wellllll, walking in on saturday morning after seeing a herd of buffalo on
the way in the haze and fog (wich sort of freaked me out! i mean....buffalo
in pennsylvania? and then o whole lot of them to boot!) i did not think too
much would suprise me any more. ok so i was wrong! this poor car had
been hit pretty well in the left rear and had been hit before in the center
rear and was poorly done and had to be completly stripped to bare metal to
rid it of some prior bad work. standing around doing some serious mental
calculations and some coffee finally i figured out where to start. when
pulling collision damage you do not start at any hap hazzard location ,
there is a beginning to the decompression of damage. as i started jacking
out the rear using frank's porta power it started to come back into the
shape of a sprite again , but progress was not as fast as i would have liked
it. all around me there was a flurry of activity with hydraulics and tune
up procedures. thanks go to kevin who's compressor i had brought along! my
compressor is not portable andi am acustomed to using my air tools. if i
were tohave done all the sanding by hand it would have been a lot more time
consuming than it was! probably the 2 front rocker sections and door hinge
might have not been done at all. i was constantly covered in body filler
dust and looked like the pillsbury dough boy...untill i stood up and dusted
myself off....then i looked like the charlie brown / snoopy guy "pig pen"!
there was always a dust cloud around me. and when i was not grinding and
stretching damaged body metal there was no shortage of siezed bolts and
broken drill bit(singular) to tackle. and what frank could not chop off
with his trusty "saws all" i tackled with heat and some serious leverage.
by day's end saturday the rear collision damage was in a state of "pretty
good " but not quite where i wanted it to be. finally sunday it all came
together and looked near "correct". i was getting rather fatigued from
just not sleeping enough. but with frank's assistance in removing rusty
sections from the front rockers and fabricating new front shut panels i
hopped in and cut the rockers to fit and spotted them in . my last
operation was to mix upfiller and lay a but up to finish the section job on
the rockers. i am a bit sorry i did not finish sanding the 2 rockers. but
i was getting tired and we still had to pack up evrything and head home.
at least the serious rust had been repaired. my earlier post about getting
some cafinated drinks on the way home was rather serious! after having
doggies and kraut at amy's and heading out on the way home i started to
relax and got extremly tired. i am glad the drive home was not at all like
the rainy drive out.
in retrospect i can say that those who chose to not come to just drink beer
and "cheer" on the work missed an excellent opertunity to see how to do all
the hydraulic work some basic electrical work , major/minor tune up work,
carb adjustment , cooling system maint. and repair and some beginners and
advanced body repair work. we did have fun all working together. it was
very plesant and rather up beat wich had a lot to do with the total
experience. the food was top notch, and beverages were plentifull. and
amy was incredible fun to watch as she learned about her car from some of
the more knowledgable owners i know. i am glad to say i had a hand in this
experience.
chuck.
btw! anyone finding an extra craftsman 1/2" combination wrench please email
me. i'd really to see it come home if the car did not eat it....lol. wich
is not entirely out of the question....lol!...c. :)
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