Garage is almost...

The garage is almost finished. I have about 70% of the ceiling left and 1 wall. The blue is about 1 shade darker than what we expected, but it'll be ok. Julz said you can see it very well from the road, but she didn't like how it looked with the house being beige.

I will get back to work on the car and basement tomorrow also.

Wrapping-up

Well, just wrapping-up for the night and heading to bed. I got the new shocks in. It didn't take long. I brought home a cut-off disc for my air compressor and it made getting the old front shocks out quick. I then mounted the front and rear and dropped the car back to the ground. I plan to do some more painting tomorrow, as well as touch up a few more areas with mud. Then also start working on the remaining 2 wire harnesses.

Quick note

TGIF! Well, I have stalled with the install of my wire harnesses in the car. I've spent the last couple of days touching-up the mud in the garage and priming the walls and ceiling.

I will be borrowing a couple of tools from work for the weekend to work on the car, as I need a cutting disk to remove the front shocks. I received a set of new shocks for X-mas from Bob and Judy! I have the rears out, but the fronts are not. I could not get the nut off the top of the front shocks to drop them out. I tried holding the threaded post with ViceGrips, but it did not work. I'll use a cutting disc to cut them off instead.

I also need to spend some more time in the basement to finish-up the bike shop area. Before I know it the racing season will be here! I'm contemplating doing the 12hr race in Florida again. I won it a couple years back in the SS category, and I finished in the top 10 overall just 1 lap down from Tinker Juarez, and 2-1/2 laps up on 2nd place in SS! It's a nice course for the SS and I was able to do it as a TRUE SOLO by being my own support as well. I just set-up a pit on the side of the course with all my food and drinks pre-made along with lights and a change of shorts. It was by far one of my best races and accomplishments. The race is in Reddick, FL and runs from 10AM-10PM. 2005 12Hrs of Razorback

Sister in Iraq... again!

As most of you know, Tonya had to make yet another return trip to Iraq this month. She has been initially scheduled for a 6 month tour, but we'll hope for an early return!

Below is a pic she sent during deployment flying over on a C130 on 15Jan2007. Hopefully she'll continue sending pics.

This trip is probably one of the most dangerous so far. She's been deployed in Kirkuk at a small medical base that has just 10 beds. I guess it's about 120 miles north of Bagdag. Once they stabilize the person they airlift them out to a larger base. I guess it's basically like the old TV show M*A*S*H. She's been busy non-stop since she's been there. Enough that she was tired enough to sleep through 1 of 3 car bombs the other day! Not good! If anyone would like to send her a "care package" please let me know and I'll send you her address. She said they found barrels of peanut butter, but she wants some Welche's grape/strawberry jelly. Other items are good too, like gum, candy, pictures, letters, etc.

I LOVE YOU SIS! GET HOME SOON!

It looks like a ball of speghetti

Well, I'm half way done with the re-wiring of the Vette. I have 1 easy harness left, the rear lamp assy. The other is the dash harness which will most-likely be the hardest of all 4! It looks like a ball of speghetti in there!

Tonight I plan to do a little bit of painting in the garage and install the rear lamp harness.

I have the engine and forward lamp harnesses in. See pics below for comparison! (Old forward lamp harness, and new forward lamp harness.)

1st snow

Today brought the 1st snowfall at our new home in VA. Julz and Thane played a bit while I snapped some photos. It started snowing around noon. I didn't realize it until I came in for lunch since I was working in the garage.

The garage now has insulated doors and a heater! It'll be a comfortable place to work on the car. For the car, I'm still waiting for the rest of my order to arrive. I only received 1 of the 4 wire harnesses. However, I have plenty of time now since there is salt on the road. I will not be driving it again until the salt is gone.

Blogger update

I have joined Photobucket and can now post videos. My link at the end of August in the post "It's alive" now works. Go check out the 1st start of the engine! I've also posted a video of it running (cold start in the garage) now with the exhaust installed and drivable. It has Hooker Comp Headers with 2-1/2" exhaust and Flowmaster 40 mufflers. Car running

No work, yet a lot of work

No work today due to MLK day. My employer decided to take away one of our 2 floating holidays and make us take MLK day off. Don't quite agree with that at all! Why don't we have a holiday for JFK, or yet the 9/11 incident?! Anyhow, I started painting some of the garage with primer and put some more mud over the crappy job by the builder, Dan Ryan Homes. Please DO NOT BUY FROM THIS BUILDER! YOU WILL REGRET IT! I also drove the vette to a classic car restoration company to get a quick look of their shop and a slight idea of a cost I might expect for body work and paint. I'll be meeting with him again once I get all the paint and primer off the car down to the glass. THen they'll be able to give me a good estimate of cost and time. I'm also continuing to work on the basement and I am nearing the completion of the bike shop area. Yesterday Julz got a good photo of Thane being goofy (see below). He was chasing his dog while playing his harmonica, then I heard him on his horse. I yelled at Julz to go get the camera...it was too funny!

Resto update

Not much to say. Below are a few picks of my heater core replacement. No problems until I was re-installing the bolt on the bottom inner decided to snap off as I was tightening it down! However, it is in tight enough for now. I'll have to remove it again when I replace everything in the dash, like wiring, and I'll fix it then.

Photo Update

Here are a few photos of the car in the garage with a fresh coat of epoxy floor paint. I'm currently prepping the drywall for paint. I hope to have it done this weekend to sand and apply primer.

I'm also working on the basement for a finished play area for Thane and friends, as well as a bike shop area. I also applied the extra epoxy floor paint to the shop floor area.