Some weeks ago Justin Peterson wrote me and volunteered to come out and help me with the bodywork. Justin lives in Texas so it's not a small matter to make a trip out to Phoenix. But on Friday, October 15th Justin flew out on his own dime and I picked him up at the airport. Justin was a great help and he's welcome back to the Graber Garage any time!
Justin's a young guy in his early 20's, and I am a 38 year old geezer, but I immediately felt like we would become good friends. One of the comments that Justin made when he saw La Bala in the garage for the first time was how completely different it looks in person than in the photographs, and even in the videos. And yes, I can remember writing about that fact before. I think it's the flat white color of the joint compound that tricks these digital cameras. It really does look better in person. The other main comment was how LOW the car looks! Well, it's only 38" tall to the top of the windshield after all.
On Saturday the work on the car began in earnest. Before Justin's arrival I had basically completed the drivers side to the point where all the dimensions and lines are finalized. (That's a great feeling by the way!) So the main focus of the weekend was to transfer dimensions to the passenger side.
On Saturday, Justin and I took over the garage, relegating my wife's minivan to the driveway. That gave us all the space we needed to place the car diagonally in the twin bays. You can see the hot-wire in this photo. We used that a bit, we also applied loads of joint compound to the front fender and hood, the rear decklid and the rear bumper. We sanded a lot and we spent a lot of time measuring the drivers side and transferring dimensions to the passenger side. In all it was a very good Saturday's worth of work and I was happy to have the extra set of hands.
Saturday night after dinner we headed out to the indoor karting track. (www.speedwayraceway.com) for a 16 lap heat. I really enjoy the indoor karts, but at the same time my 215Lb body makes those 12Hp karts beg for mercy. I won our heat and lapped everyone on the track, but I still didn't get within 2 seconds of the track record. I have to wonder what losing 75Lbs would do to my lap times! Anyone able to make an educated guess at this? I have always wondered if there is some way to "equalize" the lap times for those little karts based on the weight of the driver.
Sunday morning Justin was back on a plane headed for Texas. We had a great time. So if you read this Justin, thanks for the help, you are welcome at the Graber Garage anytime.
Back at the house I flipped the car around so that it is now facing outwards. Now I can more easily work on the unfinished side. It's a simple matter of building up the styrofoam across the gap, shaping it to match the other side and applying the joint compound.
So I'm almost a week late with this update and it's now Saturday, October 23. This weekend I have my friends Jason and James (brothers) coming over to lend a hand with the work. They are getting set to build their own scratch built middy using a Buick Grand National V6 Turbo mated to an Audi 5000s transaxle! That will be niiiice and I hope that I get to help in the process. Maybe I can convince them to use La Bala bodywork? The next set of photos from the Graber Garage should show some major progress on the passenger side bodywork!