I started removing the rear floor ahead of schedule. I'm now behind
again. You would think an old, warped, rotted, and generally falling apart
floor wouldn't be much trouble. Gads.
Last night I found myself in a catch 22. Saturday I had removed all the
edge trim and started on the clevis bolts and skid strips. The clevis
bolts were a non-starter, they just rotated in the old wood. So I worked
on the skid strips, but soon found that the fuel tank was going to have to
be removed to allow "torch" access to the captive nuts.
Here the truck won a round. Over the years heavy things had been hauled in
the back of the Carryall, causing the rear floor to sag down onto the fuel
tank. I could not access the forward tank retaining strap bolts with the
floor in, I couldn't remove the skid strips to pull the floor without
dropping the fuel tank.
I finally broke out the skill saw and started making strategic cuts in the
wood. For all the rot and warpage in that floor the sections around the
trim strips, clevis bolts and fuel tank seamed to be in as good a shape as
they were 59 years ago when they were put in. I sawed, pried, hammered and
even used a 2x4 with the floor jack to pop tongue and groove seams. I
succeeded in removing 2/3rds of the floor without hurting the skid strips
or other hardware.
The fuel tank retaining bolts are now exposed and I'll move forward on that
tonight.
Chris Davis
MVPA# 20000
Lake Forest, CA
'42 WC53 Carryall
'66 M274A2 Mule
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