Car Welding in Brazil – Welding Stainless Steel for the Land Cruiser

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This is part 2 of a 3-series story ‘Car Welding in Brazil’, a big welding job on the Land Cruiser in Brazil. After the job is done there is time for fun projects, which require welding stainless steel. Links to the other stories: part 1 and part 3

In Belém we had found a welder who could not only weld the aluminum edge of the bodywork but who also knew how to weld stainless steel. Coen asked he could get some other jobs done, among which:

  • Getting the rear aluminum steel bumper welded, which had broken off.
  • Weld protection edges around the rear lights.
  • Welding a stainless steel bar to connect the new pre-filter to the bodywork.
  • Having a new toaster made, as the old one was completely rusted. This, of course, was more something for fun along with all other work. And since Coen and Carlos both adore anything made of stainless steel they both enjoyed working on the project.

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Overlanders’ Handbook

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Motorhome Self Build and Optimisation

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working on projects that require welding stainless steel or aluminum
Riveting the roof rack
Retighten the sliders that hold the solar panels in place
The employees gave us this as a present, which would prove useful in the future

One Job Leads to Another

The welding wasn’t the problem. For a professional like Carlos (who has worked 23 years for Guimarães Nasser), these were easy tasks. No, the thing is – as usual – that when you want to get one thing fixed, you have to do two other jobs in order to achieve it.

In this particular case it was dismantling and fixing the rear lights, one of which had broken more than a year ago. A broken cable turned out to be one the cause of the malfunction.

Cleaning and fixing the lights took Coen three days. One of the rear lights was completely rusted and Coen discussed on forums how to get those bulbs out. In the end he was forced to destroy them so he could pull everything out of the socket from the inside and could clean the screw thread properly.

Read More: 7 Adventurous, Cultural and Inspiring Road Trips in Brazil

More Jobs – Welding Stainless Steel

One afternoon Carlos stopped by.

“It’s a quiet day. Tomorrow I’ll be very busy again. You need more things welded?” he asked.

We chatted for a while, drank a cup of coffee and he shared his second passion with me (his first is working with, and welding stainless steel).

Carlos is intoxicated with the pyramids of Egypt.

“I don’t have the means to travel there,” he said, “So I travel on the Internet. There I can find all I want to learn and see so many pictures of them.”

He knows the names of pyramids and royalty buried there but is particularly fascinated by the theories on how the pyramids were built. It was a joy to listen to this man with such a passion.

2,5 jaar overland door Brazilië, Frans-Guiana, Suriname en Guyana. Reis je mee?
Hier kun je het boek bestellen.
Cleaning the rear lights from 2 years of accumulated mud

Later that afternoon he returned.

“Here’s the toaster.”

Early morning he returned once more and asked for Coen.”I have a gift for you.”

He had welded a stainless steel key ring of the letter C with the letter K welded into it. It was beautiful and we were touched to the core.

Carlos, you are the best!

Read Next: Car Welding in Brazil – Fiberglass Repairs

Welding stainless steel - a key ring
Stainless steel key ring

Check it out: the Landcruising Adventure Backpack Collection

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