Good news to report since our last blog post. Bill’s finger is healing up nicely and his bruised ego is feeling better, too.
Thankfully, things went a lot more smoothly this past weekend. First off, our dynamic duo decided to go out and purchase a new acetylene torch. They had suspected it wasn’t working properly when it didn’t help them blast that rusty bolt to smithereens the way it should have. Insurance expert, Matt, also convinced Bill to purchase a new fire extinguisher – just in case – since it was clear that accidents do happen at the Do It Again Garage on a pretty frequent basis.
Back at the Garage, Bill lit up the torch and within two minutes, that nasty bolt was history. Let’s chalk it up to using the right tool for the job.
Soon after finishing up the removal of the front axle, the team got to work on cleaning the bottom of the van. With a little assistance from Matt’s son, Sam, the time-consuming process of removing decades of dirt, grease and stuck-on Bondo began. Let’s call it Sam’s initiation to the Do It Again Garage…it’s a dirty task but someone has to do it before the undercoating layer can be applied.
While Sam was busy scraping gunk, Matt and Bill turned their attention to replacing the rotten floor of the van. They quickly discovered that a previous owner had made a temporary repair by simply riveting a piece of aluminum over the rotten floor. By now you should know that our garage monkeys don’t believe in “bandaid” approaches to their restoration projects. Instead, they cut out the aluminum panel and welded and installed a custom, shiny, new floor panel.
Believe it or not, Matt learned a few new skills in this process. He had never welded before, nor had he used a plasma cutter, allowing him to fashion the new van floor. It’s pretty exciting to be acquiring new skills after all these years fixing up cars! It only took a few tries and a bit of patience and Matt began to master both new talents.
Thank goodness the weekend ended with no injuries or disasters!
Next weekend we expect to find our Do It Again Garage team out and about in search of a new clutch. So far their clutch research has been unsuccessful but they are hoping to find one soon.
