Whatever I finds, I keeps

I'm learning to appreciate whatever measure of progress is made over being disappointed when I routinely fall short of my expectations.  Going to war with the army as the Romans do, or something to that effect.

In keeping with that approach, I'm choosing to keep my focus from the fact that my plans for the cooler lines just involved too much damn soft hose to not end up making my transmission's fluid circuit into a (temporarily) mobile, incredibly flammable version of a toy in an old SNL skit (do yourself a favor if you don't immediately get what I'm referring to.  I'll even provide the link:

http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/big-red/n9512?snl=1

It's two minutes you can spare).

Instead, I'm focusing on being able to get a set of replacement lines from American Parts Depot for $40.  They had a stainless option for $70, but I'd rather have something I can stand a better chance of cutting and flaring if something happens and I need to do a field repair involving the cooler lines.  I also don't want to spend the extra $30.  To be even more honest, I'm glad to pay the $40 just to not have to do any more damn work involving fluid lines than I already had/have to.

The other bit of progress that I'm happy with is that I managed to get the front wheels on ramps without being horribly killmaimed.  The floor jack doesn't have enough lift to bring the wheels off the ground to where I can fit the ramp platform, so I had to do some incredibly stupid shit to get the ramps in place.  This involved:

1. Putting a my favorite specialty tool on the jack pad to increase the lift height before jacking the front up under the cross member
2. Arranging more specialty tools below the lower control arm, placing a bottle jack on top, and lifting to its maximum reach
3. Wedging a jack stand next to the bottle jack, lowering the jack, stacking one more specially tool, and lifting again
4. Forcing the ramp underneath and into place
5. Repeating the process for the other wheel

I was expecting this to end up as a bloody nightmare of a failure, and by all accounts it probably should've been.  Thanks to wooden blocks, the exits can move forward and I still have all my blood and limbs.

After I finished with that, I made sure that there was a basic level of support under the rear of the engine, then came out here to sit in Eagle for a smoke and to give my supernatural protector (as well as my nerves) a rest, which is when I figured I'd write this.

Once I finish up with this smoke and post, I'll be heading back in to figure out how that transmission's getting elevated.  There's not sufficient clearance between the firewall-end of the engine and the bell house when the car is evenly seated to allow getting the cross member threaded to the frame, otherwise I would've had that taken care of from the get-go.  I'll either figure something out when I get back in there, or I'll say to hell with it and be glad for the day's gains. 

As the saying goes, "A bird in the hand is worth twice as much in an ass-kicking contest!"