Lady walks two shitty dogs up Richards St. Roberts Creek on a Tuesday.

This is an unrelated post, because I want to rant.
So I'm driving home from work today, and I'm coming around the corner of my block and I see my stepson riding his bike.
I crawl up to him and ask him if he wants to hold on to the car, and hold on so I can make him go fast. He is into it. Just as we start off, I realize there is too much foot traffic at the moment so I ask him to let go and meet me at the end of the street so we can wait for the street to be clear and have a good run.
So I'm driving up the street and I'm coming up behind this lady walking two dogs, and there's another car (or truck) approaching in the other direction.
For whatever reason this lady has one of these dogs (maybe both) on a really long lead, and I see this dog lunge out towards the other vehicle. When I say lunge I mean one of those tire biting dogs that tries with all its life energy to put its head right under the leading edge of a rotating tire. I'm thinking "god.." because my neighborhood harbors a few people that seem to have never sought any real training for their dogs, and clearly minimal to no effort into controlling them for the well being of those who surround them. So at this point I got my eye on this dog and I'm crawling past this lady, lo and behold this dog goes for my front passenger side tire. I swerved faster than you can say "For Fuck SAKES!".
Lucky that other vehicle had passed me or I would have had nowhere to swerve to and things would have got shitty to say the least. I turn my head almost as quickly as I had swerved and caught I wide eyed look in this woman's face.
I carried on to the end of the culdesac and waited. My son was quick behind me, but I was waiting to get a word in with this lady. As she got close we may have exchanged a half-hearted smile but beyond that she wouldn't look at me. When she got closer I called out to her "Madam, next time could you do a better job of controlling your dog." Now Get this. She calls back "Don't talk to me!"
This catches my by surprise, so I'm not saying anything. She carries on toward the trailhead on the other side of the street and starts up saying things to the effect of "I know you, your always ripping up and down this street with children riding off your car in the winter." "This is a residential zone." and pauses for a moment and just before she disappears into the trail she calls out "Next time I see you doing that I'm calling the Cops." Now I've seen this before it's actually uncanny the traits these kinda people share. There is almost a culture of denial and deflection among people who can't handle these shitty little shoe brush looking things with their dripping infected looking orifices. This person made a (potentially) honest mistake, and I managed to not smear her dog's head across the pavement, and when I try to talk to her about it she just starts ranting about unrelated things that I do. Sometimes I meet people like this and I think "Holy FUCK! how does someone grow to be middle aged have a career and maybe own a house, and be such a fuck head", then I look at myself and go "Oh!" XD

For the record:
I am a man who ties things to the back of my car  and drags kids along in the snow or the sunshine.
I don't speed when I'm doing this, the kids think they're going 100 Km/H
but its more like 30.
I am EXTREMELY attentive to my surroundings while doing this,
and if something proves to be unsafe I don't let that scenario happen again.

And if anyone ever wants to talk to me about my actions I wont treat you like this lady did me.

As I final note I do recall that we are all human, with faults and fears,
different view points and fuckups. Lord knows I've pissed some people off in my life time.
This lady probably has her high points, but I'm writing this because TODAY, I think very lowly of this person.

Welding the frame or whatever :|

Wow,
this whole time I had been neglecting to mention the prep work I have been doing
on the frame, getting it ready for repair.
I have been ripping off whats left of the floor pan where it meets the frame tunnel and cutting out
rusty SHIT.
Yet another side track; I have pulled all the wiring out from behind the dash,
in preparation for the rewire.
Also I have been salvaging the last of what I want off what is left of the body from the red beetle.
Sorry I'm not good enough at writing to do a good job "chronicling my exploits."
There are many things to do, and I like to jump around allot.(both figuratively and literally)
My entries likely reflect that.
I will try to keep track, and you will get the gist of it.

More rear brake stuff

Today was busy yet relaxed.
I had started in on soaking one of the back plates in thinner last night,
at my friends work shop.
So part of today was spent trying to clean the backing plates.
After some cleaning I started looking at handbrake stuff I had taken out of the assemblies.
I was thinking I wouldn't fix up the handbrake system right away.
Partly due to cost, because the cables were cut and ripped out,
and partly because I don't find the need for one often.
The thing is, I figure I would like to do a nice job closing off the hole where the cables are supposed to go into the brakes.
Now that I'm a bit older, and maybe some bit wiser, AND I have a friend with equipment,
why not do an unnecessarily nice job and machine little aluminum plugs to take the place
of the end of the handbrake cable where it enters the brake.
So there you go, I spent the rest of the day smelting scrap aluminum, casting some dumpy looking bar stock, and finally machining a small test plug on the lathe.

All that work to yield something as big as the end of your pinky.
I will add another photo of the finished product later.
Thank you and good night! :)

Rear brake packs

Two days ago(I think),
I started removing the rear brake packs.
One of the first things I noticed is, they didn't have the same springs,
and one was missing its hand brake hardware.
Both hand brake lines had been cut and ripped out,
though one brake still had the appropriate lever and the cable end attached,
while the other one had neither.

The brake on the driver side with no hand brake stuff had a heaver spring,
and less worn brake shoes.
I suspect those two facts are related.
The one on the passenger side must of taken more of the hydraulic power,
due to less resistance from its weaker spring.

Upon removing the back plate to the brake assembly, I "BORE WITNESS"
to the amazingly beautiful "made in Germany" axle bearing.
Fifty years old, and still like new.

To digress, sometime between what I mention above,
and the last post I have been prepping the frame tunnel for welding.
I am half way done, and will do more on a sunny day.
I am looking forward to doing some welding with this AC stick welder
my grandpa gave me.
Though I am feeling cautious, because I want to do a good job.
:)

Removing rear wheels

Today I took a look at removing the passenger side rear wheel.
I want to look at the brakes, pull the pack apart, and clean everything.
The first thing I noticed was the wheel flange adapters.
Mystery solved, as to why I have a modern 5 bolt pattern in the back. :D
I'm not sure if I'm going to keep these adapters, because they add about an inch of  'poke'.
Though I do want to retail the 5 bolt pattern so... :P

One of the bolts holding the adapter to the drum was a real fucker.
It stripped out on me. :(
In retrospect, I should have shown it some more love right from the beginning.
But I got too exited with my ratchet and cheater pipe,
and no amount of care and attention was able to help me after that.

So I took a different avenue, I can just take the drum off the axle all together,
and fuss with the fasteners later.
It was at this point I noticed there was no cotter pin in the crown nut. :O
I scurried over to the driver side, it was the same, and it was finger tight. XD
Good thing this car was not in driving condition when I got it.
Otherwise I likely would have 'just gone for it'.
And died.

Any hoo, I got the drum off and loosened the four bolts holding the brake package on.
and the rest I will look at another day :)

Catching Up.

Ok,
entrys few and far between may become a theme.
I will be putting forward small effort to change that.
Take that as you will.

So, yesterday my good friend PeanutButter helped me drag my parts car
into my back yard.
Initially we pulled the engine out, and pumped up the back tires,
but the rear brakes were seized.
Proper rolling was not an option of convenience.
<insert>
With half the body gone though, it was humanly possible to muscle this thing around a bit by hand. Let me say right here that PB is really strong and I could not have done it this way by myself.
Beyond the muscling we pulled the parts car around with his Suzuki Samurai, leaving streaks in the front lawn.
Thankfully there is not much of a lawn in the front to begin with.
By the time we arrived in the back yard, I remembered I have an engine trolley I built in the past for my Mustang project. (Stupid me)
So we put the trolley under the back axle, and with much effort,
"hand bombed" that bad boy(or girl) into place behind my workshop.
<insert>

Third entry thus far - Thu 19 Dec 2019

Well a WebLog doesn't work if you don't keep up the log right?
I received my parts beetle sometime last week, and have since started cutting it apart.

Yet another "broken down rusted out shit box" gracing my front yard.
I try to keep my mess to a minimum. It pleases my girlfriend, and after all
it is her yard in which I am doing this, so that is of high priority.

Man, I am not feeling much "flow" tonight so lets see if I can get any. :p
What Am I keeping from this car?
Why am I cutting it up?
The things I plan on keeping from this car are as follows:
-Glass
-Doors
-Frame/Suspension
-Lights
-Dash
-Wiring harness
-Steering columb

The things I will be selling are as follows:
-Fenders?
-Engine
-Transmission
-Maybe the dash mentioned above.(likely)

As for why I am cutting it up?
So I can easily dispose of the rest of it. :)
That's all for now.
Hopefully juicier stuff next time.