Another day in Paradise

The day started off well enough, I decided after much waffling to remove the front body panel where the rust and bondo were. Things were going along swimmingly...until I broke my last 3/16" drill bit. Which was good. Because...it made me address a job that I had been avoiding for some time. Removal of the center isle flooring.

The issue was the screws were rusted tight, and in extremely awkward places to get at. It seemed no amount of penetrating fluid and elbow grease would make them come easily. So....at first I applied the nearly-perfected and almost patented ostrich technique, bury your thoughts in another "high priority job" and all is good. It never takes care of the problem but it helps to distract you. Well with my hands tied I had no other choice.

I had to think outside the box....so I used a combination of brute force and strategic placement of that force. I used a keyhole saw to cut (weaken) the wood around the bolts and then placed a 20 ton jack under the floor and "jacked 'er up". The force of course made the wood fail, then I could use a jig saw to split the wood and take it out in pieces. In the end I got her all out. Now to figure out how to re-install the floor with a layer of insulation.

After that, I had to go get Anna from dance class(yet again) and I got more drills from Moose Mountain Hardware....finally I got the panel off!!