Fast Orange

Today I had my weekly time with the LC. Now that I get the damn oil pan off I still had a bunch of the gasket to get off the block. So far I've been able to rewear my trusty green hoodie, but I'm not too sure how long it's going to hold out. I've got that thing so covered in oily dirt it can pretty much hold shape and stay vertical when off of me. It is a bit concerning though, that it took me until today to consider actually using my hoodie.

Fortunately, I'm bald, so with my head covered in grease last week I could just use some Fast Orange to persuade it off. There's a first for me, 'fortunately I'm bald'. Next I'll be talking about the benefits of having a hairy back. I think Fast Orange should market their scent to shampoos and deodorants for hairy chested, busted knuckles, Wrangler-wearing, man men.

Anyhoo, I learned today - use your hoodie. I'm usually a hat guy, but hats won't work when you're on your back with a face shield on, so how about you use your head and cover it with your hoodie so you don't get covered in grease. Genius. I don't know how I'm ever going to be able to finish this project if I'm so impressed with myself for remembering to wear my hoodie.

It was a nice day today, so I was able to open up the garage, which was good, because I have to use my hand held torch to heat up the gasket. You may wonder why it was so difficult to get the gasket off the block. Most of the block was easy to clean up with a scraper, but the block is also half-circled at both ends to allow for the crank on the back end of the block and the water pump (?) on the front. I had to heat up the gasket and by heat up I mean burn, to scrape it off. After 27 years of use and abuse a cork gasket is basically like concrete.

I pulled off the skid plate to allow for a bit more room for frame inspection. I'm glad the thing stayed on with half the bolts having been lost somewhere along the journey to my garage. Three of the five bolts that kept the skid plate from becoming road debris was all that was left. Two of the three snapped off on me, so that'll be some drilling/extracting for me to do when I get to the frame portion of the build.

The wife got out today and helped clean up the oil pan. Thankfully, I've got the kind of wife who is interested in my project and supports it, so I put her to work. By the end of cleaning, she was telling me that I needed to get some toothbrushes, can you believe that! Not only is she allowing me to spend our money on something that will not be nearly worth the amount of money I put in it, but she's wanting me to get her a toothbrush so she can better clean my oil pan. I love my wife!