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Week
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Project
American Flyer - Week Six
The
good news is, my ankle is not broken, just
very, very sore. The bad news you will
read about a little bit later in this
article. The week started off with a
planed day of rest on Monday. My ankle was
still very sore and I knew I would be
useless if I tried to get anything done.
 Tuesday
was a different story. I showed up to the
shop on Tuesday with a plan, and although
my ankle still hurt like hell, I knew
there was work to be done, so I got to it.
I arrived at the shop around 5:15 in the
evening and as I suspected, no one was
around. This turned into a good
thing because I was able to do what I
wanted to do, and prove to myself that
although I do need the help of Eugene and
Denny, I am still able to figure things
out my self and get things done without
constantly having to bug them. The
first thing I did on Tuesday was get the
gas tank back underneath the car. Although
this wasn't as much fun as the heater box
or spark plug wires, it still required a
few #$&!@#'s. After a bit of
struggling, I did get it into place and I
have to admit, I was very proud of my
accomplishment. The only thing left to do
was to get the filler hose that had been
cut fixed. Denny had mentioned that
he would do this, so I thought maybe he
had something in mind for fixing it and
decided I would wait until he was around
to this part.
 After
I finished cussing at the gas tank I moved
on to my new favorite task. Eugene
had been kind enough to donate a
fiberglass dash that he had for his truck,
but didn't plan to use. It was to
large and needed to be trimmed down before
it would fit into the smaller Cavalier, so
I went to work "fabricating" the
dash. The first thing I did was
measure the distance between the inside of
the roll bars at the front of the car.
Then I measured the distance between the
inside of the windshield posts. After
getting these measurements, I measured the
fiberglass dash and marked it off at the
center. Once all of my measurements
were complete I marked up the dash where I
wanted to cut it and proceeded to do just
that. I cut the excess off of each end and
sure enough, it fit right into place.
Once I knew it would fit I took a belt
sander and trimmed it down and rounded any
sharp edges. It looked very nice and fit
great!
 Once
I was done trimming it down and smoothing
the edges, I painted it. This was where I
made a mistake, which was later corrected.
I painted it gloss black. I was later
informed by Eugene that the lights from
the track would reflect off of it and
cause problems so I would have to paint it
flat black, or at least half of it.
I had gotten everything I planned to do
done, so I decided to call it a night.
Wednesday
was Monster Truck night at the Fayette
County Fair. I have not missed the trucks
since my wife and I moved into this area
five years ago, so of course, I skipped
out on working on the car to go see the
Virginia Giant (my favorite, mostly
because of it's paint job) and the rest of
the monsters. As I sat there (with
my leg propped up) I thought to my self,
"Project - MONSTER TRUCK". Man,
wouldn't that be cool!
 Thursday
I made my way to the shop again and once
again found my self there alone. I
decided that I was going to get the dash
tacked into place and call it a night. I
started by clamping the dash into place.
Once it was secure I drilled six holes
along the font where the windshield goes,
and then I drilled three holes into the
roll bar that goes across the front, over
the steering column. I am not sure
what they are called, but I used temporary
rivets to hold the dash into place.
 Once
the dash was done, I decided to mount the
fire extinguisher since I knew this would
be fairly simple. There is a bar that goes
from the rear hoop to the floor where a
passenger seat would be. I decided
this was the best place for the
extinguisher and I drilled my holes. Once
my holes were drilled I riveted the
bracket into place and that was that, the
fire extinguisher was mounted. Once again
impressed with the amount of work I got
done on my own, I called it a night.
 I
got started late on Friday as I had to
drive all the way back to Uniontown to
pick up my crew chief. I had spoken
with Denny earlier in the day and knew
that I would have to shorten a couple of
hoses on the gas tank, and that when he
got there we would be fixing the filler
hose. This all went fairly quick and we
decided to get the car started and finish
filling the transmission fluid. It
didn't take much to get the car started.
There was a small vacuum leak which
prevented it from running for more than a
few seconds at a time, but Denny quickly
found it an solved the problem.
Unfortunately, this is where the bad news
comes into play. We filled the
transmission fluid and decided to take it
through the gears. I put the car into
reverse and sure enough, it went
backwards. Then I put it into drive. As I
slowly let off the brake, I expected the
car to slowly lurch forward. WRONG! The
car will not go forward. As I sat in the
car dejected, I thought about how this car
was supposed to run and how Eugene told me
not to do anything until I got it running.
I remember back when we started this
project how excited I was when I got the
car to fire. I never thought to check if
it would move, mainly because I was told
it would by Dave. I believed it would be
fine. Back in week three I talked about
how when we got the transmission pan off
the filter was busted and we all believed
that was the cause of the transmission
problems. So when we replaced it, I felt
that it was fixed. Boy was I wrong. So I
continued to sit there for a few moments,
not sure if I should cry, cuss, throw
something or all three. We have all worked
so hard on this project that the thought
of it not getting completed because of
this transmission really wore me out.
I climbed out of the car, cleaned up my
mess, grabbed my crew chief and went home,
bummed out, but as usual, thinking of ways
to rectify the situation.
Saturday
I had a wedding to go to so I did not stop
in at the garage at all. I did however
make time to stop at Advance and pick up
some battery terminals. I also went out
and bought tires. I have spent the past
five weeks talking to tire shops in the
area and trying to find 14 inch wheels and
tires. Finally, I had to buy them myself.
I know that brand new tires are not the
smartest purchase, but I'll be damned if
this car gets done and I can't race it
because I couldn't find any used tires. I
would rather spend some time wearing the
tires in on the track, than staring at
this car in the garage.
 Sunday,
knowing that I would either need a new
transmission, or that it would require a
lot of work to get it moving, I decided to
at least prep the car for painting. This I
could do without having to move the car.
I spent the better part of the day
sanding. I know it doesn't have to be
perfect, but it has to be done, so I
worked on it. After about four hours I was
done sanding and decided that I would put
my new tires on. This was a quick and easy
task, and when it was done the car looked
a lot better than it had with the spare.
The
week is complete and the car is very
close. So far, all that is left is a brake
line that needs replaced and there is some
wiring that needs to be completed. Once
the wiring is done we can rivet the dash
in, Weld the driver door back on. mask off
the inside and paint it. Once it is
painted we can install the lexan
windshield and get the rest of the little
things on, like the hood pins, the roll
bar padding and the decals. Then, once all
of these little things are done, we can
figure out what to do with the
transmission and get this monster moving
forward.
 I
would also like to point out, that with
the exception of welding the driver door
back on, Eugene's part is done. I
want to say thank you to Eugene for the
amount of time and effort he put into this
car so I could get out onto the track.
I would also like to remind everyone
reading this that Eugene is not only a
master welder and fabricator, but he also
owns Team Ciferno Ride & Drive, where
you can drive a 550 horse power late model
stock car! This is the experience of a
life time, and who knows, you may do it,
then hire Eugene to put a cage in your own
racecar like I have! For more information
on the Team Ciferno Ride & Drive,
visit
www.teamciferno.com.
If you would like to read about my trip to
Team Ciferno's Ride & Drive, visit my
website
www.garryankrom.com
and go to the news page, there you will
find a link that says
Garry
Ankrom Participates In Team Ciferno Ride
& Drive.
I
plan to put some time in at the shop this
coming week, maybe even get the car
painted, however, I will be leaving for
vacation on Friday the 8th and will not be
back until the 15th. This means that there
will not be an article for week seven
until I return from vacation and there
will not be an article for week eight at
all. Hopefully this transmission
problem will be an inexpensive fix and
week nine will end at Motordrome Speedway
on the track!
Week
Seven... |
