2014 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 26,000 times in 2014. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 10 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

In the booth

 We replaced the hood and installed a new hood latch on this Avalon. A new grill will go in tomorrow. If all goes well, it will go back home tomorrow.

Prime time

Back on the Acadia hard and heavy today and it shows. Last week we welded the new inner and outer quarter on. We took pictures but the camera decided it was tired and retired, so, we missed all the shots of installing the new panel. Here is the results though. Today Chris went to work on straightening the body work out. Things went smoothly and  we were also able to prime these areas at the same time we primed the Altima. This is a pretty big job but the progress is moving along quite nicely.  Tomorrow we hope start prepping this for paint.

Crash and smash

This Altima is here to get fixed up. It was involved in a fairly light rear end collision but where it was hit, is a little challenging to fix. We will be replacing the rear bumper and the right tail lamp. Because the quarter was hit right where the light, the corner of the quarter and the bumper meet, it makes things a bit complicated. Special time was taken today to make sure it all fits just like its supposed to. The metal was worked to ensure the thinnest  amount of filler needed to do the repair. It really turned out nice. Tomorrow we will block out the primer and prep for paint. 

A Christmas gift?

This Suburban is in the shop to get a few bruises fixed up when it wrestled with a tractor trailer. Its got a few dents in the quarter and will get a new bumper and tail light. These pictures are from yesterday. The new bumper was painted yesterday and the damaged quarter panel was painted today but none of the pictures turned out. Tomorrow we plan on getting the new bumper back on and in the tail light in. If all goes well this one will be ready for pick up tomorrow.

Keep it moving

While we are waiting on parts and the insurance company, we kept the job moving some today by starting the repairs on the damage caused by the light pole. If you don’t know the story click here to see why this one is in the shop in the first place.

Santa came by the shop today

Knocking down a Christmas present for a lucky lady today. These wheels will be replacing the ones on her car now. They came in silver but we flat blacked them for a meaner look. We still have one more custom touch that will get added tomorrow. We will post pictures once they are all installed.

The lesser of two evils

This little Acura was traveling down the road when an oncoming truck was coming over the center line. The driver of the Acua decided to take out a garbage can instead of a head on collision. A wise choice if you ask me. Unfortunately the mirror was sacrificed and the door got a pretty big dent in it. We fixed the dent today and prepped it up for paint. Tomorrow it will get painted and maybe get put all back together. We are still waiting on the mirror but it should be in tomorrow.

It was a bad day

This Acadia has had a bad day. It was sitting in its parking spot at work, minding its own business when out of no where a man slams right into the left quarter and wheel area. To make matters worse, when he backed up, he hit a light pole that fell down and landed on the roof of this vehicle. The door and quarter area was damaged so badly that it took about 30 minutes just to get the door open. A new door and a new quarter are on tap for this one. We have already sent this one over to our frame shop to get the damage pulled back into place before we cut it off. Today we were able to trim the areas of the quarter that are going to be replaced. We did find that inner panel was damaged beyond repair so we will be replacing it as well. Here you can see Chris drilling out the spot welds. Once they are all drilled out the panel is easily removed. Tomorrow we will continue to remove the bent up metal. Hopefully the inner panel comes in.

Ready for the road

 The Hyundai went home last week, but I am just now getting around to posting the finished pictures. Sometimes life gets in the way. This is the one we installed a new left quarter on. I think it turned out pretty nice.