Departure
from France (October 2006)
January 22, 2007
The story
begins with the purchase of the car, of course. We are around mid October
2006. After having inspected a few SMs, this is this one my father and
me decide to chose. My father goes one more time to the car's location,
in the Paris region, buys the car, do all the required paper work and
leaves, driving the car to the shipping company.
The car
works well and my father arrives at the shipping company subsidiaries
with no troubles, still around Paris. The french transporter acknowledges
the reception of the car, does the required paper work, again, and I'm
informed by the canadian transporter that departure is scheduled around
end of October.
So far,
so good.
A few days
before the expected arrival date, the canadian transporters tells me
that the french shipper found water below the car when he moves it to
load it into the container. I'm also told that the alternator belt is
missing.
It's just
the first of many hassles ;-).
For the
belt problem, I hope that he was speaking about the belt of the air
conditioning compressor, which I know is missing, but for the water
problem, I have no idea because my father drove the car just fine to
the transporter.
So far,
not so good, but I don't worry too much.
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The
False Arrival (November 2006)
January 22, 2007
On November
3rd, the canadian transporter tells me that the container arrived in
Montreal.
As it was
when I received the SM body early the same year, I then wait for news
to know when the car will be released from customs and when I will be
able to get it.
But each
container has to pass a sanitary inspection, ensuring that it didn't
bring any vegetal or animal dangerous for the environment. More that
one week after the container arrived, I'm told that it failed the inspection
and it has to be shipped back to France.
What the
hell is that mess?
The SM
is not the cause of the problem but a 2CV and a Méhari (belonging
to other persons) were in the same container and these two cars were
found dangerous because they showed traces of soil. I asked to the previous
owner to do a good cleaning to avoid this kind of problem and, fortunately,
I'm clear. The dirt on these two cars is a first problem. There is also
a problem with the wooden pieces used to secure the cars inside the
container, that have been found not conform and so, also dangerous.
That's the second problem. When there is a dirt problem with a car,
they just clean it and then you get a big invoice for that. When there
is a problem with the securing wood, they just treat the inside of the
container by fumigation and you also get a big invoice for that. But
when there is two simultaneous problems, the sanitary inspectors say
that they cannot fix the problem because each problem interact with
the other one and the wooden pieces could infect the clean car or the
dirty car could infect the treated wood (depending in which order they
plan to give you the invoices ;-))
Anyway,
the transporter didn't have more choice than sending back the container
to France, to fix these problems there. I'm not asked to pay anything,
I didn't even pay my initial invoice and I don't plan to pay anything
before having the car back. The transporter is supposed to be a professional,
so it's his job to use approved wood. The return and second expedition
fees are for him.
During
November, the container is shipped back to France and its return is
planned for end of December. I tell the transporter that I will be away
for vacations at that time, so he planned to delay the second departure
to synchronize the second arrival.
At this
moment, I seriously begin to worry. Three transatlantic trips instead
of one, that means three times more chances to damage the car, three
times more salt and humidity during the trip... not good news. Fortunately,
I'm so busy at work that I don't really have time to think about that
;-)
I initially
planned to use the car before winter, I already know that I can forget
that idea.
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The
Actual Arrival (January 2007)
January 22, 2007
The container
return is announced for January 12th. Then I wait for the result of
the sanitary inspection. On January 16th, the transporter tells me that
the inspection went well. Yes ! 3 days later he tells me that the car
is in its warehouse, ready for customs and then delivery.
Is it the
end of hassles? NO! The Murphy's Law applies.
On January
22nd, I have an appointment to do the customs paper work and get the
car. Everything goes well for the customs, a customs officer fills the
required paper work, I pay all taxes and I leave with an official authorization
to take delivery of the car. I finally arrive at the transporter warehouse
to actually see the car.
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She's
waiting for me, with a Mehari and a C15. I don't see any important
damage, so she didn't suffer too much during transportation
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I
open the hood to confirm that there is no more water in the
coolant tank and the alternator belt is broken
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I
go on with my little inspection, there are some scratches on
the right side, but I knew it, it's not a transportation damage
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She
is stunning, even if it's always more perfect on pictures ;-)
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So the
cooling circuit is down and so is the charging circuit. I think that
if the engine would start, I could use it for loading the car on the
tow truck and then unloading it to its parking space. I try and the
engine starts very easily. Great! But good news end there.
After a
few seconds working, the engine shows some troubles, it stall on idle.
I don't want to use more revs, the engine is cold and is known to not
appreciate. There are two persons in the transporter warehouse and the
towing guy arrived to load the car, so we decide to push the car to
align it with the tow truck platform.
At that
moment, the Murphy's Law strikes again!
We discover
that the rear wheels are almost jammed. By pushing the car, we can barely
move it. I (too) quickly diagnose a rear brake calipers problem. I try
to move the car using the engine but by doing that I kill the battery
because I have to restart the engine very often, after it stalls (and
the alternator doesn't work without its belt).
I ask the
towing guy to tale the car from its rear end, the only place on the
car where there are some towing hooks, but this guy make me understand
that I don't know anything about towing and so it's better to tale the
car from its front end. We eventually succeeded in placing the car in
the loading position we wanted, pushing it and making a U-turn.
The towing
guy then pulls the car with his winch to load it on the truck platform.
I'm not so disappointed about the result, it seems that his chains didn't
damage the car. We finally can go to deliver the car to its winter resting
place.
But the
Murphy's Law strikes back, with maximum intensity ;-)
After just
a few kilometers, I almost get a heart attack when I suddenly see that
the car almost fell from the truck. I have a good view of the disaster
because I'm just behind the truck with my personal car.
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After
a lot of efforts, the car is finally loaded onto the truck,
ready for departure
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Horrible
view? The SM decided to leave us without notice, disaster was
close!
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So we are
in the middle of a crossroad, there are cars everywhere, temperature
is around -10 Celsius and we have a car lying on its body, ready to
fall down.
I quickly
check under the car to see that she's lying on the center part of its
body, I don't see any damage. This is almost miraculous. The car was
in its lower position, so she didn't fall high, but when I will be able
to do a deeper inspection, I will for sure discover some damage. But
for now, we have to find a way to put the car back onto the truck, in
the middle of the road and under freezing conditions.
The towing
guy finds a way to put the car back on the truck. He's going to put
wooden pieces on the road and tilt the truck platform to put the rear
wheels of the car on the wood. With multiple steps, he eventually succeeded
in pulling back the car without too much trouble and without causing
more damage to the car.
At this
moment, I think about burning the car, she's damned and must be destroyed
;-)
After pulling
back the car on the truck, we continue our trip and finally arrive to
destination without more trouble. But the car is not yet in its parking
space. The garage is the basement of a building, its access way is a
slope. We try to put the truck into the slope but it doesn't help so
we decide to unload the car on the road and I hope that the battery
has enough power to start the engine to help us. And yes, I succeed
in starting the engine but battery is so low that I have to keep 2500
RPM's to keep the engine alive and hope to not have to start it again.
I finally
put the car in the garage with a lot of gas, it makes me sick but we
are all fed up so she has to go. Of course, the suspension is in its
lowest position. I don't know if there is a hydraulic problem but the
short period of engine power are not sufficient to bring the suspension
to its regular position. With this low position, the car rubs the ground
at the beginning of the slope. Too bad, I go on to take benefit of the
running engine and I "throw" the car into its parking space.
Rear wheels are still almost jammed, but snow is helping, allowing the
wheels to slip and follow the move any way.
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Here
is the SM in its parking space, this is the basement of a small
building
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She's
going to stay here until spring, under a brand mew cover
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At this
time, my earth beat begins to slow down.
The towing
guy tells me that he doesn't want to hear about this car any more. I
don't want to hear about him any more, that's for sure.
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Epilogue
1 (January 2007)
January 22, 2007
What an
adventure! I'm writing these lines the day it happened and I'm still
in shock.
I'm not
authorized to do any mechanical work in the garage the car is parked,
that's another problem. I'll have to negotiate to be able to put the
suspension to its upper position before trying to get the car out. To
artificially obtain the upper position, I'll put wooden pieces in the
suspension cylinders, it will fix the main problem, temporary.
I'm thinking
that there is perhaps no problem with rear brakes. If the rear suspension
buffers are dead, it's often the case, the rear wheels are coming to
deep in the wheel arches and so they perhaps simply touch somewhere
inside. Tires are not originals, so they are perhaps too wide or too
high and are part of the problem. I'll confirm these thoughts when the
car will be in upper position.
The alternator
belt and cooling circuit problems are perhaps linked. It's strange that
these two problems happened at the same time. So I guess, or I dream
(because it's perhaps too simple), that perhaps the alternator belt
damaged a nearby cooling duct when it broke. To be confirmed.
Next step
is planned for spring. I'll have to bring the car to my home and do
whatever needed to make this drivable, because I plan to use it during
summer. I'll go take the car with a trailer and I'll take my time to
do a good job. I'll not call again a towing guy whose going to do a
bad job to free himself as fast as he can.
This story
should not discourage anybody, everything usually goes well and in this
case I've been remarkably bad lucked. We'll say that the container could
have been on the ship that recently ran into a reef (it was named Napoli
I think). Let's be positive ;-)
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Last
Part of the Trip (April 2007)
April 8, 2007
After a
few sunny days by the end of March, the community of antique car enthusiasts
in Québec is in turmoil ;-) Everybody plans to get his car out
of its winter parking space. Of course, I'm no exception, even if we
all know that April is usually still cold.
So I plan
to go get the SM out as soon as possible. Friday April 6 is a holiday,
it's Easter day, so it's great, with two more days off after. I also
plan to take the entire following week off to work on the car.
As planned,
unfortunately, days are still gray and cold during this beginning of
March. Too bad, it's planned, I confirm the operation with two friends
who are going to help me and are very handy mechanical guys.
I forgot
so-called professional towing guys, I rent a trailer and a pick-up truck
to pull it. I love driving this kind of truck, so I don't chose the
smallest one ;-)
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With
such a truck, I'm going to pull the trailer quite easily
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The
engine is a 6 liter diesel V8, it should be ok ;-)
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The
trailer is not really exciting but it's pretty good
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There
are ramps, so the trailer doesn't tip up, I prefer
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I get the
truck, the trailer and my two colleagues, and we arrive at the garage
around 10:30 or 11 AM. I tell to the building manager that we'll have
a "little preparation work" to do before being able to get
the car out. At this time, I don't know if the preparation work will
last one or ten hours!
I bring
a tool box, many general purpose material (straps, towing cable), parts
(hoses, clamps, thermostat) and some "war field repair" equipment
(duct tape, steel wire, tubing pieces, tyraps). With all this equipment,
we are ready!
A few days
before, I went to see the SM to confirm a big doubt: is it possible
that the suspension didn't go up the last time simply because the height
lever was in its lowest position? And yes, shame on me, the height lever
was in low position. You know, I'm used to non working SMs, so I don't
think that if the car doesn't go up it may be that she's asked not to
;-) French transporter probably used the engine to load the car and
then he had to put the car in its lower position to secure it inside
the container. But it's ok, I like simple solutions like that, even
if I look quite dumb ;-) So here is the biggest problem solved, suspension
should go up this time.
We begin
by charging the battery, with a quick and powerful charger. Fortunately,
there is electricity available inside the garage. I discover that there
is a power cut-off device under the hood but it seems to not cut many
things.
Then we
add water into the coolant tank to track the leak. Fortunately, it's
a big leak. As soon as we begin filling the tank, we hear water dropping
on the ground. We quickly discover that the cooling duct at the exit
of the water pump is badly damaged. Of course, access to the duct is
the main problem, it's a SM, don't forget that ;-)
Philippe
and Jacques work to find a solution to reduce the leak and while they
are doing that, I install a new alternator belt. I take the opportunity
to have a second belt ready in case of a new breakage, by passing it
around the secondary shaft and securing it. It's not too difficult,
I thought it would be worse. The alternator has a little alignment defect,
it probably explains why the previous belt broke. For the moment, I
forget about that, I'll work on that later, I just hope that the new
belt will last enough to load and then unload the car.
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We
protect each fender the best we can during work on the cooling
circuit
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Philippe
on the left and Jacques on the right work on a temporary solution
near the water pump
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During
this time, I pass two belts between the hydraulic pump pulley
and the shaft
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The
second belt is secured in a waiting position and the first one
is installed
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Jacques
finds a little plastic piece in his car, a kind of a plastic label,
Philippe and him will use it to reduce the leak. They put the plastic
piece around the leaking duct and use clamps to secure it in that position.
We fill
again the water tank and this time we don't see any leak. We are supposed
to be ready to drive the car out. It's around 1 or 2 PM if I remember
well.
We pack
everything and we prepare the trailer, this way we are ready to load
the car if the engine starts and everything works.
I turn
the key, the engine starts easily and runs fine. Last time, the engine
stalled but now that the battery is in good shape and the alternator
gives energy, everything is fine. We don't see any coolant leak, that's
great, we just hoped to reduce the leak, not to stop it.
Then it's
the moment of truth for the suspension. The front side goes up first,
which is not really normal, and then we here a "clong" indicating
that the rear side started to lift also. It's confirmed, tires were
touching inside the rear wheel arches because suspension buffers were
simply missing. As soon the suspension lifts, the car moves a little
bit, meaning that there is no problem with the rear brakes.
So everything
is ok, we just have to load the car. I wait for the engine to heat-up
and I drive the car out to the trailer. I select the upper position
of the suspension to securely climb onto the trailer and it goes well.
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The
trailer is equipped with front securing straps, that's cool
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The
left fender tips down to make space for the door when it opens,
what an interesting feature
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We
put wooden pieces to add height to the front, avoiding contact
with the trailer stoppers
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On
the rear side, we put two straps and that's it
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We are
about ten kilometers from my home, I drive slowly, the trailer does
a very good job, the SM doesn't move at all and the pick-up truck pulls
with no effort.
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Here
we are at destination, we unload
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You
see here the left fender of the trailer tipped down. With a
SM in its lower position, it's very practical
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Here
we go! I see on this picture that the back lights work, good
news
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Philippe
is taking a lot of pictures...
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...
you see all the unloading steps!
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Once
unloaded, I select the normal height position
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No
coolant leak, the temporary fix is effective
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And
here is a happy man ;-)
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Everything
ends around 2:30 PM, it's been faster than expected.
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