Part 2 in the series Car Problems in Belém.
Now that we were in Belém and Coen had found a welder who could not only weld the aluminum edge of the bodywork (Part 1 in the series Car Problems in Belém, read about it here), but also stainless steel, he figured he might as well get some other jobs done, among which:
- Getting the rear aluminum steel bumper welded, which had broken off.
- Weld protection edges around the rear lights.
- Welding a stainless steel bar to connect the new pre-filter to the bodywork.
- Having a new toaster made, as the old one was completely rusted. This of course, was more something for fun along all other work. And since Coen and Carlos both adore anything made of stainless steel they both enjoyed working on the project.
Riveting the roof rack
Retighten the sliders that hold the solar panels in place
The employees gave us this as a present, which would prove useful in the future
One Job Leads to Another
The welding wasn’t the problem. For a professional like Carlos (who has worked 23 years for Guimarães Nasser), these were easy tasks. No, the thing is – as usual – that when you want to get one thing fixed, you have to do two other jobs in order to achieve it. In this particular case it was dismantling and fixing the rear lights, one of which had broken more than a year ago. A broken cable turned out to be one the cause for the malfunction.
Cleaning the rear lights from 2 years of accumulated mud
How does the rear bumper come off the bodywork?
Put together you have the protection of two rear lights…
New rear light protection
Cleaning and fixing the lights took Coen three days. One of the rear lights was completely rusted and Coen discussed on forums how to get those bulbs out. In the end he was forced to destroy them so he could pull everything out of the socket from the inside and could clean the screw thread properly.
More Welding Jobs – Gifts of Stainless Steel
One afternoon Carlos stopped by. “Quiet day. Tomorrow I’ll be very busy again. You need more things welded?” he asked. We chatted for a while, drank a cup of coffee and he shared his second passion with me (his first is working with stainless steel).
Carlos is intoxicated with the pyramids of Egypt. “I don’t have the means to travel there,” he said, “So I travel on the Internet. There I can find all I want to learn, and see so many pictures of them.” He knows the names of pyramids and royalty buried there, but is especially fascinated about the theories on how the pyramids were built. It was a joy to listen to this man with such a passion.
Stainless steel keyring
Stainless steel toaster
Later that afternoon he returned. “Here’s the toaster.” Early morning he returned once more and asked for Coen.
“I have a gift for you.”
He had made a beautiful stainless steel keyring of the letter C with the letter K welded into it. We were touched to the core.
Carlos, you are the best!
We got lots of work done on the Land Cruiser everywhere in South America. Interested in learning more? Here you can find great workshops that helped us.
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