In 1992, a small village owner became the richest man in the village by owning a car.

Chapter 247 There's something next to the driver's door
"Something?" Yu Dawei paused, his hand holding the wrench pausing, his eyes filled with doubt. "Let me see what it is."

When he was removing the driver's side door, he didn't pay much attention to the side compartment. What was strange was that something was placed in the compartment. Could it be money?
It's no wonder Yu Dawei thought that way. In Northeast China, women usually manage the money. Men keep some of their earnings for things like smoking, drinking, and gambling. So, he would try to find ways to deduct a little from his earnings and hide it in places that women would hardly think of.

"I don't know, it's all colorful, and there's a plastic bag inside." Old Ji squatted down, grabbed the inner panel of the driver's door with both hands, and pried it outwards. Only then did he realize that the stack of colorful things was quite thick, and because of the plastic bag, he couldn't see what was inside.

“I’ll get it.” Yao Jinfu also came over. He was the thinnest of the three. He easily reached out and pulled the plastic bag out of the compartment. “What’s this? It looks like stamps. I guess it’s some stamps that the car owner left behind when he mailed a letter.”

When Yao Jinfu saw Dawei climb out from under the car, he handed him a plastic bag full of stamps: "Brother, it looks like it still works. Rats probably can't get in. I wonder if the car owner had the same idea and put the stamps in the interlayer."

Yu Dawei took the plastic bag with both hands. It wasn't a proper plastic bag; it was a bag that had been used to carry snacks before. It had a Pinocchio-like character pattern on it, and a Dalmatian dog next to it.

There were also the words "Baoledou" written on it in white on a red background. Yu Dawei had never seen this kind of snack before, but he had seen most of the stamps inside.

The plastic bag was almost full, containing about one or two hundred stamps with all sorts of random designs.

"I guess it was left behind by one of the car owners back when there were no pagers." Yu Dawei didn't care about it at all and handed the stamp directly to Xiao Agui. "Go and take it to Master in the room, on the kang (heated brick bed). Don't put it at the head of the kang, it's too hot there and it might catch fire. Put it at the foot of the kang. Take it out and look at it when you have time."

Although Yu Dawei didn't collect stamps in his previous life, he knew that some stamps would be very valuable in the future, especially the monkey stamp. He had heard that it was the first stamp issued by the postal service in the 1980s, and that it was not cheap, but he didn't know the exact price.

Collecting things has never been relevant to someone like him. Poor people struggle to even eat, let alone afford a house, so how could they talk about collecting?

Yu Dawei then continued disassembling the engine, but after Lao Ji finished with his four-wheeled vehicle, he wasn't in a rush to finish his work, so he started helping his boss disassemble the gearbox.

After the van's engine and gearbox were removed, all that was left was to compare it with the engine that had been taken from Brother Duan.

Judging from their appearance, even the smallest six-cylinder engine is still a size larger than the original engine in the van, but thankfully, it's not ridiculously large.

After comparing the parameters again, Yu Dawei finally decided to repair the six-cylinder engine and then connect it to the transmission to test it.

It doesn't need to be installed inside the van; it can be connected directly from the outside, and then ignition and testing can be completed with gasoline. However, the key issue at present is not the engine or transmission, but the front and rear axles of the van.

When Yu Dawei was disassembling the engine, he discovered a crack in the rear axle of the van. The crack wasn't very big, and it could be fixed by welding, but then he would always worry that the rear axle would cause problems again when he drove the van.

However, replacing the rear axle would likely be another expense.

After much deliberation, he decided to take it one step at a time, focusing on getting the engine and transmission compatible before considering anything else. Otherwise, all the busy work would only lead to a mess in the end.

Yu Dawei and Lao Ji began disassembling the front and rear axles, differential, drive shaft... until only the car body was left.

Yao Jinfu once again demonstrated his all-around skills as an excavator operator, starting to use slings and wire ropes to lift the van's body.

The entire sheet metal is no longer needed; just hang the wire ropes and slings wherever you like, since we'll be redoing the sheet metal and painting it later anyway.

After fixing the four points, Yao Jinfu lowered the bucket of the Hitachi excavator and then rotated it more than 90 degrees so that one end of the wire rope could completely catch the bucket teeth.

Yu Dawei used four steel wire ropes and two slings with a load capacity of three tons before he felt comfortable letting Axe lift the car body.

In theory, there's no need to be so cautious; two five-ton steel cables might be enough. However, after the engine fell down last time, Yu Dawei and the others were still a bit scared and estimated that it would take them ten days to half a month to recover from that tension.

There were still some odds and ends to disassemble in the Dafa van, and Yu Dawei handed all the work over to Xiao Agui, which required a lot of time and effort.

After the complete disassembly was finished, Yu Dawei started disassembling the 680Q engine that he had obtained from Brother Duan. The steel cover was fine, but after the engine was disassembled, it was discovered that the engine had blown its bearings.

Logically speaking, the repair should not be difficult. You could just find a repair shop to replace the four-piece set and it would be fixed. But unexpectedly, they disassembled the car and sold it. Yu Dawei wondered if there was something wrong with the original Haidu sedan.

But Yu Dawei didn't think that far ahead; he figured he'd gotten a good deal anyway.

The engine has high repair value. He'd thought it through: even if it couldn't be successfully matched with the van's transmission, he could leave it in the yard and sell it for a high price when a similar four-cylinder car engine broke down. Actually, he didn't need a high price; selling one engine at the normal market price would be enough for him to make a profit.

Therefore, he has no worries at all about whether the 680 engine can be used.

After disassembling the engine, Yu Dawei quickly disassembled the transmission. As he expected, the transmission was not in good condition either. The gears inside the transmission were severely aged, and the engagement teeth were worn to the point of being unusable.

Fortunately, the overall outer surface is intact, and if we can get a brand new part, it shouldn't be a big problem to repair it.

After arranging the follow-up work for Lao Ji and Yao Jinfu, Yu Dawei turned around, drove his little red Fiat sedan, and went to Boss Liang's place.

Lao Liang's parts shop has a spacious open space outside, which used to be covered in snow. When it snowed, the other businesses next door would clear a passageway in front of their shops early on.

I don't know if this guy is too weak or just doesn't want to work, but the snow piled up more and more from the doorway to the outside. Before, when Yu Dawei came to the store to find him, he had to wade through the snow, and whether there were any pebbles on the ground or not depended entirely on his footing.

When he came here again today, he was somewhat surprised. Not only had the snow outside the door been cleared, but the windows had also been covered with a brand new layer of plastic sheeting.

In towns and rural areas of Northeast China, nailing a layer of plastic sheeting to windows in winter is the best way to keep warm, and it's also cheap—it's practically the most cost-effective way to keep warm.

"Is Brother Liang here?" Yu Dawei opened the door, then lifted the curtain and looked toward the familiar mahogany table on his right, only to find that the chair was empty.

The stove nearby was blazing, and the temperature inside the shop was much warmer than when he had visited a few days ago.

There are also several rows of shelves for assembling parts. I don't know when Lao Liang moved them. Before, the left columns were for agricultural machinery parts and the right columns were for excavator parts.

Now, several of the agricultural machinery parts and excavator parts racks have been removed, and the empty space is now used to store some commonly used maintenance equipment.

Small welding machines for agricultural machinery repair, three-phase air pumps, and some commonly used tools such as pliers, hammers, and hacksaws were all hung on the wall with hooks attached to them, while the heavier ones were neatly placed on the ground.

"Goodness, when did he become so diligent?" Yu Dawei frowned and subconsciously scratched his head.

"How can he not be diligent?" Duan Dahai's voice came from behind a few rows of shelves. Immediately afterward, a familiar figure stood not far from Yu Dawei, with a mocking smile on his lips, and said, "This old bastard has taken too many drugs. He's started getting nosebleeds every day. His wife probably couldn't stand him anymore, so she sent him to my place yesterday afternoon."

“I don’t think this is going to work, so let’s get to work.” Duan Dahai walked over and smiled wryly. “Then the two of us got to work. First, we cleaned up all the junk in my yard and cleared all the snow from the yard. Then we came here and started cleaning up.”

“They’re cleaning up an old, abandoned hut in his backyard right now,” Duan Dahai explained.

"Is that okay? How much did he take? Did he finish all the medicine we bought a couple of days ago?" Yu Dawei was genuinely intrigued.

Duan Dahai curled his lips: "He not only ate them all, but later told me that the second batch of medicine was all in increased dosage. By the way, you didn't take that medicine, did you? You should only drink half of a bowl of herbal soup each time, don't drink too much. This Tiger Arm is really daring."

Yu Dawei was speechless. He usually thought Boss Liang was a very timid person, so how could he be so bold in this kind of thing?

"How about we send him to find that guy at Chengcheng Hotel? He'll definitely be satisfied within a day." Yu Dawei grinned mischievously.

Upon hearing this, Boss Liang, who had just entered through the back door, shuddered on the spot and kept shouting, "NO! I'm fine! Really! I feel much better after finishing the work."

"He's better now. When he came over yesterday afternoon, his face was flushed. I was so scared last night that I didn't dare sleep on the same kang (heated brick bed) with him." Duan Dahai casually joked when he saw that his good friend looked well.

"Screw you, do you think I'm that kind of person?" Boss Liang rolled his eyes, then excitedly ran to Yu Dawei's side, patted Yu Dawei's chest with the back of his hand, "Brother, take that medicine. I only used two courses of treatment and completely regained my position in the family, isn't that awesome!"

One more chapter will be posted at noon; I'm having a chat at home.

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(End of this chapter)