Dropping the Bomb
The car arrived January 11th at about 9PM, three months after I first saw the LVTA ad. Norm, the previous owner, told me it had been in his barn for the last 10 years. From our correspondence I knew the car was going to be rough. When asked about the condition, Norm replied "Ruff!". I ran the VIN through CARFAX. The car had last been registered in 1988. Actual mileage was a very low 112,000. How bad could it be? What I saw on the car transporter was much worse than I had hoped.
The front looks worse in daylight than it did the night before. Lots of rust and bondo here too. This car had a very hard two years before it found a home in Norm's barn. The map pockets were full of old parking tickets and a few trip receipts. The bomb was used as limo in and around NYC.
The bomb has a wood and leather dash. I've never seen this before on a taxi. Most have a metal dash. Taxis built after 1987 have a plastic dash similar to what you would see on an economy car. The leather dash is going to be expensive to restore.
Getting the bomb out of the street and into the driveway was an adventure. The bomb doesn't roll well but it is heavy and the service brakes don't work. I didn't trust the e-brake. I tied a tow strap from my car to the front of the bomb. To prevent a runaway down our steep driveway, I tied a second tow strap from the back of the bomb to Debbie's BMW. It took us about an hour to carefully drag the thing to the bottom of the driveway. With the help of two generous neighbors we managed to shove the thing into the garage.
The friendly driver helped me roll the bomb off his truck. Rolled is being generous. More like drag, pull, and finally drive the truck out from under it. Now that she's seen the thing Debbie isn't talking to me. I'm not talking to myself either.
The next morning I got a better look at the bomb while putting some air in the leaky tires. Every panel on this side is dented, full of bondo and rusty. At least the rear wings (fenders) are bolted on. The other side is about the same. I'm really not sure about terminology here. Brits use "near side" and "off side" instead of left and right. But would that be reversed in a LHD car.
The front looks worse in daylight than it did the night before. Lots of rust and bondo here too. This car had a very hard two years before it found a home in Norm's barn. The map pockets were full of old parking tickets and a few trip receipts. The bomb was used as limo in and around NYC. The bomb has a wood and leather dash. I've never seen this before on a taxi. Most have a metal dash. Taxis built after 1987 have a plastic dash similar to what you would see on an economy car. The leather dash is going to be expensive to restore.Getting the bomb out of the street and into the driveway was an adventure. The bomb doesn't roll well but it is heavy and the service brakes don't work. I didn't trust the e-brake. I tied a tow strap from my car to the front of the bomb. To prevent a runaway down our steep driveway, I tied a second tow strap from the back of the bomb to Debbie's BMW. It took us about an hour to carefully drag the thing to the bottom of the driveway. With the help of two generous neighbors we managed to shove the thing into the garage.
posted by Andrew at 4:40 PM
1 Comments:
in a wierd sorta way, i envy you, having a project that you can be creative with
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