Well, yesterday I moved Lara's body down to a different shop down in mesa to finish the metal and body work. I've been pretty humbled with this process and learned a lot, unfortunately the hard way. I think I was in some bit of denial about the body work the other shop was doing for a while, I didn't think it looked the way that it should based on the other work I'd seen done before, but they kept reassuring me that it would all clean up later on and how "great" they thought it was looking. I didn't really get to stop by much during most of this pandemic due to the family situation so I had to rely on pictures more than I would like, but past few months tried to stop by more and the conversations were not going the way that a business/customer conversation should go. Basically, they kept just telling me to be happy with things I wasn't happy with, I can't tell you how many times they said "it is what it is". Eventually the shop owner, who I had previously considered a friend, wouldn't even talk to me. He was almost never at the shop anyway, and had someone else - who really is just a welder not a fab/body guy - doing most of the work for him off and on. They kept telling me how much work it is, and that I didn't really know what I was asking for with a lot of the requests. Lots of complaining about how bad the body was, and me saying that shouldn't be any surprise - all Lara's scars have been there staring us in the face since the day she got back from sandblast. I started to wonder if perhaps I was being unreasonable, until I talking to a couple of other body guys in the valley, showing them photos, etc and they confirmed what I had been concerned about all along. So I had to take a deep breath and prepare to do what needed to be done, and take it someplace that would do it right. This was a tough pill to swallow, as I fear a lot of their work will need to be redone to make it look right. Lots of areas warped from excessive heat, bad welds, etc. A lot of time and money wasted in 2020. Time will help me cope with this I'm sure, but its brought a lot of stress and anxiety over the last few months. I have learned a lot of lessons from this process. I'm confident in the end I'll make sure this project is done right though, and a correctly finished product is the only thing that is going to make me feel better about the mistakes that have been made along the way. I'm partnering now with Avid Cruisers for pretty much the entire remaining project, so now I have fellow cruiser fans on my side helping me make sure we do this FJ28 justice.
I probably shouldn't complain, many have had it much worse this year! I knew this was a massive project, I thought it was going to take a long time but I wasn't expecting to have to switch shops. I'll be meeting with the new body guy next week sometime to go over it, what needs to be fixed/corrected, and get a timeframe but I think the expectation is that the body will finish this spring. Maybe if we are lucky we finally have a finished truck this summer. I feel a lot better today than I did last week though, so I know we're getting back on track with the project. Hope to provide better, cheerier updates throughout 2021!
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