I can rationalize about almost anything for convenience sake, although I am not entirely sure I want that publicly known. I guess it depends on priorities, I was raised with both a pioneer work ethic, and to be honest.
Whenever I start to choke on a high price for something that I could do myself, I always take comfort, rationalizing that if something goes wrong with the work, It's not my job, I have a fall guy, a professional to take the responsibility for any problem, and make it right on his dime. And that is without even considering how many hungry lawyers are out there, if things go very badly on the road after repairs. if you do it yourself, you don't have enough paperwork , and courts love documentation.
The last thing I want to do is trigger a cascade of other repairs because I undertook what should have been a simple task and the unexpected happened, or something had materially changed that I didn't anticipate since I last did the work.
Besides, money comes and goes, and what you are really paying for is a quality of life, while also supporting the adjacent quality of life in your community. this is not to imply I am cavalier about my weak little car budget, just learned the hard way not to cry about the inevitable old car learning curve.
But that is not why I am here, I really got off track with the self depreciating I hired the dealer stuff.
Why I am here is that it struck me that I had a heck of a time adjusting to the overhang on the front of the car, so wanted to caution you about that. Hopefully it was just me, but I ran into a lot of concrete parking barriers when parking head on when I first got the car, and the radiator supports under my car still tell the tale. Matter of fact, I have some plastic slipcovers called ," fangs" that are designed just to mitigate such events, but I got them for a cosmetic cover-up, hopefully I have learned my lesson in the past miles I have owned the car. I am just hoping the steel isn't so mangled that they don't fit. haven't quite wanted to explore that just yet, fearing disappointment.
I used the GM red wires when I did the plugs on my car, as I bought from a private party and kind of wanted to establish a starting timeline on consumable repairs, and that stuff was simple . I had read there was nothing better than the red GM stuff. my old plugs were fine, heck they were the iridium stuff rated for !00,000 miles , but I changed them anyway. I did benefit slightly from a change in the gap specification when GM switched to iridium plugs, The new narrower gap smoothed my idle just a bit, only noticeable by ear, nothing changed on the display gauges.
Since you mentioned Edelbrock, they have the main offices nearby and used to throw a yearly employees car show, open to the all , complete with live stage and sound truck music. The last time I went, they imported an Elvis impersonator from Vegas to front a rock a billy band , it was a pretty big event, lots of special cars. One touring exhibition bucket T drag car just sat there and loudly threw big long flames up into the air, as it was designed to do nothing else. As I left, Edelbrock Jr was at the gate, smiling at the exit crowd, just a couple of years before he died, seemingly well satisfied at the yearly community event he had just put on.
But what I thought might be of more general interest is they also displayed a small collection of personally owned cars, plus one small old hydroplane race boat, kept as a historical exhibit of cool cars they used in the past. . The family display showed the unrestored primitive dirt track model A open ford, no roll bar, no fenders, that advertised edelbrocks speed shop on both sides, and kick started the business when it kept winning at the local dirt tracks. a sign alongside the car explained the history, and the fact that the lever on top of the exposed drive tunnel was actually a gear lever he could pull during the race, an illegal overdrive allowing him a speed advantage over the field when needed.
In the sixties, there was a local legend about one of his good looking blond daughters, who ran around town in a pretty blue 427 cobra roadster. It's kind of in poor taste to repeat it , but she is a grown woman now and probably wouldn't care about such old gossip, which probably was just a jealous male response to the figure she cut around town at the time, and probably wasn't true anyway. The rumor was that if you could catch her, you could kiss her. I only saw her and the car once, briefly, and mostly from behind. my little teenaged self in a struggling 1962 MG "A" English first car roadster couldn't even dream about seeing if the stories were true. with that car, a speed modification was to pull all four plugs and wire brush the carbon build up off of them. Repeat as needed, like shampoo.
Almost forgot, I also wanted to warn you about the glove compartment latch. if the inside loop ever works loose, it gets pushed forward, into a position where the door will securely latch as usual, but is now in a position where it won't unlatch, at all. I have read an upsetting few online cries for help about this , with seemingly no solution other than tearing into the glove box from behind, after you have removed the dash.
I think all the rest of the design eccentricities are easily found in well organized internet posts, where one doesn't have to slog through a bunch of endless yammering stories just to get to the point.
