The Tragic Tale of ElSuperPinto

DISCLAIMER: This post is pretty much a post, primarily me collecting some scattered thoughts about what needs to be done to the II before I go to bed for the night. It might be edited and/or deleted without notice.

Believe it or not, I actually worked on ElSuperPinto tonight. Nothing actually got done, that same stubborn bolt that brought everything to a screeching halt nearly two years ago still insists on not coming out of the steering shaft. All of my better "tools of persuasion" for that little bastard are at work, so nothing more was getting done tonight.

The rest of this week's weather forcast looks like this:



and my essential ass works Saturday, so that leaves Sunday of this week, which, depending on how quickly that 46 degrees turns into at least 55ish, and whether or not the ground is wet under the II, I might get something done.

As I've mentioned... a lot, there is much to be done. At this point, I'm thinking getting it driveable should be priority number one, as COVID19 destroying my paychecks has pushed the Coyote/3650 swap into "Never Never Land" for now, as I'm not even keeping the bills paid with what I'm taking home. If it's driveable, I can sell the 4Runner and lose the car payment if things continue to get worse financially, or sell the II to catch up on bills, it's worth a lot more running and driving than it is in pieces. If it's not driveable, I'm paying insurance on a junk car.

The bare minimum to get it moving again is to get a rack-and-pinion back in it, and re-assemble the pieces taken apart to access it, replace the battery that's gone completely dead and won't take a charge, change the oil and filter, flush the cooling system, air up the tires, install the new fuel tank, and clean and inspect the brakes. If it wasn't for having to modify the steering shaft, I could say with absolute certainty that everything but the battery could be 100% done from that list on Sunday.

I still have the leaking power rack in the garage... I could always slap it back in there (without the pump or hoses) and take the II to the shop on a Saturday that I'm off to do the manual rack swap with my full arsenal of power tools, punches, cutting tools, and more at my disposal, (and a lift!!!) not to mention it could go straight to the alignment rack when done.