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March 29, 2004
1.5 hours

Turnabout

No, not another entry about welding floor pans. Actually, I'm done with the passenger compartment patching and I'm going to move on to the trunk. And to do that, I had to turn the car around in my garage. Somehow...

I started by pulling it out using my floor jack and trying to maneuver it around in the driveway. I was reminded what 2000 pounds of Buick feels like. Eventually, I found myself with the car out of position and no effective way to finish maneuvering it around. I thought to myself, I sure wish I had something that would roll in any direction... Maybe some of those wheel dollies or something... If you're a regular reader, perhaps you have figured out the solution already, but it took me a moment or two to get with the program.

Then I remembered the body dolly that I built a few months ago. Perfect!

I broke out the dolly and set it up under the car. It fit exactly as I designed it to--right under the rocker panels of the body. But since I didn't want the frame hanging from the body, I placed blocks under the frame rails to support the body and frame assembly. Then I removed the rear wheels and lowered the car onto the dolly. It holds, even though there's probably an extra 1000 pounds of frame on there that I didn't expect. In fact, it's rock solid.

Body and frame fit on dolly perfectly.

Once the body was up on the dolly, it was very easy to move around the driveway and push into the garage. Again, those wheels I purchased for the dolly did exactly what the seller said they would. Nice!

With the car securely up on the dolly, I pushed it into the garage nose-in so I could get a good look at the trunk area. I recall that it needs some help, probably some patching, but I hadn't really spent much time looking at it because it was so inaccessible at the back of the garage. Now it's out in the open and it's time for the next stage of restoration. Besides, we still have to sell the Miata before Julia will let me separate the body from the frame and take up the whole garage for a while...

Rear axle will come out easily with the car up on the dolly. The body
is rock-solid up on the dolly, and it didn't shift or roll around as I
climbed around inside the car. Love that shape!

I peeled up the remains of the insulation and tar paper on the trunk floor and found considerable surface rust, which I expected. But I don't know how solid it is, and probably won't until I get in there and start sandblasting it a bit to see if I blow through it. I did notice some perforation in several spots where light shone through, mostly on the sides in the wheelwells. I'll get started on that tomorrow.

Who know what evil lurks in the trunks of men?

Also with the trunk out in the open, I wanted to check out a few things I purchased on Ebay over the past few months. Since I haven't seen much of the trunk lately, I bought several items thinking they were for the trunk of my car, but I'm actually stumped as to their function. Good thing I only paid about $20.00 for each of the two pieces. Maybe you guys can figure out what these things are:

The top piece was something that I thought fit between the bumper and the body, but I'm wrong. As you can
see, it has a continuous curve, while the back of the car is stepped at the outer edges. The lower part is a
channel section which I thought was for the trunk lip, but again, it's the wrong contour for the back of the car.
Any clever readers out there recognize the parts? E-mail me.

Anybody?

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E-mail me at toolman8@sbcglobal.net

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Last modified on 02/06/2005

Thanks, Fidget!