"Nothing takes the taste out of peanut butter quite like unrequited love." - Charles M. Shulz

Busy, busy, busy.
The normal Saturday chores, plus a few extra while Pam convalesces from her eye surgery. She's doing better each day and ler right eye is actually open to a thin slit. She's also feeling stronger, moving better. It's hard for her to sleep well because she has to be on her left side with her nose down so that her right eye is in the proper position for that bubble to do its work.

In between loads of laundry, dishes, printing for tomorrow and making some Keynote slides, I went to work on the Rambler's trunk. In 1981 he got rear ended pretty hard and about 40% of the back of the car is made up of panels from donor vehicles. I'm guessing the trunk came from a car that had some early stages of rust because it's just about the only part of the car that has any significant problems. The lower left of this first picture, the left rear of the trunk was the worst, with some very small pin holes of daylight showing through in a few places.


The first step was to use my drill and a wire brush wheel to go over the entire area. Yes, I wore goggles. The only goal is to get off all the loose rust and flaking.

 Then I painted it with a product from Eastwood called "rust encapsulator." I had some left over from doing the floor of the VW, just enough to paint the trunk. It does just what it says - encapsulate the rust so it doesn't spread any further. Chemistry is our friend. I don't know how it works but if the warnings on the can are any indication it's second only to duct tape for the wonders it performs.

 I had some .040" anodized aluminum left over from the trailer project and cut a panel to lay in over the bottom of the trunk. For big bucks you can buy a replacement panel but that requires cutting out the existing panel and welding the new one in, extra tricky with a gas tank underneath. (Yes, it would have to be pulled.) This isn't a show car and my solution using materials on hand will work just fine, providing additional strength, though I don't think it was required. The damage wasn't that bad.

 Then up the hill to Home Depot to buy an $18 piece of 6'x8' indoor/outdoor carpeting. Cut it to size and pressed it into place. It's thin enough that it molded reasonably well, and will "settle" more in the summer heat.
In the lower center is the gas filler tube - the rubber portion. I'm pretty sure the Feds wouldn't let that pass inspection these days.

The finished product. I'm happy with the way it turned out. Again, it's not a show car. We want clean, reliable and spiffy. This meets those criteria.



Now I'm headed off to the gym. I missed over three weeks with that persistent cold and getting back to where I left off won't work if I miss more days.

Tomorrow is Palm Sunday, a day that celebrates the Triumphal Entry. Both those terms are misnomers, especially the second. With the decline of the mainline denominations most people have some familiarity with those terms but not with the events to which they refer. But what happened on week before the resurrection carries its own significance.
We'll be talking about that at Pathway in the morning.