The goal was to extract the A pillar brace that is sandwiched in between several other pieces, with out disturbing them, for now. It connects the inner/outer rockers to the floor pan/toe board, and body mount bracket as well as the inner cowl. I want to be able to use drill screws to hold all the together before I cut out the rocker on the left. I felt I removed too much of the structure on the right before realizing that brace needed to be replaced. I was able to get all my dims back but wasn't going to do the same on the left. So, I started drilling and grinding out a couple dozen spot welds. Once I had the brace free of the other pieces, I just needed to cut it off below my tubing brace. I grabbed my cut off wheel and oiled the tool before using it and when I hit the trigger to get the oil in the tool, my compressor kicked on, made a high pitched screeching noise that changed to a horrible grinding and then the motor caught on fire and quit running...
The fire only lasted a few seconds and was out by the time I got over to it, but the smell of burned electrical was really strong. I pulled the rear cover off, hoping it just needed new brushes, but I knew better than that and was rewarded with molten metal having fallen into the copper windings and causing a massive short. It felt like an old friend had passed on, as I bought that compressor new in 2001 and it had at least 10,000 hours on it. And so started the saga of replacing the entire unit or the motor.
12-06-2025, 12:01 AM
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