Vannin' Home Forums General Discussion Readers Rides My 1997 Express

Thanks Wizard.

I found this picture of her (left) with our other dog (right) patrolling the wood pile looking for chipmunks. She LOVED to be outdoors.

Really sorry to hear about your Dog Dave, it's good that you have good memories and pictures to help remember her by.

Thanks Gladiator. Yes, quite a few good picks, many great memories.

Good looking dog and cherish the memories.

One last story, then I'll quit talking dogs.

We didn't really intend to adopt her. My boss at the time had a dachshund that passed...it was over 20 years old! She had become quite attached to it...it was always on her Christmas car, took it to Oktoberfest in Frankenmuth, MI, etc. When I told my wife, she said she had heard about a local shelter in a neighboring county that has a dozen or so dachshunds they had taken away from a hoarder. So we start browsing this shelter, and others, looking for a new pup for my boss.

Then we find the county shelter that had Belle. Two terrible pictures of her, mouth open, tongue hanging out, won't sit still, but we thought she looked cute, in a big dopey Lab sort of way. And at this time, the shelter had all the animals on a countdown clock (they don't do this anymore). They all got a certain amount of time (like 30 days), and if they weren't adopted, they were put to sleep. And she had 9 days to go.

Somewhat horrified by this tactic, we kept checking back every day (part of their goal I'm sure, and we played right into it), sure that someone would adopt her before time ran out. When she got down to 3 days, and it was a Saturday, we felt like she was out of time (shelter closed Sunday, so her final day would be Monday, which didn't seem to us like a day likely to see a lot of adoptions), We went down and saw her, and the rest is history.

I thought I'd share this, as it's sorta van related...a van part, and it's going on a car hauler that I tow with my van.

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I bought an aluminum car hauler for my T/A a few years ago...used it to take the car to the T/A Nationals in 2017, and a few other places since. Also handy for fetching large parts, like axles.

One of the few things I want to improve is to get a cover for the spare tire. It's mounted on a nice carrier on the side of the bed, but it leaves the spare 100% exposed to UV on both sides most of the year. I can get a vinyl cover, but I wasn't sure it would stay on going down the road, and they don't cover 100% of the back side.

I've been watching for a good deal on a stainless or aluminum band-style cover, and stumbled across this one today. It even has ribs in it that match the deck of the trailer. Needs a little cleaning up, but for $10, I couldn't pass it up. Don't think I've seen on like it before, so very happy to get it.



A couple of fiberglass discs for front and back, and the spare tire will be all protected. And I can get some nice Pontiac (or related) decals for the 'glass disc that faces out. Should clean-up and dress-up nice.

You can see some of it in the first photo of the spare tire cover above, but there's a LOT of tar and industrial fallout on this thing. It's quite a mess. I went over it before that photo was taken with some shop towels and Mean Green. It removed a LOT of dirt, but did nothing for the other deposits.

I stopped today and bought a spray can of Lifter 1 citrus Bug and Tar remover. A little leery of the citrus part...I'm used to more powerful and noxious petroleum distillates....but I have to say for this application, where I could rub at it with a green Scotchbrite pad, it worked quite well.

Here you can start to see some of those specks up close.




Cleaned on the right, yet to be done on the left.




In this photo, the Lifter 1 has really started to dissolve the tar, maybe 30-60 seconds after application. I've already gone over the first couple of rows of ribs (top) with the Scotchbrite pad.




It's never going to be a show piece, but it's looks can certainly be improved on.




Being an anodized surface, I'm not sure if I'll be able to get it much better looking than this. The hard anodized coating is cloudy to a degree, and I'm not sure if polishing will help. But we're going to find out. As soon as my right hand and fingers are talking to me again...I'm getting old!

While it's tough to do much with an anodized coating, I tried polishing an area of it with Flitz. Section on the right and middle have been done, the left side has not. It helped bring it back to more of a silver color, and less of a milky white look.



I think this is about as far as I'm going to go. Stripping the anodizing, and having it reapplied is just more money than I want to put into the old part. I may clear coat it, but that's about it. My finger tips are not looking forward to finishing this job.