So it is three months since my last entry. While dually air is good, although not perfect, NO air in the Impala is not good. I thought I was going to get right on the motor, hence I cancelled spending $750 to finish the AC on a motor I was going to pull in what I thought would be weeks. Turns out I was completely broke right after Beck did in fact come and get it.

So then I realized I now had to NOT get AC and NOT finish the motor.

Bummer.

Since then I have sold the Funnycar operation, AND the Graham. I sent Beck $4000 in cash by FEDEX to finish up the motor. I will have to come up with another $1500 at completion. I also asked that he document the forensics of the rebuild for my upcoming case to be filed against QMP for the HORRIBLE work.

I will hopefully get around $900 for the TPI motor once I pull it out and dress it up, much as I did on the Hemi car and its 318, which only brought $500 WITH the trans!

The Impala is a REALLY beautiful car, and in superb condition. Could it be improved? Sure. But hardly needed at this point. Getting the 348 in there will be nice. I also found the tripower air cleaner. I KNEW I had it here somewhere.

LOTS of stuff is going off the property, at cheap prices through Craig’s List. I need to do a little more east storage area cleaning, meaning selling off 4 pieces of furniture, then I can move some garage stuff over there, and do more clearing of car stuff.

I want also to move the rack over and put one car NEXT to the rack in front, leaving some room to work under the rear rack. As it is, I have all 5 cars in the garage, and there is NO room whatsoever on the east side of the garage under the racks. NONE.

Roy is coming tomorrow, and we’ll move some cars out, rotate the rack controller, and slide the front rack over. At least that will get the west side closer to usable. Man, there is just so much to do to get this place under control. But I am gratified that much is getting accomplished, including all three rentals being full.

Now if I can just get half the garage rented I’d be at zero every month.

10/21/08

No renters in the garage, as I have not really put it out there to the Rodfathers or others that I can do that. I need to clean the west side out and put one car in there to demonstrate the use of the space.  I’ll need to do some east overhang clearing to make that happen. Granted, I have sold much of what was out there under the east overhang, but I need to off the two drums, and reorganize the space.

12/18/08

In an enlightening turn of events, John Beck called to inform me of THE discovery of why the motor ground itself up, literally. He found the tray below the manifold had been bead or sandblasted and was full of grit. This KILLED the whole motor.

Now to confirm that Mike did the sandblast. Actually, it matters little whether he did or not. His job was to have the motor cleaned thoroughly before assembly.

I’ll make a call and find out what material they use over at QMP.

Here is the motor partially assembled:

Beck is assembling the motor now, has his custom pistons there, is intending to step up the cam a notch, and will be replacing lifters as well.

Here’s how the puppy looks on the dyno:

I cleaned out the garage some more, loaded up the east side, and am knee deep in struggling with WAY too much stuff to put anywhere. So a lot of stuff will go.

I might use one of the upper tiers of one lift as storage for a while.

The car still sits for free at Reliable Carriers in Sun Valley.

3/15/09

Beck has long ago finished the motor. I just don’t have the last $1600 to give him. It makes 287 HP.

I have sold the monster Thumper BBC motor for $3500 (REAL cheap), but sadly that money is going straight into paying for a replacement furnace and fan coil in the house, a mere $4000. The Thumper money would have paid off the 348 motor, AND paid for installing the Tbird engine as well. I SO want to get these things finished!

I will be getting statements from Duttweiler, Akard, and Grubbs on the lamentable lack of workmanship skill demonstrated by QMP, and make one more attempt to get them to pay me for their $7500 of bad work, then we go to small claims.

Beck will testify in person if we go to trial.

I also have to pay Reliable Carriers off the last $4700 for the ill-fated Mecum auction hauling last year in order to retrieve the Impala from them.