I took the transmissions up to Milwaukee on Friday-made it up there in 90 minutes-being a Friday a few weeks before Christmas, there weren't a lot of people on the road. It also helped that Wisconsin finally finished their 20 year rebuild of a super small section of I-94. It's amazing how much faster you can drive when you don't have to avoid traffic cones and people who can't drive in construction zones. I get construction speed limits but people here would navigate the construction zones faster if they had a seeing eye dog-who was pulling their car-through the construction zone. 5MPH is just as dangerous as 50MPH.
Oddly enough, I had a Kenosha CSI Police SUV behind me on the highway for a good 20 miles. At one point, I was laughing out loud at the thought of being pulled over-seeing the look on his face when I opened the black plastic bags. It didn't happen but I will say it was one time I actually wished I had been pulled over. How do you not not pull over a guy with 1/2 the car filled with black trash bags and the driver is laughing? Way to go, Wisconsin... I was going to take a picture of the back of the car before I left but I forgot-it was early, I didn't get much sleep and I wound up leaving later than I expected.
On the return trip, I stopped for breakfast at Cracker Barrel and got caught up on email and checked a few sites for parts listings. I made a stop at the fabricator's place but he was out running errands and his assistant wasn't very forthcoming about his return time or many other details. I hung around for a few minutes, made a few phone calls and left. I'm beginning to think I should take it all to another place to do the work. The 'up' side is that I know exactly where to go. Now I have to work out the timing of it all because it'll speed up the process-so much so that I could have a powder coated pan and painted body in less than a month. It's a 'problem' I don't mind having, per se, but I need to make sure I'm ready to receive it all back since I'm working in a small two car garage (one side of which is either dedicated to working on the house or to my wife's CX-7) and space is at a premium.
The garage reconfiguration is slow-going. I have one shelf to reconfigure and then I can start putting the remaining pieces back on the shelves...but that requires pushing the car into the driveway and Mother Nature has decided to return to the seasonally appropriate temperature. I may have to crank out some of the house remodel project to get materials out of the way so I can push the car to the side-and not open the garage-to get the rest of the stuff on the shelves. It's a lot like a Rubik's cube-trying to get all of the colors on one side.
I find that I'm 'over organizing' now and it works great when I know where the parts belong but not so well when I have a large container of nuts, bolts and washers or a pile of parts that I'm not sure I'm going to keep. I have one shelf to reconfigure and then I can start putting the remaining pieces back on the shelves...but that may require pushing the car into the driveway and Mother Nature has decided to return to the seasonally appropriate temperature. I have to crank out some of the house remodel project to get materials out of the way so I can push the car to the side-and not open the garage-to get the rest of the stuff on the shelves. It's a lot like a Rubik's cube-trying to get all of the colors on one side.
I did manage to get most of the cabinet finished-these parts are labeled and put in their respective bins. A few parts are out on the shelves because they didn't fit where they belong (and the totes are full).
I wound up removing the labels from the totes since I'm reorganizing their contents. I'll put them back once I finish moving stuff around. I realized today that 1/2 the garage is going to be empty once the car is put back together...it'll get a lot better once the pan is completely back together.
This is the dreaded shelf of disorganization. Some stuff I'll keep, some stuff I hope to replace, lots of stuff I will sell off. blah. The timing of Ferris going back together will be perfect-I will have completely burned myself out on organizing parts. Either that or I'll run out of labels and I'll just have to stop.
The work space is getting more organized-slowly-but I fear I'm being way too 'OCD' about it, especially in light of the fact that I could have a car to put back together in a couple of months-most of this won't matter because it'll wind up back on the car and get replaced by things for the house. I'm guessing that the extra car parts will fit in the cabinet.
I still have random pieces of wood laying around that I have to find a home for shortly.
Background Tune: "
Girls Like You" by The Naked and Famous
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