It's the little things that get you

["Paul Irvine" <pi@domain.elided>]

Project Alfa update: Yes, I'm still working on it. I know, it's been close
to 5 years now but hey, here is an example excuse;

I was routing the distributor wires to the coil today, trying to figure out
the points to put the clamps (anal, I know - let's skip it). Anyway, I
bought this Bosch distributor a couple of years ago, it's supposed to be
tits but the darned snap in feed through for the low tension lead just kept
popping out. I thought of gluing it but that's just sooo tacky. There is
this threaded hole just below it, almost as if there were some sort of
keeper that for some reason I didn't get with the distributor. So I found
this perfect little slab of aluminum in a toolbox drawer and proceeded to
fabricate a little keeper for that feed through. I did an absolutely awesome
job, something that I can be proud of but - I didn't have a screw for that
threaded hole. So I removed one of the screws that hold one of the snap on
clamps for the distributor cap and found that it was the proper size. So I
used my calipers and thread gauge to figure out what size screw I would need
to get to do the job.

All well and good.

There was a bunch of other stuff on the work bench - a BUNCH of other stuff.
I'm in the middle of hog-ringing the leather seat covers on to the frames
and there was a whole bunch of seat upholstery, frame and recliner mechanism
stuff on the bench and after I had finished grinding and cutting the little
keeper part, and after cleaning up (which included vacuuming up all of the
metal shavings) I discovered that this little part that held the spring
clamp for the distributor cap to the side of the distributor base was like -
missing.

I mean, you couldn't have picked a worse tiny little friggin' part to have
lost if you had planned it. It was just gone. I couldn't find it anywhere. I
kept staring at the top of the workbench trying to convince myself that it
HAD to be there. How the heck could it just disappear like that? I don't
even want to get into the picking through the shop-vac tripe and then
picking through the garbage can convinced that I had missed it and thrown it
out. I searched the garage floor but found nothing.

All hope gone and there it was - two and a half hours later - in the
expansion gap of the garage floor about 4 friggin' feet from the bench. Just
popped right out in front of me though I swear I scoured that area about an
hour before. Just one of those cruel tricks the almighty likes to throw at
you once in awhile?

I don't know but such are the travalls of a project such as this. I do love
it though.

Paul Irvine - Antioch CA
Project Alfa - http://home.pcmagic.net/pi
--
to be removed from alfa, see /bin/digest-subs.cgi
or email "unsubscribe alfa" to majordomo@domain.elided