Dear group,
Whilst I was vacationing (i.e. working on my fixerupper house and shopping
for a new appliance car), it sounds as if a "my worst bodge" contest got
started. I want to enter.
Some years ago, my son bought a well-used 76 Corolla wagon. His first
accident in it netted him more from the other driver's insurance co. than
the car had cost. His second was less lucky; he hit a dark blue car that
had been left unattended in his lane of a snowy road. This neatly peeled
the right front fender from the car. He needed a car the next day, and
rather than lend him mine I fabricated a temporary fender for him from the
only sheet metal on hand, some left over stove pipe. The two accidents
left the car battered but unbowed, and he kept driving it complete with
the stove pipe fender.
When the rocker panels rusted out, we used galvanized metal drip edge to
fabricate new ones, since this was the only metal we could find long
enough. This gave the appearance of rocker panels, but there were still a
few holes between the rocker cavity and the interior that were worrisome.
To seal everything up, I bought two cans of aerosol foam insulation, and
filled both rocker panel cavities with foam just before he drove off to
visit his girl friend. I did not know that foam insulation keeps
expanding for some time. While he was having dinner, it oozed out of
every crevice, and when he was ready to return home, he found his car
rather thoroughly foamed to the pavement and several onlookers who
were intrigued by the foaming Toyota.
Ray Gibbons Dept. of Molecular Physiology & Biophysics
Univ. of Vermont College of Medicine, Burlington, VT
gibbons@northpole.med.uvm.edu (802) 656-8910
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