Eduardo had bought some time ago a Ford Cargo truck from someone who could not pay for its repair and had begun to restore it when Eddie, the painter/mechanician, got sick and left for Ecuador, again. The poor truck was then left in the oblivion for a couple of months until that day, when he came to an agreement with another painter to finish the job. The crane would surely prove to be very useful in a near future, and Joaquín, the painter, laughed at the idea of finishing the truck before the Merkabah.
Next time, I took from the attic the old rear-view mirrors. One of them was broken but still usable as it was the weekend, with no new mirrors available. One of the support tubes was also in very bad shape, but when it referred to the supports for the doors, there were bigger problems.
The lower supports were hand-made, ugly though still useful, but one of the upper supports was broken. Hmm…
I was cleaning the threads for the supports on the doors when, suddenly, I remembered something, kind of an image in my memory: Spare the truck had all the supports, the original ones, and I had never taken them out.
Went on with other stuff until it came the moment to leave. Later, at home, I looked for the pictures when there still was an actual truck and pictures that showed the cabin as it rested in peace at the cattle in recent times, and finally found some that confirmed my guessings.
Next day, I took some tools with me and rode to the cattle, ready to fight with the bloody supports I knew were going to fight back pretty hard.
And, yes… there they were the original MB supports for the rear-view mirrows. You can see how bad the weather and the time had treated the paint and the steel of the cabin of the poor truck. Yet, there were always something the old Spare could collaborate to the project with.
It was a struggle, as expected, to remove the supports from the neglected cabin. The bolts were badly rusted and fiercely stuck. To make it worse, on the right side there was just a little space to move because a shed was built just by the cabin. I had to drill some of the bolts, but there was no place to put the powerdrill where I needed it most.
Those days were the hottest days of December, so it was an effort and a suffering, sweating like a cow in between the wall of the shed and the cabin itself.
In the end, though, the supports came out and I brought them to the shop where they received the proper beauty treatment before painting.
The supporting tubes were also treated and, from the four I had, I was able to rescue the two needed to put back on the truck. Good.
Searching for pieces in the piles of boxes, I found the second license plate of the Merkabah. Did not even remember that there was a second plate around. It was quite bent and discolored. Here you see it in the process of being restored. Ordering a new one is a PITA so, welcome.
When the paint of the supports dryed up I could not wait to install the rear-view mirrors, which was not so simple as I had to adapt the tubes from one truck to the the supports of the other. Anyway, I installed both mirrors, the good and the broken one, momentarily.
Eduardo passed by, shook his head and passed me one of the mirrors of the red Ford Cargo truck, that was in far better shape than the mirror of the Merkabah. He had plenty of spares.
With 41º C around in San Felipe I felt grateful for the gift and not having to go out to look for a new mirror right at that moment.
From then on, there was a subtle change. Every little piece I added to complete the cabin felt, strangely though consistently, very meaningful. I Installed the left mudguard, with all the work involved as it is not that easy as you may think, and then got the spare of the lens of the turning light. Removed the old and cracked lens, put the bulb on and replaced the old lens by the new one, and it felt like it was a ceremony. Strange.
The ensamble looked pretty good, though the rubber seal was not in its better days.
I was fully aware of that strange feeling, so I opened every box at hand until I found the I.D. plate that I had removed from the cabin at some moment, with the same ceremonial mood, when the disassembly came to an end and the serious renovation started.
The plate was careful cleaned and screwed back in place. Ah… pretty good feeling. The end, or the beginning of… something. Bo.