[RHClarke]

Saturday was beautiful. The early morning mist cleared as the sun rose over the still frozen grounds. On the way out to Hammond, I noticed the local Liberals were holding a meeting, so I stopped to take a photo – see photo one below.

The road to the barn was still nicely frozen, so the drive in was fairly easy for my little car. By now, the sun was blazing in its full glory and not too soon thereafter the great melt started. My first chore was to drain one of the lakes that had formed near the shed. This involved digging a trench across the road so the water could drain into the gully. It wasn’t long before the surface ice melted away as the temperature was on its way up to +17oC. The HUP likes the warm weather. It started on the first crank and settled into a nice idle in very little time. After backing it out of its shelter, I let it sit in the sun to bring it up to a good operating temperature. By now Bob and Grant had arrived and took on the task of plumbing up Bob’s new carburetor. Guy Vapeur arrived to deliver a nice reduction motor to Bob. Bob will provide an update on his latest project. Shortly thereafter, we headed out for lunch. The trip back to Hammond was done with the windows down on the truck. Good weather had finally arrived.

This wonderful weather was well received, but it also heralded the arrival of the Hammond Air force. The mosquitoes started buzzing about by 10 AM. After lunch, I reassessed the driver side door fit. It was discovered that the lower hinge needed some adjustment to ensure that the door had a uniform fit front and rear. Bob recommended that I heat the longer lower hinge and bend it. He also recommended that I try bending a spare hinge first. As luck would have it, I had a very bent up lower hinge sitting around. With Grant’s help, I toasted the hinge to red hot and Grant applied the necessary force to eventually bring the hinge back to its original configuration. This worked quite well, so we tackled the original hinge – it too bent back into shape. We compared both adjusted hinges to a pristine hinge just to make sure. However, the bending revealed another problem – now the frame side hinge holes did not align with the frame holes.

Once again, it was decided to weld on some more steel stock onto the frame side hinge arm, fill the original holes and drill new holes. We ran into one small problem – our drills failed to cut the steel. Bob recommended heating the steel, burying it in sand to let it cool slowly so that the metal cools without too much hardening. While the hinge cooled off, I replaced the plug wires on the HUP. This seemed to make the engine run smoother. I guess the 20+ year old wires lost some of their effectiveness.

The next project for me was to start the process of reassembling the HUP’s side windows. The original metal frames were quite rusted and required a bit of welding, stripping and restoration. I painted the frames inside and out ensuring that all of the metal channels were coated in rust paint. This was quite messy as I had to pour paint into some of the holes in the frame and slosh it about until I was sure everything was coated. Once dried, all of the screw holes for the sliding glass tracks had to be tapped out to remove any remaining rust and paint. Once this was done, I replaced the original screws and painted the exposed portions of the frames with an olive drab-ish spray of paint. As usual, the day passed all too soon, and I had to head back to Ottawa. By now the driveway had turned to a deep gumbo that almost caused me to bog down the Corolla. I brought the frames home with me where they are awaiting their glass and tracks. I’ll get onto them on Monday after work now that working the garage no longer requires a parka and mitts.


Photos

1 - Wild turkeys near auto wrecker yard in Cumberland
2 - The door - off again - showing welding - which will be covered by liner
3 - The boys working on Bob's carby
4 - The boys working on Bob's carby - coats off
5 - HUP metal window frame