No Scottie, so Damian rips out the dash!

Scottie wasn't allowed to come and play this weekend, so he and Damian conversed online and decided (with some research) that underneath the cracked and faded old foam dash was a beautiful metal dash just waiting to be colour matched to the rest of the vehicle!

First, remove the trimmy bits and the old destroyed speaker, then check what's underneath...

Yep, looked like the metal dash as described... so after further discussions with Scottie, Damian ripped the old foam dash out!!

And here it is - one beautiful metal dash ready to be colour matched!!

So even without Scottie's presence, progress continued... (In fairness, he was there in spirit!)

Camp Quality Chandon Supper Club

The Chandon Supper Club is Camp Quality's glamour fundraising event. Team Booger Mobile in conjunction with Jason Sheather Plumbing hosted a table for potential sponsors for Booger Mobile.

Scottie and Damian got all scrubbed up for the occasion

and their wives looked fabulous also!

They had dinner with the other invited guests at Eves on the River,

before being whisked away in old restored cars (how appropriate!) to the secret after-party location, which turned out to be the new "Cloudland" venue in the Valley.

At the after-party, the Chandon flowed freely


And we danced the night away to the fabulous live music (hehe not putting any photos of THAT up)...

A fabulous night was had by all, money was raised for Camp Quality, and Booger Mobile may have some new sponsors!

Stay tuned!

Completion of major bodywork!

With the unveiling of Booger Mobile getting closer by the day, Scottie and Damian have their work cut out for them to get it completed in time.

The goals for today were

1. Complete the front floor pan
2. Complete the major bodywork
3. Find jobs for Damian to do

Scottie arrived, and the boys got to work nice and early. Scottie completed the welding of rust holes in the front floor pans,

then moved on to the bodywork on the passenger side of Booger Mobile.

Damian attempted to make himself useful by locating the missing bolts for the front passenger guard, insisting that Scottie took his photo actually USING a socket spanner...

Meanwhile, the bodywork continued,

and Damian found the battery tray, sanded, rust converted and painted it matt black!

Scottie decided that the next task for Damian would be to sand back and paint (again with matt black) the front panel that the radiator etc bolts on to, so that the front chrome shines beautifully when it is reattached.

Once that was completed (goal number 3 - CHECK!!),

and the bodywork finished (goal number 2 - CHECK!!),

it was onto the front floor pans. Rust conversion

and blackjack were the orders of the day!

At Damian's insistance, Scottie painted the small strip between the floor pan and the boot space in matt black, thus completing the floor pans. Goal number 1 - CHECK!!


The end of another good day of work saw Scottie and Damian planning sponsorship letters and details, with options worked out for engine, suspension, exhaust and radiator, so if you are a business who handles one of these, feel free to contact Team Booger Mobile if you would like to help!!


Catch you next time!

Bodywork begins...

A sunny Sunday morning greeted Scottie and Damian as they prepared to commence the first serious bodywork for Booger Mobile.

The goals for the day were as follows:

1. Complete the welding/patching etc of the front chassis rail
2. Floor Pans
3. Boot space
4. Rust removal from some panels if time permitted

Scottie got to work straight away welding and grinding the floor pans,

meanwhile Damian began scraping and cleaning the boot to remove old grunge and surface rust, ably assisted by his older son Aidan...

After cleaning, the scary-wire-brush-angle-grinder made another appearance, followed shortly thereafter by some rust converter. After drying, the boot was painted flat black - visible progress being made at last! Goal number 3 - CHECK!!

Once this was completed, Damian removed all the trim clips that were still remaining, while Scottie continued to weld. Interesting side-note - Damian's dog Tonka decided that standing and watching Scottie weld from about 3 feet away was a good option... Probably not the best, and Damian is now expecting to have a blind dog... His eyes were a bit red afterwards!!

The front floor pans took quite a bit of work - and still aren't completed. The boys decided the best way forward was to weld flat plates over the parts that were rusted to give the floor pan strength, then bog up any minor holes from below to seal it. While welding, Scottie suddenly realised that there was something terribly wrong - time for open heart surgery on the welder!!

The welding wire had decided it didn't want to feed anymore, and the tip was looking somewhat dodgy, so a replacement tip, followed by removal and refeeding of the welding wire was in order... Sadly this means wasting about 2 metres of welding wire, but hey, these things can't be avoided sometimes!

After completing the patch he was working on, Scottie grew tired of the front floor pan,

and moved onto cutting the rust from the rear quarter panel. Having cut a long strip out of the rear quarter panel, he began fashioning a replacement strip. After much hammering and cursing, Damian suggested Scottie try using the vice that was conveniently located on the concrete behing Booger Mobile. Much more success was had, and shortly the replacement panel was ready to weld into place!

Damian pushed the panel from the inside using Scottie's hammer, while Scottie tacked the panel on. Later, they were to realise that the hammer was showing signs of almost being welded to the inside of the boot, but all's well that ends well!

While Scottie welded, ground, bogged and sanded the rear quarter panel, Damian decided that removing the hood lining was a task that needed doing... What a horrible, messy job it turned out to be!! Perfect for Damian, who deserved it for being so useless with welders and bog!

The hood lining was removed to reveal a roof in very good condition (hooray), and a large amout of mess all over the inside of Booger Mobile. At one point, Damian asked Scottie if he had seen his goggles, as the crap falling from the hood lining was getting in his eyes. Scottie's reply "They're on your head, Damian!" d'oh!!

While Damian was getting snowed on by 45 years worth of hood lining dust and crud,

Scottie completed the grinding and bogging of the rear quarter panel,

then finished off the final touches of the chassis rail, black-jacking it to seal in the fresh steel goodness! Goal number 1 - CHECK!!

Once the hood lining was removed, the inside was cleaned out (yet again).

Once this was done, it was decided to complete the floor pan from under the front seat (or where it would be if it was inside Booger Mobile) to the back, leaving the front floor pans for another day after the collection of more metal. Cleaned, rust converted and black-jacked, the floor pans looked a million dollars - assuming a million dollars looked like a tarred floor-pan! Goal number 2 - two thirds checked - more steel is required for the front floor pans.

Scottie completed the sanding and priming of the rear quarter panel (to rough stage - final sanding etc will happen when the entire vehicle is rubbed back ready for painting). Goal 4 - CHECK!!

The boys then decided to spend an hour or two planning the upcoming months work and activities, to ensure all was on track for Booger Mobile's big reveal to the world - still planned for the Nambour swap meet and car show on 25 July 2009. After this was completed, Damian decided to remove the exhaust system to get it out of the way for next time (next time will involve black-jacking the entire underbody). Undoing the nuts at the engine end - difficult but doable. Undoing the nut holding the muffler at the very back - easy. Undoing the nuts holding the exhaust near the axle - impossible!! Bit more strength and kerping!! One u-bolt arm snapped off at the nut!! Some bending and bashing and the exhaust system was free - well, free to lie under the car and over the top of the axle.

The boys grabbed an end each, and after a minor issue trapping Damian's hand between the engine mount and the exhaust as it un-jammed itself, they were free to twist, turn and extract it out the back... similar to the way that you would dig, twist and pull a really long booger from your nostril...

Problem!! The shed was slightly too close to the back of the car. Solution!! Push Booger Mobile forward and extract the exhaust, then push it back again. As Scottie was about to push, Damian quickly grabbed the gear lever and double-clicked it down into Neutral - he'd fallen into that trap once before!! With the exhaust extracted, Booger rolled back into place, and a final clean up, the day was finished.

Damian is away with Camp Quality next weekend, so the next work on Booger Mobile is scheduled for the last weekend in May. Stay tuned!!

Working in the new shed!

The story continues...

After Operation Relocation, Scottie and Damian got down to the business of the day. Scottie was welding up the chassis rail at the front where it had a bit missing due to old age and rust, and Damian was clearing the insides and prepping the floor pans for repair.



The rusted chassis rail was in worse condition than first thought, but Scottie's ingenuity and metal origami skills have repaired it to be "stronger than the original"... Some minor filing and filling and a bit of black paint and it will be good as new!



Damian removed the chrome strips and lights from the boot and inside the car, carefully placing them to one side in the shed.




He then commenced power-brushing the pans with a nasty angle grinder with wire brush attachment... Keeping all his fingers and toes, the wire brush revealed numerous small holes to be repaired, and one slightly larger one that needs a small plate put over it to repair... All in all the floor pans weren't as bad as first thought... at last a small win!!



At the end of the day, the front chassis rail was now supporting the weight of the Booger Mobile without sagging or breaking, the internals were cleaned and prepped for repairs, and some planning had taken place for mounting points for the underbody protection plates...



All in all, a good day. We are aiming to unveil Booger Mobile to the world at the Nambour Swap Meet at the end of July - painted and all chrome back on it by this time... It will still be unregistered (and not going), so will need to be trailered up.




If anyone has access to a car trailer that they would like to lend to Scottie and Damian, please contact them on the numbers above!

Operation Relocation

Today was the day for Booger Mobile to be relocated from his temporary home down in the farm shed at the rear of Damian's property up to the new shed (with power, lights and a nice, clean concrete floor to lie on!) In preparation for the move, Damian grabbed his trusty chainsaw to remove the tree-stump that was located fair smack in the middle of the roller door that Booger Mobile was going to be placed in. The stump was much rounder than the 16" bar on the chainsaw, so it was cut by basically cutting in as deep as the blade would go, then circling the stump. TIMBERRRRRRRRRRRRRR!! The stump was removed and rolled off to one side. Dirt and rocks were shovelled around the place to smooth out the driveway a little, before being rolled with Damian's Patrol.

Just as this was being finished, Scottie arrived, having already had an adventurous trip down... Two flat tyres (well, the same tyre, twice) on the journey down caused him to arrive a little later than planned, but not to worry. Upon arrival, the boys decided a snappy coffee was in order followed by dragging Booger Mobile up the driveway (a couple of hundred metres) then reversing it down into the shed.

Don't forget, Booger Mobile currently isn't running, and has no working brakes (although they are a little seized, therefore it wasn't so much an issue of how to stop it from rolling away, but how hard the boys had to push to get it to move!!)


After attaching a drag chain to the front of Booger Mobile and to the rear of Scottie's Hilux, (and re-attaching Booger Mobile's steering wheel), Damian grabbed a handheld UHF radio from Scottie for communications during the tow, and climbed into the empty shell.




Perched on the floor, the towing began. STOP, STOP!! The rear wheels were skidding...


Damian got out of the car and had a look, deciding to remain on the outside of Booger Mobile while Scottie began towing again... STOP, STOP!! The wheels were still skidding, then Damian had a brainwave - maybe the transmission is still in Park!! The column shift is a bit sloppy, so even though the needle was pointing to Neutral, the transmission WAS still in Park (how embarrassing!!), so Damian counted the clicks through Reverse to Neutral (even though it now looked as though the transmission was in Low), and Scottie inched forward... Success!! With the transmission in Neutral, the wheels all turned freely - who would have thought????!?!?!?!!!

Damian climbed back inside, and Scottie recommenced towing duties.


The rest of the journey up the driveway was uneventful, until the boys reached the point for turning down the side driveway to the shed. The boys paused for a few photos, and for Damian to stretch his legs (apparently it's pretty uncomfortable attempting to drive a car with no seats yet squat up high enough to see out the front window), then decided to attempt to reverse Booger Mobile down towards the shed.



It was slow going at first - the plan was that Scottie would reverse the Hilux slowly so that Booger Mobile would gently roll backwards to the shed. HAHAHAHAHAHA... Good plan, but fell down in the implementation! The wheels wouldn't quite turn freely enough to get much of a roll on, so the plan changed to become reverse the Hilux as far as possible, then Scottie and Damian pushed Booger Mobile until the drag chain was about to pull tight, then reverse the Hilux again, then push again... repeat over and over until the shed was reached!! Once Booger Mobile had reached the portion of the driveway were the zigzag was required to get into the middle bay, Damian suggested swapping the drag chain for a snatch strap for two reasons"

1. The snatch strap was a lot longer, hence we wouldn't need to reverse the Hilux many more times and
2. The snatch strap would be a little more gentle if we actually did have it pull tight - taking up the slack and stopping Booger Mobile a little more gracefully than a sudden THUD from a drag chain!!

After swapping to the snatch strap, and much pushing, grunting and sweating, Booger Mobile was lined up with the shed, ready for a final push to roll in...




On the count of three, 1, 2, 3!! Booger Mobile rolled down the last bit of driveway, up the boards placed to assist with getting over the edge of the slab and into the shed, stopping with its front wheels just short of being up on the slab... So close, yet so far!! With a final gut-bursting lift and push, Scottie and Damian had Booger Mobile in the shed, ready for action!!

Well, that covered the first couple of hours of Saturday - come back tomorrow night for what happened during the rest of the day!