Ophelia changes over the years 2

Thank God for AAA, I call'em "Send me a flat bed" I say's. The tow showed up at the scene pretty quick within about 15 min. The guy pickin' me up looks at Ophelia (sees the advert on her tailgate for the RF party) and say's to me "Hey ain't you the guy puttin' on that Rat Fink Show next Saturday?", I oblige while grimacing, all I could think about was my girl Ophelia and how I must'a broke her real bad and now this guy is reminding me that I got a show to put on and while the clock is ticking I got no ride to get things done.

So's I get's home around 3:00am, we put Ophelia to bed in her usual space, I call in my dog Tulsa and we hit the sack.

The next morning when I woke up I was hoping it was all a bad dream but then reality struck as I went out to check my girl. Her mill would turn over but won't keep a spark, I checked under her chassis, it looks like the oil is comin' from the driver side, can't tell exactly where the leak is comin' from cuz she's bathed in oil.

Looks like the oil is emanating from around the oil filter but then when I think about it with all of the water gone into the engine I'm thinkin' I cracked the block. The only way to check the block is to pull her mill out and tear her down.

Well I had to wait another week and get the show out of the way in order to check her out. Thank God for good neighbors that gave me rides to get stuff done.

Chunks!!!!! Oh boy!

So the next week after the show I go out and pull the intake manifold and the head off of the driver side. This is what I found. Chunks of metal that were blown up into the intake and number six is in a the wrong position. I put my index finger on the piston and give it a little push and the thing drops all the way to the bottom of the cylinder. Man was I in deep doo doo.

Well I know now that I gotta to pull her mill and do some further investigation. So I start to unbolt the whole mess. Now if'in any of ya have ever tried to do a mill on yer own ya know that it's a real pain in the butt trying to un bolt the torque converter cuz ya got to get under the car to do so then ya got to go up top and turn the motor to the next bolt. So there I was trying to accomplish this feet on my own just a thinkin' how much easier it would be if'in I had someone up top to do the turnin'. Well there I am as frustrated as one could get and all of a sudden an old friend of mine, Doug the "Rocket Man" Auzene pulls up in front of my house with his Race car in tow. He's on his way to the strip but the gates don't open till later that afternoon and he just thought he'd stop by and say howdy. So I convince him to grab my breaker bar and a socket and turn the motor over for me while I un bolt the trans converter. (thank you Doug) Doug had to go but I wanted to get the mill out so I continued by getting my cherry picker out and hookin' the mill out to pull'er. Now I still had one dilemma once I got the mill up I would need to put her on an engine stand and get the thing into the barn. so's I make a call to another friend and neighbor John Huston he obliges and this is what we found.

Can you say HOLE?

Check out the busted connecting rod in the pan... Arrrrgggg.

So the next thing was to find a new or used mill for her cuz obviously her old one was F.U.B.R. It took me several weeks to find one. I put an all points bulletin on the internet and a buddy by the name of Nick Ozanne found one for me. This junk man by the name of Jim down in Inglewood CA had a running 390 out of an old F100. Jim guaranteed that it ran and he wanted $ 425.00 for it delivered. I was pretty much broke at the time so's I put a bunch of stuff up on ebay to raise the cash to get the thing. (thanx everyone out there that helped out). Another week or so passed and I finely got it. When Jim delivered it we put it on the ground a fired the thing up so's I felt warm and fuzzy that the mill ran.

Well so it aint pretty and I didn't need the C6 transmission cuz I really like my old Ford-O-Matic cuz ya can speed shift the thing and the last time I blew it up I had it modified. Oh yeah that's one thing I've learned from experience. Don't try and rebuild a transmission if'in ya don't have a real clean place to do it at. Cuz most likely you wont get far; Let a pro do it for ya, it'll save ya time and money in the long run. Anyway back to the mill. So I was gonna have a big tado over at my place for Labor Day and decided to tear the trans off of the block, stick the mill on an engine stand move the thing into my barn. The thing I didn't think about was to have Jim put the thing into the barn before he left. So here I am braking off the trans in the dirt.. well guess what I also had try and move the thing with the engine stand in the dirt.. Ha took me most of the day. Had to pick the mill up by my cherry picker with the stand and inch by inch pick it up move it a few inches and drop it to finely get the stand with the mill on concrete as to roll'er around. Ahhhh Duah!
	I wanted to strip the new mill down and swap out a bunch of stuff that I had on the old mill like the alternator, the powers steering pump, the oil filter rig, and a couple of other items and I didn't need the air con pump on this thing either. So Labor Day comes around and my friend Philo from Arizona got to the BBQ early. Philo's a freak like me for Ford motors so's he gets board from waitin' for folks to show up and decides he's gonna help by starting to tear the mill down. Go Philo go! Now one thing I gotta say is that I done a few Chevy 350's and yep their easy to find parts for and junk like that. But I really Love my Fords even though they may be a pain in the butt every once and awhile. And the thing that I've noticed throughout the years is that a Ford will run under some of the worse conditions and still get ya there. That is unless ya abuse them like I did with this last experience. arrrggg!