Cool McCool's Garage

I don’t understand all I know.  For some reason I’m having trouble loading my pictures onto the blog.  This is a factor of my total lack of understanding of how and why my ancient computer works, and my advancing age and debility.  I understand how mechanical objects work, admittedly on a superficial level, I’m no machinist or engineer, but I “get” how those things work.  The computer, especially our Ipad, might as well work by magic. Somehow, the electrons rub up against one another, whispering their dark secrets, exchanging snide remarks and rolling  their little eyes while passing our thoughts and human emotions as they bounce around the ether. 

However it’s supposed to work, my blog entry from yesterday, about cleaning up my disturbingly messy shop, and its lack of pictures of the same, has vanished from “Cool McCool’s Garage”.  It’s actually probably OK, because I was unable to get any pictures other than an old one that I loaded by mistake, and then couldn’t load any more.  I could get the pictures into my media file here at WordPress, but they stubbornly refused to move from there to the blog.  Sigh.

So, the IT staff here, frustrated, did what old people do when confronted with a computer problem that is out of their ken.  We call a person much younger than we are.  We consulted our support team in Las Vegas (our son), and got some valuable information.  “WordPress must have had an update,  your browser is out of date and can’t interface with the server.”  Huh?  What’s a server?  Isn’t that the person who brings me a cocktail?  How can she (or he) help with this?  They are younger, almost 2 generations younger these days, and maybe could help me interface with the browser if they were here, but they are sleeping off a hangover now anyway.

So, this morning, again probably by magic, things seem to working.  Or interfacing, electron to electron.  I now present, the mechanical dilemma I understand, how to get the folding top mechanism apart for the ’59 Thunderbird so I can cut down (or “chop”, in the Hot Rod vernacular) the top frame to meet the new, lower height of the windshield. 

My finger is pointing to the lower pivot pin, which is held in place in the cast aluminum frame by a roll pin.  This pin is simply driven into the pivot pin from the top.  The catch is there is no “exit” hole on the other side, it’s a blind hole.  No way to drive the roll pin out the other side, and thus free the pivot pin to take the frame apart so as to cut the upright piece down.  The pin on the upper end of this piece I’ve punched out, as it has an exit.  Sigh.

The good news here is that I understand how this works, and why it was made that way (probably to save Ford a half a cent in machining if they didn’t drill a hole all the way through that particular piece of aluminum).   I’m sure if I let this problem bounce around awhile in my head, that my internal browser will interface via electrons along electro-chemical pathways with the server inside my brain, and an idea will come.  Dopamine will be exchanged between neurons, endorphins will be released and I’ll feel better.   That, I understand, in a vague way, better than I understand how or why my computer works.

At any rate, the garage is clean, all the trim is polished and installed on the truck, as seen above.  I can move around the shop, work on all the cars without tripping or banging up and scratching the paint.  The Thunderbird is beside the truck in front, there’s a big work space ahead of them, and the ’48 Pontiac convert is beyond them.  The plan is to pull the God-awful interior in it, salvaged from, and intended to have been used only temporarily (10 years ago) untill I re-upholster the original seats.  That is going to happen this winter, along with a little lower stance, some new, era appropriate wheel covers for a “taildragger” mild custom look.  I can even pull a chair up in front of the wood stove, and contemplate how things work.