Hey Kit! Oh my god! It's a sign!
The traverse of Arkansas, I will tell you, was quite beautiful. Yes, I was cranky at the temperature/humidity index somewhere north of 100*, but I loved the landscape and the series of hills was fine by NaranjaWesty (16.5 mpg and max CHTs of 410*):
By and by and by and by and by and by, I found myself in Mountain Home AR in the middle nowhere save for US-62. It was so humid and so hot, that my projects list collapsed into a sodden puddle of sweaty refusal. I trimmed me an entrance to my new mountain home, and drove across broken toilet porcelain, charcoaled wall stud remnants, glass, insulation fragments, and building fire detritus. Flung up the poptop, opened the jalousies and flaps, did a cooling Motel6 bucket bath, and just panted there waiting for a mild hint of a breeze .... which came at 2:00AM:
Found Rick Steiner at home where we discussed the Long View of his Volkswagen Story. Rick has several project possibilities, but a nicely running Vanagon may have blunted the urgency of the others. We retired to the air-conditioned workshop beneath the house and removed the newly installed heads to "look at them". We also looked at the lifters. And the cam lobes. And we found that several lifters were flat-to-concave and we found that the #3/#1 exhaust lobe was not happy at all, and the deal-breaker ... the pistons and cylinders were gravely contaminated with honing stone filth from a cylinder honing operation.
Rectification Report:
clean and reassemble ....
Went back to my hideous campsite and it was even hotter than the night before, plus I was mildly mechanically greased up. (Rick did ask why on Earth would I not take an offer for comfortable air-conditioned lodging? You tell him ...
) Did a Tide/Chlorox scrubdown, followed by a fresh water rinse scrub down, repeat, then a Shake n Bake cornstarch powder storm. Jalousies and tent windows all open. Too hot too hot, laid on a terrycloth towel and counted 4,299 Harleys, 1,272 bellowing pick-ups, 6 blown-exhaust Pontiac Grand Ams and Chevy Cavaliers, 144 sickly Ford Rangers, a Dodge Hellcat, and a few sheep.
Next morning, I had a List to tackle. The new Wolfsburg West rear window leaks worse than the original ever did, spongy cheap thin non-molded waste of time that it is. The rubber is supple. So I need to run a single strand wire around the perimeter of the glass like I did in Spokane to expand this cheap supple squishy seal into the corners where by God it best stop leaking. Photo Essay To Wolfsburg West:
Alas, I did not get to it. It was so hot and humid. Then I thought to wax the car in my new baby-blue wideband Tommy Hilfigers with a Gilden tanktop as a do-rag. It does not cut an attractive sight. No, it really doesn't. But who cares, right? I am in the footprint of an out-of-the-way burnt out shell of an unknown building under spotty shade with over grown weeds surrounding me well off the highway. Mr. Dodge Ram with air-conditioning pulls up to my driveway entrance and just parks there lost in a phone call for two hours. Well, I hope you enjoyed the visuals, Mr. Dodge Ram, you could have moved even only ten feet. The bugs, the bugs, the invisible biting gnats, the waspy-looking little flying bugs that did not bite, the flies, the humidity, the crickets, the cicadas, it was a classic broiling Arkansas summer day, and I enjoyed mostly a long-ranging phone call or two all lazy day. Oh, and an oil change and a transaxle oil change. Discovered tha the NAPA Gold 1521 oil filter leaked right out of the box, right at the seam. Went to NAPA and got a new one, no push-back.
Next day was CLHudson, the teeshirt guy, with his remarkable Calico Cat factory Westy. It is a 1975 with a two-tone white and orange body just like a 7-passenger bus, but with a full Westy interior and pop-up.
It had the fabulous orange plaid, and I was just gaga, beautiful bus, I love the white interior paint with the wood and orange. Look at the amazing condition of this car:
I just love the white paint poking out from under the russet orange and along the window sills:
Yes, I got pulled off my Itinerant Air-Cooled game when I spotted the '74 Mercedes 450SL:
We did manage to get to a tune-up on what looks like a factory build 1975 1800 L-Jet engine:
We drove it around the neighborhood with double-clutching lessons and a few braking tests thrown in. That's why we adjusted the brakes when we got back. Because that is all it needed ...
Enjoyed our day, CLHudson, and yes, let's do Mercedes next spring.