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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They Didn't Fit

I finally gave up and admitted that those rims wouldn't be safe on the road.  I sold them for less than what I paid for them and found a set of Minators on eBay.  They looked nice... and they fit, too.

Too bad I didn't keep them.  I needed to finance other car-related things, but I at least got my money back out of them when I sold them.

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Time Flies When You're Having a Family

Almost a year would go by before I got back around to the Midget.  I got more of the body stripped...

 

 

But don't those made-em-fit rims look nice?

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It'll Fit

I really liked these 4 spoke style rims, and I bought them on eBay for way too much money, only to find they didn't really fit.

But I made them fit.  I'm an engineer, dammit, not a quitter.

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The Saga Begins, Part 2

By 2004, the car was getting a little bit scary to drive.  I was only driving it on surface roads as the body was beginning to flex a bit too much for my liking.  I figured the repairs my dad did back in the eighties were finally giving up the ghost, so I decided to begin a teardown and full restoration of the body shell.

Note that we had just had our daughter at the time, and I was foolish enough to think that I'd have time to do this and still have a life.  Go ahead, say it.  Duh.  That didn't happen.

I did do a bunch of teardown but barely started on the body itself.

 

 

There's some serious ugly under here; I just didn't know it yet.

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The Screen Door

My father-in-law needed a new screen door, so I thought it would be funny to bring it over in "that piece of s**t".

These pictures remind me of two things:

1. The car was still on the road after my daughter was born (though not much long thereafter);
2. I'm an idiot.

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Munchkin Loves to Drive

Here's my best little guy, Munchkin Little, all buckled up and ready for a road trip!

I never actually took him anywhere like that, never fear.

I miss my Munchie.  We lost him in 2013 at the age of 14.

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