Cold, Icy, and Gloomy!

Nothing much to report, but thought I’d check in.

The spring rains began yesterday and we’re now nearing six inches. After temps in the seventies when I got up Monday morning, it’s been dropping steadily so that this morning it’s only 31F and ice is forming, which means I’ll be staying inside today. The forecast for the rest of the week is much the same, so car progress will remain slow. However, I did get one small job done before the cold rains arrived.

My short-term goal is to get the steering column installed so I can begin wiring the firewall connector. Since the column is from a mid-seventies D100 with an automatic shifter, the tube diameter is different than the stock ’56 part, so I had to make a new plate to seal the column where it passes through the firewall. The stock seal was for a column shifter and couldn’t be used, but I was able to salvage the one from the truck and attach it to the sheet metal mounting plate I made. Since the seal is not a bellows design, I’m a little concerned that minor body movements while driving might make the seal bind and create noise. If so, I’ll have to come up with a way for the plate seal to flex, but for now it’s good enough.

At least the pool house/studio/guest room was completed a couple of days before that part of the yard turned into a lake. It’s not fancy, but it seems well built and most importantly, my wife thinks it’s cute! Now she will have to let me know where she wants outlets and lights installed, so I can get an electrician out to hook up power. I’ll frame the tiny bathroom myself, and then get the plumber to do their next part.

The crew that assembled the building said they can lay the bathroom floor tile, insulate, and install drywall. Those are things I had planned to do myself, but with spring yard work coming on soon, I really don’t want to take on any more labor-intensive jobs than I already have on my list. The ten yard pile of hardwood mulch I had delivered last week looks intimidating enough without having to concern myself with construction projects.

As a side note...I was able to verify my whole-house generator is working fine. We lost power this afternoon, and twenty seconds later, the generator started by itself. An hour later power was restored and the generator shut down without even a flicker of the lights! The new setup with dual switches works much nicer than the old configuration that powered only a few critical circuits.