Posted by Jim Lee [162.158.106.105] on Sunday, October 28, 2018 at 01:49:10 :
Had an issue where the side of Franklin's body had rot holes under the window. This was letting rain water run inside onto Julie's pillow. This had to be taken care of before we could do anymore camping. Winter is here and the PNW is wet.
After calling around, I was told to go to a local body guy that did custom work. We chatted and came up with a plan. I'd already pulled out the rotten window box. He said he'd cut out the rot, I'd take the truck to get the rotted area sand blasted then he'd weld in a new bit of metal. I had a piece of carryall side that Mark gave me when I bought the machine as a donor chunk.
The sand blasting happened yesterday and showed up that there was more rot than we thought. (Friday) This morning (Saturday) I dropped by and he was finishing up replacing the entire area under the window. About two to three times longer than the original donor piece I gave him.
How?..
He used the donor to make up a set of sheet metal dies to stamp out yards of carryall body molding! I was amazed! As I stood there he was erasing the seams, with a mig & grinder, about as fast as you could erase a pencil line with an eraser!
He'd started last night and was nearly finished by the time I left this afternoon. This would have taken me a month at least to make a horrible mess out of.
So if anyone has a carryall with rot in this body seam, they all do, he has the tooling to make up new side panels.
-jim lee
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