A cathyesque story from cathy

[roccit_53 at scirocco.cs.uoguelph.ca (C Boyko)]

Yeah, well, I'm way overdue for a long story eh? I've been trying to log
some pre-Cincy miles on my new build, the "extensive injector insert swap"
we'll call it. Anyway, it's pretty frankenfabulous (now up to 15 cars in
the engine bay I think?), and I'm test driving the build about as much as
the MSnS that I put in at the same time. So I decided to head North with no
particular wrenching goal in mind. I was actually planning to put some
payback hours into Carrots. Which I guess I did.

So while I was there working on some "tasks of low skill but requiring high
patience levels", Drew offered to install my EGT sensor bung. I don't weld
eh? This SHOULD have been a pretty easy thing, the exhaust manifold has
been off on three occasions this spring, so it should have almost taken
itself off. (and no, there is no turbo in this build, (yet), don't get your
knickers in twist) Well, it came off with some effort, and decided that
after 28 years it had no need of one of the flanges and was happily on its
way to deleting another. Yeah, so here I am three hours from home with a
massive exhaust leak. Perfect!!
 
Luckily Inga had a decent enough one to go back on, once three missing
studs to the downpipe got replaced. "You spin me right round baby, right
round, like a record baby" was playing as the one hole got tapped out.
Timing is everything!  Meantime I'm trying to get someone to water my
greenhouse three hours away. (Plants die eh?) And Drew's busily watching
the last of his long weekend slip by.

Yeah, so of course, we all know that the manifold will slip out better with
the axle out. The car had been leaking grease out of the PS one for a
while, I'd brought a fresh reman with me in case I needed to do it at the
side of the road, which I am well capable of doing. So that went on easily
enough, the EGT got put into the exhasut stream, and eight hours or so
later than planned, I'm finally ready to roll out of the shed. I really
think it was all a plot so I could finish up what Carrots needed me to do,
but anyway...luckily I didn't get my exhaust hot enough to test the
EGT...because...

I got in the car to move it, put it in gear, it will not roll!@! Look for
blocks under the wheel...nope. Typical of Canadian Tire, it's the wrong
axle. It went on fine, but snugging it up precluded that nice "rolling
option" at the hub. Yeah plans are for the weak. I went in for a shower
with the clock ticking, we may have a new record for axle swapping. 24
minutes, that included scrounging through the barn to find a proper axle.
Drew remains MrTechProcedure, never question it!!!! Yeah, I made it home
with little incident, and the car's getting a bit better mileage on MS than
it did with CIS, even on a very rich map. At $1.20 /L, that's a very good
thing.

So make sure you check out "my website", I'll leave the photo album for
this build laying around at Cincy, it's pretty fat! Still not done I;m
sure. Maybe a tech procedure at Cincy, we'll see how brave I am. Yeah,
there'll be a tech procedure. I need a cam... :)
Cathy