As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I was having trouble getting the lone gun mechanic I hired for the Trooper RS revival to start on the project. I dangled the prospect of a bonus, but what seems to have gotten things moving is that I'm now paying rent for this thing.
Bear in mind: I did not pay rent for the six months it's been stored at a commercial property in Portsmouth, RI. But here's what I realized: if Jay, my mechanic pal gets hit by a bus tomorrow, there's no connecting him to me as far as the property owner is concerned. So, I pressured Jay into connecting me to the owner to kick-start an agreement, which not only provided me some ass-coverage but also made it clear that I was committed to this project - and now had even more skin in the game.
Who knows. Maybe the two are unrelated and I'm just an idiot for paying rent when no one was asking. But the Trooper did move indoors this weekend, with the fuel system being cleaned and replacement parts swapped in (gas tank, fuel pump, etc.) Jay let me know all of the calipers are condemned, so I just ordered replacement calipers to go with the replacement calipers and pads I sent over last year.
The timing belt still needs to be done, but I'm hopeful we're going to see some real progress over these next few weeks.