Cut! Cut! Cut!

This past Saturday was chop day. Derek came by with his demolition saw. Tools of destruction are always fun. Anyway, to start cut the welds for the door skin with cute little Dremel. Derek’s got some skills, he was able to cut the two welds without that self-destructo cutting wheel exploding. That didn’t happen until after when I attempted a cut into the plastic door handle, whereupon it promptly shattered in two sending a piece flying into another dimension somewhere. The same place all spring clips go. That done it was time to graduate to the more serious tool.

Everyone’s favorite, the demolition saw. People call it sawzall, but that’s actually a tradename, like scotch tape.

 Whoo hoo, cut! Not without meeting some resistance though….  Nothing a little persistance wouldn’t overcome! cutcutcut.avi

So this cutting got us into the guts of the door. I didn’t realize how these are put together. Except for those two welds, the outside of a door is held on by just crimping the edge over, like those aluminum bottom bento boxes.

A bunch of convincing with large crowbar got things bent back a bit. Door still didn’t want to open. Some more prying with bar to try & open door resulted in a new, uh, aero feature in the bodywork. Looking at all the bits & comparing to functioning mechanism, we figured it was unlatched but because of it being bent out of alignment didn’t want to release. 

So climbing inside & a swift kick popped the door. Yay!

Got the old door on there, will have to adjust hinges later as it’s massively crooked, but I can drive now, and the cat won’t have a quiet comfy seat to sleep on now.