What are you doing today?

[phat46]

I poured Concrete yesterday and today. For some reason it's not as easy as it was 30 years ago, or even 10 years ago.

Nothings as easy as it was 10 years ago...well maybe napping, yeah napping is easier.

[38HAULR]

Final stages of prepping a 66 Mustang Convertible for our club permit registration scheme that I imported from the States in Jan 2014 .
This had come in with brand new fuel tank and sender unit fitted. However now filling with more fuel for road testing the gauge shows "empty". Yesterday I pulled the gauge wire from the sender and momentarily grounded it and found the dash gauge rising ok.   The sender and tank is earthed ok.  Measured the sender terminal at 73 ohms which from memory on Ford units is close to "empty".  Looks like the new sender is stuck down or the float has a hole and sunk or some other fault.  I am in typing this whilst I   "dry out" after being soaked in gasoline when the funnel slipped away from the drain plug  whilst I drained 40 litres of fuel into  two of our jerry cans today. :oops:  :oops:  :oops: .  I will now venture out and check if the floor is dry after the water wash down to remove the sender and have a "squizz"  [look]  for the problem. It is 1.30 PM Sunday here as I post

[enjenjo]

We have all the drywall done on Josh's house, first coat of compound on it. Subfloor in one more room, and we can start on paint and floor covering. It should be done by the end of the month.

[Carps]

they say it doesnt rain but it pours, so today I went shopping for a new washing machine after the old one melted its control panel.

And of course I also have to buy a new fridge, coz that decided to take a vacation with the washer.

Dunno if I should just get a new dryer while I'm at it, coz I figure it's probably going to follow it's mates to whitegoods heaven.

One day I may get time to work on my cars.

[chimp koose]

Celebrated my youngest child's 19th birthday today. Where did all that time go ?

[38HAULR]

I should have re posted after the previous post on the tank sender. What I found left me  totally bamboozled .Shiny  New Tank.  New Sender . New Filler pipe.  Who ever replaced all this ,used a nearly 50yo corroded brass float .               .

[enjenjo]

New project, 351 W to rebuild. All the machine work is done, just needs assembled.

[39deluxe]

Mowed the yard today without being threatened. Got a new Simplicity toy with 26 horsepower and adjustable coil overs on all 4 corners. You would think that after 25 years my lawn would forget it used to be a corn field. The old no suspension John Deere was just to much bouncing and back and neck jarring for me to take anymore.

I started to organize the shop too. Getting ready to retire just after new years.

Tom

[enjenjo]

I finished up the 351W today. It's a reverse rotation boat motor, yes I have the right cam, and the right seals.  It's on the stand, primed for him to paint.

[chimp koose]

That 351 would have a different oil pump too ? just wondering.

[Arnold]

I finished up the 351W today. It's a reverse rotation boat motor, yes I have the right cam, and the right seals.  It's on the stand, primed for him to paint.

 I've heard,read ..that those 351 W's that were in the last years..in the F350 4x4's were pretty strong. I have toyed with the idea now and again of one of those with a 4sp.

[Carps]

Today I was planning to call my good friend Mike and wish him happy birthday, instead, I will mourn his passing.  

Even though few of you may have met him, I'm sure you know my friend Mike Keehn of St Louis Missouri, USA.  He was the kind of bloke we Aussies call a true blue great mate.







Mike is the guy who owns the green '41 Chevy that features in many of my US road trip photo essays.







Mike was a talented artist and It's still got me buggered how he could look at a fallen tree branch and see a four legged critter from Africa.  But that's what artistic people do and Mike was up there with the best of them and here is that hunk of tree after Mike finished a little knife work and added a few daubs of paint.  Yep, it is all one piece of tree except the ears, which were carved from another bit of the same tree and glued in place.  Look close enough and you'll see the fourth leg.





The photos are pretty crappy but it's easy to see the level of Mike's talent with oils and/or watercolours.  He painted all kinds of stuff from landscapes to aeroplanes and all his friend's cars.  He also painted many of his friend's cars for real, with a spray gun and airbrush.







Mike's custom pool cue-sticks are incredible.  Each different colour and line you can see in the handles is a whole different bit of wood, cut and glued together in a block, before before being turned down on a wood lathe to become a cue-stick..  Each one took weeks sometimes months, to finish and they are all unique.





Mike didn't like to see stuff unfinished, and that's another thing he's to be admired for.  despite the fact that he' was diagnosed with Pancreatic Cancer  after he fell ill at the 2014 NSRA Nat's just a few days before my wife Ann was similarly diagnosed, he was determined to finish everything he had underway and he even started (and finisheda few new projects, just because they were on his to do list.  

Here's an example of Mikes handiwork, with discarded parts that nobody else could be bothered with.



Considering all these parts would most likely have ended up in landfill, it's a pretty cool little hot rod.



The paint is all leftovers from other jobs the black being a mix of leftovers from three cars that are all different shades.

And then, there's 'Trackenstien' Mike's track style roadster built the same way as the monster  after which it;s named, from leftover bits that nobody wanted or will miss.  The chassis is of unknown origin and most of the 'sheet metal' is just the bits that were cut from other people's projects as they replaced that metal with new or better stuff.  Total cost for the lot?  Zip!  all Mike had to do was drag it home.



It looks a bit dodgy here but last time I was in St Louis many of the panels had been trimmed and melted together properly, with new metal filler strips formed to help make it all one piece.



Mike's motivation was to prove you could build a halfway decent car from the stuff everybody else chucks out and if you did the work yourself it could be done without spending a red cent on anything more than consumables.  He even using leftover paints and body filler to make it smooth and shiny.  It's not the first time he's built a car this way, but it will be the last.

I'm going to miss travelling to the Nat's with my buddy and I'm also going to miss our long distance telephone conversations to catch up on St Louis news and progress of whatever he was working on at the time.

Despite his illness, Mike managed to get Trackenstien finished, although it won't be licensed for street use, I will be smiling widely and remembering my good friend as I'm driving his work of art around the fairgrounds at Louisville this summer.



I guess the one consolation is that I did get to speak to him only a few hours before it was time to depart and we were both looking forward to my pending visit come August.  The NSRA Nat's road trip will never be the same.

[34ford]

What a great tribute Carps. Sorry for you loss of a dear friend.

[rooster]

Sorry to hear this

[chris spokes]

sorry for your loss of a good mate carps
R.I.P Mike