Have Cougar, Will Travel

I Finally Got Rid of Those Pesky Drum Brakes: Just not the way that anyone would recommend... 27 July 2020: Waking up in the woods by yourself is always an interesting feeling. Firstly, you are never the first one up; all the woodland creatures and insects have been up since sunrise and are now making quite a racket. Secondly, you realize once again that you are very alone. Based on the location of other campsites and the complete lack of people I had seen on the trek out, it was likely that I was the only person for at least 5 miles in any direction. That doesn't sound that much in the age of 10 speed automatic transmissions and jetliners, but when you're on foot that distance represents 1-2 hours of walking, or much more if that fall you just took broke your ankle instead of just bruising your pride.  Fun Fact:  If Ken falls in the forest and there's no one around to hear it, he still makes a (very loud) sound.     So I packed up camp and started the 10 mile trek...

An Italian Tune-Up and The Tail of the Dragon: I've been pretty busy since my last update! Leaning into the Throttle on Corner Exit on the Tail of the Dragon 26 July 2020:  In the last update, I changed my spark plugs in an abandoned rest stop in an attempt to cure a persistent misfire issue. While that seemed to have cured it for the rest of that day, on the morning of the 26th I was still noticing some occasional stumbling. Well, figuring that there was probably a certain amount of the ash that covered the spark plugs elsewhere in the combustion chamber, a buildup that would be aggravated by the fact that I purposely avoided full throttle (for the most part)  since I was technically breaking in my clutch and didn't want to put any extra strain on my AC/PS belt, I decided that an ol' fashioned Italian tune-up was in order. So, after the next fill-up, it was AC off and windows down, lightly bouncing off the rev-limiter (set to 5800rpm on my MSD box) as I rejoined the highwa...

The Cougar Weight Loss Program: Want to lose 10 pounds in one day? It's easy! Just change your spark plugs in an abandoned, shade-less rest stop when it's 93F outside! But we'll get to that later...      The Best looking Spark Plug of the Bunch     As those of you who have read the rest of my blog know, my Vintage Air HVAC system stopped sending power to my AC compressor yesterday afternoon. So after some Starbucks parking lot troubleshooting and a new relay didn't solve the issue, I spent a good chunk of time in my hotel room that night reading through the instructions for the installation of the system. It was all new to me since I had only installed the AC parts in the engine bay (compressor, condenser, and associated lines), whereas the previous owner had installed all the interior components. Now, if any of you had known the previous owner of this car, that statement would concern you. I'll spare everyone the details, but this guy really did not know what h...

Small Town Texas, Fedex, and Calamity Jane: So I'll start off by saying sorry for not posting an update in a while. The 20th through the 23th, while great, have been relatively uneventful for me. Buuuuut, stuff did just get pretty interesting yesterday, so here we go! The Cougar meeting her Hero! (Backtracking here; on the 19th, I once again ended up on the side of the road. I was driving fine, and then all of the sudden my ignition cut out. When I opened up the hood on the side of the road, I immediately found that the wire between the coil and the distributor had come off of the coil, and that the coil 'tower' that the wire snapped onto was broken in half. I had a spare coil, but since I didn't want to change it on the road, I wrapped the tower in electrical tape and smashed the wire onto it. I realized that I forget to include this on the 19th update, probably because I was so tired as I was writing it!) 20 July 2020: I woke up pretty early on the 20th to make sure...