To continue with the ongoing saga of the old shop, here are more period shop photographs, starting around 30 years ago in the early 1980's.
Here, a 1968 Roadrunner is on the lift. This shows the left rear of the lift and note the lift wheel chock is in view and working, though the roller on the bottom of the counter weight is rusted and doesn't turn.
For those of you in California and the South West and unfamiliar, that's called
"body rust". It use to be a fact of life on cars east of the Rockies. Nasty stuff that. Not nearly as much of a problem any more thankfully. Auto manufacturers are doing a
much better job building vehicles that resist rust now.
If any work was performed with the wheels off the car, it would need to be blocked up. Here the wood blocking is set on a piece of channel that spans both ramps. I've still got that channel and one that was used for the front ramps if all 4 wheels were removed while a vehicle was on the lift.
When I was reworking the Chevy II, removing all the old undercoating with the wheels off...
...to better access the wheel well openings, I still used wood blocking to support it while on the lift but didn't need to use the steel channel to span both ramps. Here the rear brake drum just sits on blocks which are on the ramp.
This is showing some work being done on a backhoe bucket at the rear of the lift room, the lift is up in the air for more floor space. The interesting thing here is circled in yellow. Note the counter weight on the right side rear wheel chock is missing. It became rusted and didn't work so it was torched off at some point.
This was done long before my buddy from out there had any memory of it. He remembers it was always gone and that wheel chock never worked.
So as you might remember I had that counter weight replicated exactly as the original and restored that wheel chock so it would function again as new. That chock hadn't worked in over 50 years before I did the restoration.
Here's a little project they did out there, making charcoal starters. Charcoal would be placed in the tube which had a grill bottom and then a lit propane torch would be placed at the bottom where there's an arched opening. Once the charcoal was burning well the tube could be picked up, the wood handle insulated the heat from the hot charcoal and it could all be dumped into a proper charcoal grill.
Here are several starters on the lift ramp that have been manufactured.
The same area of the lift today.
This is a brake drum with legs welded on the bottom of it sitting on the lift ramp. It's holding charcoal and I believe lunch is being cooked.
Here's the same lift ramp 30+ years later, minus the brake drum. The black stripe on the left of the lift is rubber from tires rubbing the inside of the ramp lip when cars are driven on or off.
Yes lunch is definitely being cooked on the lift, hot dogs if I'm not mistaken with the buns being toasted as well. First class
all the way!
Note the hooks on the wall holding the welding helmet.
Flash forward 30+ years to the same spot. Those are the same hooks in the same holes that were holding the welding helmet. I did use larger stainless steel washers on them however. Look closely at the mirror in the window and you'll see me holding the original photograph trying to compose the picture from the same angle. Some things are the same and some have changed in the intervening years. I really like contrasting those two photographs. I believe it shows the spirit of the old shop is still alive and well today. The same and yet different but all in a good way. The saga continues.....
Thomas
