Before and after

These are the before, taken almost a year ago

These were taken today, 175 pounds









What do ya think?

Violated!

It's finally happened, first time since we moved into this house 22 years ago, I had something stolen. It's really nothing, just three 5 gallon gas cans I used to put oil in, were stolen from in front of my garage. What bothers me is the vandalism that could occur when the young punks that took them could do when they find out they're not gas. Also makes me wonder what else they could try and take from the house. We have a table and chairs that were my brothers on the front porch that I might have to move now for fear of it being stolen. There's also a bunch of yard ornaments in the backyard they could take and if they got bold enough they could start to vandalize the house. I have a couple of suspects I'm going to keep an eye on. Last summer they vandalized the street lights in the neighborhood and one of my neighbors even tried to chase them down when he caught them in the act but was unable to. We have one of Thornton's finest living right across the street but that doesn't seem to be much of a deterrent to these dummy's.

Tomorrows race day, last weekend wasn't a good day for Phast Phat #3 (me), the car was running very well the driver wasn't. The car ran consistent, time trial 1 11.92, time trial 2 11.92 so for first round I put 11.91 on thinking I can just run it all out and still run the number. Then it rained and the conditions went into the trash, it ran 11.99 with me having a bad reaction time and slow to boot. Needless to say I lost pretty easily, to the eventual winner no less but I was still bummed.

Carrie's '68

It's been a long time coming but the car finally made it's car show debut. All through the summer there are car shows all over Denver that some friends and I show up at. Last night was the first one called Gunther Tooties Cruise In, and I heard this is the 32 year of this show. This was my second time there, the last time I had the Mach 1, this time Carrie's '68. I spent the afternoon washing and waxing the car, cleaning the glass and chrome so it would look pretty good. I followed my friend Mike in his '68 to the show and we took the highway where I opened it up and let it run which hasn't been done since the motor was built (3 years ago). The car ran great, no over heating issues, misses, didn't wander all over the road I was very pleased the way it ran. There is only one piece left to put on the body but I don't have the nuts that attach it to the body and I can't find them for sale any where.

Rant alert..........

I bought some fender emblems for the car from what's supposed to be the best remanufacturer there is and they wouldn't fit on the car. The emblem is a running horse, it has 4 prongs on that insert into the fender and they put the prong that's on the tail too far out, it won't go in the hole. All of the other prongs match, just that one is too far out to go in the hole. So I had a Ford made emblem and compaired them and sure enough it's wrong. The Ford piece has the prong in the bend of the tail, the aftermarket one is out in the flat part, about and inch too far away to fit. So the only way to fix it is to clip that prong and attach it with the other three and hope it stays.

'68 Update

The only part left to be put on the car is the trim that goes on the quarter panel and the only reason it's not on now is I don't know it gets bolted to the panel. The carpet has been ordered and is on the way and should get installed next week. I'll take some photos of it when we do the paint detailing here real soon.

My friend Mike went racing yesterday, my car was legal for any of the classes so it stayed home, and he had a bad day. It started with the electric fan not working that turned out to be a bad ground and had it working again but in the process we found a chocolate milk shake. Your wondering what that is, cause it's not the kind you can drink. Well, when you find oil in your radiator the oil floats to the top so when your looking in the filler hole you see what looks like a chocolate shake. This is bad really because it usually means you have a blown head gasket or a cracked block, but it can also mean loose head bolts but not likely. So with all this the car ran SLOW!! The week before it was running 11.91 @115 mph, yesterday it was 12.09 @ 113 mph and for the second run even slower, 12.30 @112 mph, did I say SLOW. Sadly this means the car is going to the shop for some tests to determine what the problem is, should be there tomorrow morning.

I'll be at the track this coming weekend, plan on going up Friday and Saturday at this point, but if Mike's car is broken it'll probably just be Saturday.

It's been a while

I haven't felt like blogging much lately so it's been a while since I last wrote anything. Let's see what's new around here? Well, I sold my '97 F250 so I could buy a '99 F350 Dually Powerstroke diesel to pull my trailer with. I really like this truck, it's big and has no problem pulling my trailer. My goal is to get a car hauler that can hold 2-3 cars and work part time with my friend Mike hauling repo's and dealer cars to the car auction.

The race car saw some action for the first time in a month last Friday, it was disappointingly slow though. I did a test and tune session in March and it was running 11.80's @ 113 mph, but Friday it ran a 12.0 @ 110, 11.91 @ 112 and a 11.94 @111 (in a first round loss no less). The weather was pretty bad, damp cold conditions which really took hold on Saturday and washed out that day's racing. Our next race will be May 8 & 9 and I hope the car's running better by then.

Since my racing was washed out on Saturday, I took the time to work on Carrie's '68 Mustang, the problem has been a noise coming from a weight on the flywheel (flexplate actually), hitting the starter. I had a shim on the starter to space it out but it still hit and made that stupid noise (a lot like a rod knock). So I got to thinking that since this is a late model engine maybe it needed a late model starter. So I borrowed one from my friend Steve, put it in (with the shim too) and yes, no noise now!! It appears the late model starter has a little shorter snout on it to keep the weight from hitting it. So that's done, let's keep going and see what else we can fix. The shifter has needed a new set of bushings to tighten it up so I took that apart and fixed that and also fixed the gear indicator light so now that works too. Call me butter cause I'm on a roll now.

Up next for the '68 is to buy new carpet and get that installed, finish putting the remaining body chrome on it and then it's ready for the Rocky Mountain Mustang Roundup.

My weight loss as continued very well so far, I'm down from 218 in January to 182 this week. I'm going to keep it up and see what weight I end up at.

That's all from around here, sorry for not blogging in a long time.

Time to rant a little

Here's the story: Over the winter a friend of mine sold me his wheels off his race car so I had Discount Tires mount my slicks on them with steel valve stems. Steel valve stems are needed in drag racing, the rules require it. Well, after getting them mounted one of the wheels wouldn't hold air very long and the other would eventually leak out too. So I thought the wheels just couldn't seal well enough and bought some very expensive drag racing inner tubes for them. Now Tuesday comes along and I decide to finally get them put in so I head over there and they tell it's going to be $100 to put two inner tubes in my slicks!! Yes I was shocked, I just looked at the guy and no thanks I'll do it myself and walked out. As I leave I'm telling myself I'll never go to that store again, little did I know I'd have an even better reason after what I learned today.

I called my friend who I buy all my tires from and he tells me he's not surprised and to just bring them to him and he'll take care of me. I went by his store, a Discount Tires store, and he takes the wheels to unmount the slicks and he tells me the valve stems aren't in correctly. One of the pieces was upside down and wouldn't allow the valve stem to fully seal against the rim. So he suggests we try it and see if it leaks, so we do and hooray it doesn't leak, but the sidewall does. This means the tires are bad and I have to buy new slicks now, which I was planning on for later in the year, but still a shocker.

So the Discount Tires that's less than a quarter mile away has lost my business due to their incompetence. I was fully expecting to pay to have the job done, but $100 is flat ridiculous especially when I buy all my tires from them. Forty dollars wouldn't have been a bad price and then they can't even put a valve stem together correctly, sheesh.

I wonder if I should take my Explorer to my friend, I had to have a tire replaced and now wonder if it's done right.

Take care of your customers and they'll stick with you for life, or reject you for life your choice.

Opening day

Today is opening day in baseball, and being a big fan of baseball I'm loving it. I have a subscription to MLB.com so I can watch all the out of market games I can, mainly the Padres games. At one point today I had three computers running each with a different game and the TV on tuned to the Rockies game (currently in the bottom of the 7th tied at 8-8). If you like baseball at all I recommend getting the package, and with a laptop and wireless you can take it outside with you.