Installation

Now for the finishing touch. No matter how ugly your project turns out, there's nothing like a nice coat of paint. It usually improves things. And of course it does protect it 'till you scrape the paint off, which doesn't take long. When painting over rusty steel, I prefer brand name rust-type paint. Some how I maintain the illusion that this will make up for my halfassed surface preparation.

I usually go for a thick coat of paint, real thick. This is another of my self deceptions. Somehow I delude myself into believing that if all else fails, the paint will hold things together. I mean why not ? It sure sticks to me. And the paint brush too. Why is it so hard to clean a paint brush ? This explains the popularity of those water based paints. But I don't trust them, at least not on this sort of thing. It should be noted, that even after the original Truck Rack had fallen apart, it was still painted just fine.


And now comes the installation. Without this step the whole project would be pointless. With the help of the Athletical Son, the newly refurbished Truck Rack was placed on the truck. The entire assembly was then securely attached to the truck bed with a number of screws.

We haven't tried to use it yet, but it seems strong enough. I even think that if the Athletical Son decides to workout on it, it may even survive. But actually, I don't want to encourage that sort of behavior.

And so here is the finished project, ready for the road and whatever comes next.

Fabrication

Los Burritos were tasty, so, on with this Truck Rack business.
First, I should mention that My Sweetie is one of the fortunate few women who have a 230 amp arc welder under their kitchen counter. I suppose this could open up some interesting possibilities in food preparation. Remember those thing for cooking hotdogs, before microwaves, were you would stick them on some kind of electrodes ? Think what 230 amps could do ! But that is another subject. Here in my sophisticated work area, you can see all the state of the art equipment. The green box with the wheels is, of course, the welder. To the left of that, are the high-tech saw horses, complete with "C" clamps. The round looking orange thing, is one of the power supplies, behind which you may notice the cheap side grinder. A 3/8 drill with wire brush, and toolbox with odds and ends, round things out. And most importantly, the shade tree. When the cargo was finally removed from the original rack, the whole back end fell off. (You may notice it leaning against the saw horse) So the first thing was to replace that. Here you can see the system developed to assure the proper alignment of this critical component.
The small gussets were a feature of the new improved design, so they would have to be cut. Not having access to a cutting torch, I have learned to use metal cutting blades in the skill saw. This system is capable of the precision cuts necessary for these critical parts.

Now the gusset is installed. The weld still needs to be cleaned up. The side grinder comes in handy for that. By now the sun had moved and my shade was gone. This was not good. But the assembly was complete, and it was time to give it a rest.
Next we'll look at the finishing up of this project.

Truck Rack Redesign

On a recent trip home from the coast, some serious deficiencies were discovered with The Fuzz's Truck Rack.
[See, Complications in Travel, July 27, 2007]
Since this rack is a necessary accessory to the little Oriental Vehicle, It had to be repaired. The original design had leaned a bit too much in the "light" direction, and this contributed to the resultant ordeal. Some slight changes were in order. So here is the new, improved Fuzzy Truck Rack.

The Fuzz is still going for the "minimalist" thing here, just not too "minimal" he hopes. The main improvements, other than better welds, are the new Gussets. The Fuzz expects that these will add the needed rigidity and reenforce his questionable welding.
This whole affair consists of old bed-rails and scrap metal, picked up around town. Bed rails are cheap, but thin, and frustratingly hard to weld without burning holes though them.
So the "Brain" work was done, (if you can call it that) and it was time to put it all back together. The Fuzz will go though this, step by step, but not today. Its Burrito Night.