My garage is barely big enough for 2 cars, there is no way I can tear
down the Alpine's engine with the Alpine in there, and Susan is
adamant about keeping her half. So this weekend I bought a car cover
and proceeded to organize the garage a little. When time came to
push the car out onto the driveway and cover it, it wouldn't budge.
After checking to ensure that the parking brake was off, it still
wouldn't move. After jacking up and turning each wheel, it appears
that the left rear brake is not releasing properly. I made a tactical
decision that I would do one thing at a time, and right now the one
thing is the engine; I'll deal with the sticky brake later. I may
regret this. However, it is not an irreversible decision at this
point. At least I won't have to put on the parking brake when I park
it in the driveway!
Since I couldn't push the car, I backed the truck up to it, hitched up
the tow rope (what, you mean you don't always carry a tow rope in the
boot of your LBC?), and pulled it out of the garage. I was hoping
that the movement would break the brake free (type that 3 times
fast! [that three times fast!]), but no such luck.
After pulling the car out of the garage, it needed to be moved about 3
feet to the left to be flush with the edge of the driveway. Since I
couldn't easily roll the car, I pulled out my trusty hydraulic floor
jack, jacked up the front of the car in the middle, attached the tow
rope to the jack, and moved the front of the car over. Ditto for the
back end. I bet I was a real sight, moving a car sideways by pulling
on a bright yellow rope.
I know the neighbors just love me now with a tarp-covered car in the
driveway. Susan is pretty thrilled herself. Now I get to park my
truck in the street, too. Is this fun, or what?
Sometime in the midst of doing all this it struck me that I now have
2 Alpines covered with tarps, sans engine and transmission. I hope
I'm not sliding down the slippery slope of no return.
Last week I mentioned to my dad that I hoped to find an old door and
some sawhorses to use to make a workbench for the rebuild. A couple
of days later, he saw a door out by the street at someone's house, so
he grabbed it and tossed into his truck. Sawhorses can be built very
cheaply, so I'm in business on that front.
For my next trick, I'll be CAREFULLY rolling the engine & stand out
onto the driveway and cleaning it with Gunk degreaser. I say
"carefully" because I have not forgotten what happened to our Boulder-
bound friend Scotty Paisley. You may recall a year or two back when
rebuilding his engine, he was rolling the engine & stand across the
garage when one of the stand's wheels caught on a pebble and the
entire conglomeration tipped over and landed on his foot. Nothing on
the engine broke, but we can't say the same for Scotty's foot. He was
on crutches for quite some time. Ever tried to rebuild an engine
while on crutches? Anyway, I'll be sure to sweep the driveway before
attempting this maneuver, and I'll push the stand rather than pull it.
I knew when I bought the car that it did not have the original engine
in it (I've yet to see an Alpine that did), and have a few things to
say about the PO that did the swap (as best I can determine, I'm the
4th owner). But this message is long enough; I'm sure there'll be
plenty of opportunity in the future to curse the PO. After all,
termperature notwithstanding, the "sw" in swork is "swear."
--
T.J. Higgins | tjhiggin@ingr.com | (205) 730-7922
Intergraph Corp. | Mapping Sciences Division | Huntsville, AL, USA
|