George’s Cars

Just hosting photos for a member of brick-yard. This van is for sale if anyone is interested.

Brick-Yard

Its been a bit quite around here lately. I finished the buggy, mostly, there are a few jobs to be done but I have had to prioritise my family again for a little while. In the next few weeks i’ll start getting back into the garage again.

The pictures of the blue beetle where for a fellow member of the Eircooled club who was interested in buying her but family circumstances wouldn’t allow it at the time. I’m half thinking of doing her up over the winter but ssssh, don’t tell the wife, if Alma hears I’m thinking about starting something else I’ll be divorced. As you can see it needs a heater channel on one side and generally just a good clean up and tidyup. Its a good car and goes great.

I have got approve from the boss to do one project over the winter, I’m hopefully going to start Evin’s mini -manx, basically just like my beach buggy only 1/10 the size!! It will even be powered by a aircooled motor but he is only getting a 50cc one!! It will be another year or so before he will be able to enjoy it fully but I want to have it done for next years shows so we will have a little and large!! I’m having a little trouble getting my hands on the mini-manx body but hopefully I’ll be able to get one before I’m in the UK next month.

Not much progress unfortunately. I have the weekend cleared in my diary, Alma was happy for me to spend the weekend working in the garage so I could make some progress and typical, I had a combination of problems that prevented it.

Friday I was playing with my niece Saoirse before they moved to Canada and while MESSING (yeah I know I’m a safety officer but we are all guilty of horseplay) I managed to pull a muscle in my neck. That put me out of action most of the weekend, on top of that I came down with a cold so needless to say I didn’t get much done on the buggy.

I did get a couple of hours yesterday after dinner. I managed to get the checker plate cut for the floors. I have read so much about cutting checker plate, Dad even went away an bought a saw that was supposed to do the job, I cut about 3″ and it started to overheat. In the end the trusty 4″ grinder did the job. I had to take my time with it but is slowly but surely cut its way through. I quick rub of a belt sander took off all the rough edges and made it safe to handle again. I’m just waiting for my SS bolts to arrive and I can finish that job.

On Saturday since I couldn’t work on the buggy I started thinking about a todo list, to try keep me focused when I get sidetracked. There is about 40 items on the list, some small some large but at least I can start checking things off as I go along. Enough waffle for now.

Poor quality picture is from my phone in fading light, I’ll get more once its finished!!

I went to the garage tonight but got nothing done!! Padraig came up to have a look at the suspension, he has more experience with bugs than I have. Padraig calling turned into Ruairi, Ger and Padraig calling. Its nice when these little random VW meets happen. There is always tomorrow night to get back to the buggy.

`Well I skipped straight to night 4 because I skipped night 3. I was working all day and on the road early the following morning so welding wasn’t a top priority.

Last night was the same but i decided I could miss two nights in a row. It was more slow progress last night. We started of great, the tutor changed the 1mm wire to 0.8mm becuase thats what we would be using on the cars however this was before he told us the nights assignment, welding 6mm plate, thats a long way away from the 1.5mm car panels that we would need the 0.8mm wire. I do like a good challenge.
Overall I’n not a huge fan of the course, the teaching isn’t really existant and we keeps promising us everything is in the notes but we haven’t seen them yet. But the one good thing is I’m getting really good practive time and if nothing else, the amount of gas and welding wire I’m using is well work the price of the course. It has given me the confidence to take on the 2-3 jobs I have in mind at the moment.

Well tonight John (my father) and myself started our 10 week MIG welding course with FAS. We have been promising for years to learn how to weld and when the course came up we decided it was time.

The course is a night course so its 3 hours a week for 10 weeks.

Night one was a bit slow, the instructor looks like he has a wealth of knowledge but I think we will have to drag it out of him, my first impressions of him was he won’t make the best teacher. Then again, teaching is what I do for a living so I’m very critical of others.

After a quick lesson on setting up the machine, we got our scrap metal and off we went. I don’t think it will be difficult to learn to MIG weld but I do think it will take a lot of practice to do it well.

I didn’t take any pictures last night but to be honest, you don’t want to see them anyways. As i get better I’ll upload some pics.