My new 1988 T/A

[DynoDave]

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[DynoDave]

And in my spare time, I'm STILL cleaning items form the garage fire, and getting them put back up in the rebuilt garage.

The right cabinet door is freshly cleaned, and left one not. The clean stripe on the far left edge of the left door is from a row of RockAuto magnets.



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[MP81]

Wow...that's a massive difference. How much elbow grease does it take to get it that clean?

[DynoDave]

Some surfaces take quite a bit of elbow grease. A few never got clean, like my Route 66 sign.

These cabinets are covered in a vinyl contact paper. Being "plastic", I was certain they were trashed. I was expecting to have to peal all that off with a heat gun, clean them, disassemble them, and recover them. I was expecting it to take a couple of months picking away at it here and there.

Not to sound like an infomercial, when the fire first happened, I had read online several people talking about how great a Made-In-The-USA dollar store cleaner called "LA's Totally Awesome" cleaner was. Skeptical, I bought a jug, and by god it DOES work amazingly well. All of that was done with Meijer paper towel and a spray bottle of 1/3 cleaner 2/3 water. No agressive rubbing or pressure required. I was shocked, and very pleased. Just saved me a TON of time and effort.

That cabinet above and it's mate are cleaned and up on the wall.




Got them largely restocked with the items that were cleaned. Still a few more items to discover here and there.

Now 3 more cabinets to do for this side of the shop.

[MP81]

Wow, that's impressive...and cheap (ish) being from the dollar store!

[DynoDave]

Yes, I was very dubious, but it really does work well. I just cleaned the worst cabinet last night, and it did a good (not perfect) job with that one. I see that cabinet getting more posters/magnets/stickers than it had in the past.

Like many things at the "dollar" store these days, it's not really a dollar, but not an expensive product for sure. My local store was out of it, so I got this most recent 1/2 gallon off of Amazon.

[DynoDave]

Partially redecorated and restocked.




Unless the room shrunk from getting wet fighting the fire, the benches are NOT exactly where they used to be. That may give me a chance to use this previously unused section of the cabinet system.



This is the cabinet mentioned above.


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[DynoDave]

Our Pontiac Oakland Club International (POCI) Chapter #16 Michigan Widetrackers held it's Fall Color Tour on 10/23/22 (my birthday....gosh, they shouldn't have ).

One of my birthday presents was an action cam so I can catch some footage going down the road during such events, without having to try to take them with my phone while I drive (as in years past). We were sitting in the parking lot/starting point ready to start the tour and still getting it set up! But I guess for a first effort, it didn't turn out too bad. Below are some stills from the tour.

The weather was PERFECT. 70, sunny, dry. Several spots on the drive we had an audience...golfers stopping their game to wave hello, people stopping their yard work to watch, kids out playing and riding quads waving, cheering and asking to us to honk our horns...it was fun. Enjoy the fall colors!

[DynoDave]

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[DynoDave]

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Whoops....missed a turn! The line of tour cars made a stop light that I did not, and I lost site of the line. Here I've already turned around to get back on track. Below, "Tail-End Charlie" is coming to chase me down and get me back on course.




Midway stop for a snack and break. I took just a couple of still photos, but caught these from the action cam as they drove by heading out for the next leg.









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[DynoDave]

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You can't really see the fellow in the Dodge truck across the 4-way stop intersection, but he's waving us all through so we can stay together as a group. This happened 3 or 4 times during the tour.





Arriving at our end point, Past Tense cider mill, craft and antique story, fair, etc. The club had 3 picnic tables under a pavilion reserved for us, and bought donuts and cider from the mill for all of us to enjoy. There was also a live band playing. We sure weren't the only ones there, as many folks from the area came out to enjoy the beautiful fall weather. We even ran into two ladies that my daughter went to H.S. with.


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[MP81]

I'm not sure what it was this year, but the colors have absolutely been insane. So intense and vibrant - far more-so than I really recall of any year past. Driving out to Grand Rapids, throughout (and over to Grand Haven and back), and then back was absolutely stunning.

[DynoDave]

I'd agree. It's always tough to pick the perfect weekend for a tour, as it varies so much from year to year. Miss it by a week or two, and you get no color, or mostly browns and bald trees. And that has happened with this tour before. But we really got lucky this year. Less than a week later, many of these trees have dropped a large portion of their leaves, or has gotten brown.

[MP81]

Yeah, the wind we've had for roughly the past week really did a number on them. Somehow we managed to drive into a headwind both to and from Grand Rapids, and on the return trip we were basically driving through walls of leaves flying through the air.

[DynoDave]

Here are a few photos I took with my phone while we were stopped at the A&W.



Those who have followed this thread for a few years may remember that during the Woodward Dream Cruise last year, we hit a small old A&W in Berkley, MI for a bite to eat. With no seating, and an owner policy that says "No food or drinks allowed inside the T/A", we used the wide, flat spoiler as a picnic table, and it worked quite well.

https://www.mifbody.com/forums/forum...80#post1491980

Well, we were a little late getting to the A&W do to our missing a turn as mentioned above. Not wanting to be inside eating when the group headed out, we once again ate outside.



I mean come on...eating from a clean, flat, bar-height spoiler, or eat from your trunk like the folks a few cars down? There's no comparison. Another 3rd gen. engineering triumph!






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