Saturday, Nov. 14, 2026

Fall just fell / winter’s now here / and its colder than hell.

For the first time this year, I’ve been running my diesel fueled forced-air heater. I’m not accustomed to the colder temps we’ve had lately, though I know that I’ll become acclimated soon enough. Still looking for my winter coveralls, too.

With less than 3 weeks before the local Christmas parade, my goal tomorrow is to start working on decorations for the 55 Chevy wagon.

FIRST CHORE. The first thing we’ll do tomorrow is to dig out the artificial Christmas tree out of the barn, put it back together and decorate it with my new C9-size LED Christmas lights. Once decorated, we’ll lay it in the back of the wagon, sticking out the back with star attached.

SECOND CHORE. I have a 4×4 foot square of half-inch plywood from my work installing plywood on the cargo area floor. I plan to add the roof racks to that plywood, set the platform up on my rack, and then work to arrange — and hot glue — the presents onto that platform. Once adequate decorated with wrapped presents, we’ll decorate the assembly with additional large C-9 size LED lights, and strap the whole affair to the roof of the Chevy.

THIRD CHORE. I have a large wreath to mount on the front of the car. It has regular non-LED C-9 size bulbs, but it should be fine with those.

I found the original 2000 watt inverter I bought during COVID for the Plymouth, so I have my choice of inverters — the original one or the one I bought last year, which was a smaller 1,000 watt unit. I do NOT plan to run the inverter on the car’s battery; my plan is to buy a separate storage battery that will be used to power all the lights. I’m going to save the battery power for the bulk of the parade, so here’s hoping the battery will hold out for the 30 minutes the parade will take, lol!

CHRISTMAS DECOR? I don’t plan any changes to the Chevy’s parade decor this year. The main change will be my hopes that the damn lights will last for the entire parade route! The main change is to power the lights via a separate battery during the parade, and the second change is to use large C9 size LED bulbs, which will be much, much more visible than the miniature lights.

This week I’ll submit my application and fee for the parade. Once I get the tree decorated, I’ll have a better idea if I need to buy one (or more) additional strings of lights. The last thing I’ll buy is a AGM storage battery to operate the lights.

IF I BUY ONE, TWO IS BETTER, RIGHT? I ended up — by accident — buying two metal fuel feedlines for my Edelbrock carb. The first one was sold by Spectre brand, the second was a very, very OLD Mr. Gasket version. The second one had apparently spent a few years “aging” in a store window in daylight. How do I know? Well, the plastic the unit is cased in has turned very, very yellow due to sun exposure! I’m sure the unit is fine, but since I already have one, I don’t really need it.

The metal line is designed to be used with a filter and a shielded fuel line that will connect to the fuel pump. I’ve thought about buying the filter and balance of the line to make it a solid line and eliminate the rubber fuel line completely. I may do that, but can’t spring for the rest of it … not yet anyway.

For now, I’m going to leave the rubber line in place (and monitor for fuel leaks!). After Christmas, maybe I’ll spring for the rest of parts.