Looking for hard-to find brake cylinder seals for your ’58 Studebaker? This Cuban entrepreneur is making them out of that old solid tire in the foreground. All that old Detroit iron on the streets of Havana has to keep rolling; I mean stopping somehow, given the embargo. I guess the Chinese haven’t tooled up for ancient American cars, because I find this picture hard to fully comprehend. It reminds me of going to a living history museum where park employees re-enact blacksmithing and the like. But then Cuba is essentially a living history museum, for now at least.
You must have seen the wonderful documentary about those cars and the Cubans who keep them on the road, Yank Tanks (2002). http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0312048/ What they can do with some sheet metal and old hand tools is incredible. Seeing the guys relining asbestos brake shoes by hand broke my heart.
You beat me to it–fantastic documentary. I would surmise that relining asbestos brake shoes by hand without protective gear results in a short lifespan, but those guys are ingenious. 90% of my fellow citizens probably wouldn’t know a brake shoe if they saw one.
I wonder it that machine is hand-powered or electric? An old farmer back in Missouri years ago had a hand-cranked drill press in his barn. That was a marvel that I really wanted to get my hands on, as it did everything and it was fully adjustable in every way! As far as the crude conditions, the human spirit learns how to adapt and never ceases to amaze me in what our God-given abilities allow us to accomplish, whether in merely surviving, thriving, or keeping old junkers rolling (and stopping)!