights to ignore the past and to replace it with continued ignorance and belief in a lie about the future. To hell with the constitution as long as I get what suits me.

Oh, well...bitch session off.

P.S.....Just returned from the post office. As I was mailing some boxes, I heard a customer complain about DHL to one of the clerks. The clerk said they are horrible about delivering packages regularly and that minutes before they had dumped off two big boxes of packages, some of which they had been holding for two weeks! Prior to that, I had contacted Rockauto to complain about DHL, but the answer I got was that I had to wait until May 30th before the sender could get involved. 
If the two-week comment was correct, my parts are probably in one of the boxes, but since my mail was already delivered today, I guess I won't know until tomorrow.