She's back.

I spent a week in Jackson living out of a motel while training in the latest VMWare.  I had to take the '86 TA since the Daytona was in the shop.  I'd say that VMWare is a pretty steep learning curve, at first, but then it seems to get easier as you go along.  A lot of my work hardware is getting virtualized, I've got a virtual server farm at work with six VMs on it and it's only going to grow.

I digress.

I spent the week in Jackson using the '86 TA to commute back and forth to class and after getting off on Friday I was headed back home when my mechanic called and told me that the Daytona was ready.  I told him to leave it outside, locked up, with the keys in the center console.  I had a spare set of keys and when I got home after 6pm that night I'd pick it up.

When I asked him why the clutch fell off the compressor he explained that they had seen that before, but mostly on Fords.

Fast forward to Friday night.  I'm reunited with my family, we go out to get something quick to eat and we stop by the garage on the way to pick up the Daytona.  My mechanic has left my keys in the ashtray and I've left the cigarette lighter plug out.  As I get into the Daytona and reach for my spare set of keys, they slide forward, one key dips down into the cigarette lighter well and ... zap.

There goes another fuse.

There goes the radio, clock, CD player and cigarette lighter / power port.

Sigh.

I crank the Daytona, turn the AC on high, cruise over to Wendy's and meet the family.

Saturday morning I get up and ... after a week of training and driving and ... crap ... I just don't feel like doing anything let alone cleaning and detailing either the road dirty TA or the garage dirty Daytona.  Screw it.  I take my oldest daughter out to get something to eat, call it brunch, then head to Gamestop where she wants to look for a video game or two.  After that, we go to Walmart and I'm thinking that I need to find that fuse and replace it.

Screw it.

Later.

I go home.

I throw myself on my bed.

I play about ten minutes of Borderlands 2 on the XBox360 then I put the controller down, close my eyes and sleep for four hours.  When I get up, it's still light enough outside to snap some pictures so I go out to see what the mechanic did to fix the AC clutch problem.

The answer?

All new AC compressor and clutch.

Back in business.

Brand new compressor.  I've still got a lot of TLC to do to the engine compartment.  25 years worth of grime, wear and tear.  I think come spring I'm going to go through the cooling system like I did with the TA.  I'll replace all hoses, thermostat and radiator, probably add in a manual electric fan switch and with all of the cooling system removed see how much deeper into the motor I can get (and how much more stuff I can clean).

Here's the new compressor in place.  I'm thinking that this week all I'm going to do to the Daytona is put gas in her and drive her.  We're supposed to have some bad thunderstorms in the next few days.  I'll wait until the weather moves through before I try to clean her up again.