Whoa.

What I got back from the media blaster was pretty scary.  I decided to lay it all out on the driveway, sort of as an 'exploded view'.  When I saw what I had, I thought exploding it would be a kindness.  For the first time, I began to realize just what I had gotten myself in to.  But while I could have found a nice straight body in AZ for a couple of grand, it wouldn't be the same car... and I wanted this car back on the road.

Enter... The Chamber of Horrors!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

And the worst is yet to come.

MWAHAHAHAHA

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Off to Meet a Stripper

Made you look.

You know you thought it.  Didn't you.

Cleaning things up with a sander was definitely not going to cut it.  Later in the year, I scraped enough moolah together to ship everything off to a media blaster in the Valley, and they cleaned it up good.  I even got about 30 pounds of media back as a bonus (which I would find over the next few years in all sorts of odd places, like inside of body panels that were supposed to be sealed).

Here she is, off to the stripper.  What I got back will astound and scare you.  It sure scared me.  And that wasn't even the least of the scary.

 

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Buy a Nice Welding Helmet

Needless to say, one should always use a welding helmet when welding.  I was goofing around with my dad's old MIG welder and thought "Oh, these sunglasses will be fine for a quick job".  I had welding goggles, even but it was inconvenient to grab them.

Dummah.

I ended up with flash burn and had to go to the ER for what was essentially a bad case of sun blindness.  Welding kicks out lots of UV, folks... don't mess around with it.  I was lucky and suffered no permanent damage.  To my eyes, that is.  Mentally... well, we won't go there.

I bought a nice full face auto-darkening large viewport solar powered helmet.  I still have it.  It works great... just set it outside for a little while and it charges the battery, and the charge lasts for weeks.

I also picked up a Hobart Handler 140 (made by Miller) MIG welder, refurbished, for about $400.  That thing is AWESOME.

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Finally, Some Quality Time

In 2008, life finally got to a point where I could pretend I had some free time and that I wanted to spend on working on the Midget.  My dad came to visit and helped me pull the engine and transmission.  I dropped the suspension and went to town on the body.

 

 

 

 

Here's that lovely rear suspension, that was once all shiny, after just three years of service:

My daughter liked it too... she had to inspect my work!

 

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