Chump to Champ

There are certain times of the year that I love being outside. Well truth be known I love being outside all the time but some animals are more equal than others. The days I love the most tend to be when the sun is bright and warm and the air is cool and crisp. Saturday was one of those days, we had been away on a family ski holiday. After 5 days of skiing in Revelstoke and Golden BC, we decided to come home and get some down time. And by down time I mean we got down to some Fillmore time. With Ron at my side we set off on a little journey.

Ron started off with some spring clean up, dismantling the old/new engine lift which became obsolete when I changed engines.

I worked on installing the slam latches for the rear engine door.

A bit of a challenge when there are no square surfaces to mount to. I started by fabricating a mounting bracket for the slam latch.While I was working on that, I threw Ron under the bus. Now that sounds bad I know, and yes I have done it to Randy numerous times. But I do it because I know if I get under the bus on my back in the gravel. I start to day dream and then...well I fall asleep.
So I save the job for someone with perhaps a little more focus.


Ron's job was to cut and grommet holes for the coolant lines up to the front. "Pretty straight forward!" I told him, "just drill the pilot hole then use the metal hole saw to cut out a 1 1/8" hole for the grommet." Hell I even gave him the hole saw.
Ron executed the job flawlessly, the only issue was I gave him the wrong home saw. I said a 1 1/8" hole, but I should have said a 1 3/8" hole.
After Ron struggled with the first grommet he gently informed me that I may want to measure twice and cut once (paraphrased. Actually artistic licence I really don't think he said much more than "are you sure this is the right hole size?"). Bottom line was we had an issue and I was the chump.
I envisioned me under the bus for the next week manually grinding each and every hole to the proper size and then fitting the grommets.....lots of work....lots of noise....lots of frustration.
Ron (the Champ) on the other hand looked at it from a different angle.
Why done we use the first bit as our pilot and simply drill again?



I'll be dammed if it didn't work like a charm. The only down side was that we had to sacrifice the
1 1/8" bit and the 1 3/8" bit. A small price to pay for the continuation of progress.

























I did manage to get the slam latches mounted and at least one of the catches on the frame.
Progress was made.......progress was made.