Bondo, James Bondo

...and yes, I'm running out of puns involving Bondo. I spent most of Saturday working on Bondo-ing and sanding the 205. Most of the work was on the bottoms of the window posts that were installed last weekend; I sanded these down and smoothed out the joints between the new post caps and the car's belt rail (see right).

I also worked on the wooden spacer over one of the car's west end windows, in which I drilled out and doweled the rotted-out holes for the screws that hold it to the letterboard. And I worked on the angled dash panel at the east end of the car. As seen below, the angled panel was reattached to the vertical dash and I began Bondo-ing the joint between the dash and the dash. On the left, note that the angled panel has been completely detached by rust from the vertical dash underneath the headlight, and has "sunk" from its original location, noted with a black line; in center, my father and I have raised up the angled dash and screwed it into the vertical dash at the correct height; at right, I've begun applying Bondo to the joint.
Ironically, installation of the headlight a couple of weeks ago will make smoothing out the Bondo more challenging, but that's the price you pay for progress! Note too that the angled dasher at the east end of the car, which was replaced in Portland following an accident of some sort, is significantly more rusted than the Kuhlman-installed one at the west end of the car. Apparently Portland Traction used thinner steel in their wreck rebuild.

In the end I was able to complete the window posts and make progress on various other areas of the car that have seen deterioration. I also completed spray-painting the HL switch groups under the car black (right) and tied the pole at the west end of the car to the hook so that it won't unhook and swing around unbidden, which it had done due to the (intentionally) low spring tension on the trolley base.



There was a lot happening in the department. John Myhre was working with Frank and Mike on the West Towns car; Jon and Dan were working on the 65; Jeff and Norm were doing roof work on the Michigan car; and Ed and Eric were working on the Cleveland PCC. As seen below, the painter has begun putting finish color on the body, and already the traces of Cleveland Transit System's distinctive Raymond Loewy-designed livery are showing.