repurposing bench brackets

This is a milk crate full of metal brackets and hardware that was holding in the CWV's benches. I've been meaning to weight it because it is HEAVY!

These are screen grabs from a video of SBF sawing on metal to repurpose some of the bench brackets to use as spacers for one of the back seats. He needed something to level out the other side of the seat where he welded those plates to attach it to the van. It's a little complicated sounding, but I'm sure it'll all make sense when we see the finished product. 

Finally! The floor is gone!

All the seats in the CWV were attached to these brackets that were bolted down with these huge bolts. They didn't have the tool size we needed to remove them at the Home Depot so SBF ordered one from the Internet. Unfortunately, that one was too big. Grrrrr. However, that man is super handy and made do with another tool.

The brackets were like this ...

And this ...

The tool we needed was one just a little bit smaller than THIS one.

All the bolts and brackets pulled!!

The moment we've been waiting for. (Well, one of the moments.)

It wasn't as bad we expected. Lots of dirt, some pens, an old SweetTarts packet, but otherwise pretty good.

 The emptier it gets, the more exciting it is!!

Oh! And some random plants were growing under there. Apparently moisture can be a big problemo with these vans, so if this is all the plant life she grew (no molds!) then we're doing pretty good. We haven't pulled the carpet from under the front seats year, but that's happening soon.

The next steps are more cleaning, some sanding, and addressing the rusty spots.