I've made the leap from wagon lurker to wagon owner

I tried. I found a set on eBay but the seller wouldn't ship to Canada. He wouldn't even accept questions. Roadking suggested I check Amazon and I found these at Irv Bishko's Autobooks.

"That's right, that's Irv Bishko just off route 64, exit 301. Just watch for the giant inflatable gorilla"

In all seriousness, he seems to have a good collection of stuff. http://www.autobooksbishko.com

They were only about $40 more than some of the working sets I've seen, it came with the supplement book, and I was pretty excited to get started, so I went ahead with it.

 

Those will be a great help. I will get a set for my truck and car I have now,and hopefully one for a wagon if I ever find one.

 

Tough hobby without the books. Good for you!

 

I just remembered that the Roadie has an onboard diagnostics system in the heater controls that will spit out some codes. WagonmasterIII was telling me about it the other day. I'll give that a go tomorrow.

 

Man, C-W, you are far more patient than I, to your credit.

I'd have challenged the government dudes on the spot and made a ton of noise with supervisors on up to start with, written letters to the editor, called anyone who would listen. I know, time I should be spending fixing the bloody car, but when I get rolling................

Anyway, sad to just walk from the $360 but I guess it becomes just another cost in buying the car. When it is done you are going to have a great, and legal, wagon.

Fox, I'm with you - the Government is so intrusive now and taking so much of our incomes it is beyond painful. We need a revolt.

Oh well

 

I called the Provincial Offences Court today. The ticket says that I have to mail in my payment so I called to see if it could be paid in person. The new Court building is two blocks from my office. When I got there the clerk choked when she saw the ticket. I said that I didn't really have any choice but to pay it since I only have 15 days and I wasn't able to get it fixed by then. She looked at me like I was stupid and said, "...but you have 45 days". Apparently the 15 days is to dispute the charge and the office adds on 30 days for administration time. (See sometimes government's glacial pace works in our favour). By not paying it today, I lose the right to plead Not Guilty, but I now have 30 more days time to fix the car and plead Guilty with a lesser fine. The car is booked in to have the rad replaced and new shocks installed on Monday. To save time I'll have them e-test it and resolve whatever the issues are. I'm betting that I'll still be $500 or so over budget but it will all be done in one swoop.

Getting closer!!

 

Good news!

 

They just put my Roadmaster in the shop a while ago. The mechanic did the e-test and the safety inspection first and then called. He said he likes to give people their options (presumably to abandon the car) first before he starts digging.

-Needs shocks (I supplied these)
-Needs a rad (I knew that)
-Needs tie-rod ends (Ministry of Transportation said they would pass, but should be done soon)
-Needs a front sway bar (Ministry didn't notice this...probably because it's missing)
-Needs a driver's seat belt (I knew the seatbelt was frayed but didn't think anything of it. Mechanic says he'll ignore it as it's not terrible and I can replace it myself)
-Needs wiper blades (Seriously?)

I told him my sad ticket story and said to go ahead with all of that plus whatever it takes to pass an e-test. No mention of pricing yet. I'm definitely going to be over-budget.

 

Look at it this way you may go over budget,but you will have your wagon legal and be able to drive it. Once it's all one take it out and heat up the engine by driving it a hour or so.

 

Yeah, I've been telling myself the same thing. There's nothing there that didn't need to be done anyway so there's no good reason not to do it, or to sweat having it done. I hate leaving things unfixed on a car so I'll feel better driving it if I stretch myself a little tight now to get it done.

 

A lot of pluses here.

1. You don't have to do the work.
2. You will be able to keep it up easier.
3.On nice days in the winter you can take it out for a long drive to keep everything working properly.
4. Did I say you didn't have to work on it?

 

Yeah, and there's still plenty of smaller non-critical, non-safety-related things that I can tackle myself. I won't miss out on all of the fun.

I know it's the right route to go, but I think we're all conditioned to get a little down when we shell out money for things that are, at least somewhat, out of our control. The Mrs. is "frugal" (personally I prefer to refer to her as DAMN CHEAP!, but she takes issue with that) and I guess maybe some of it is rubbing off.

 

I'm so cheap the moths in my wallet starve to death. I will be doing the same with my truck putting it the shop to have it changed over to a automatic trans,saves me the headache and fighting with all the adjustments.

 

Is she from Northern Mexico? Mine's that way too.

 

I swung by the garage on the way home. The mechanic had left for the day but my Roadmaster was still up on the hoist. The new shocks, rad, and tie rods were in and the parking brake cable was dangling from the underside with a frayed spot in the middle. Tomorrow they're going to fix the cable, and then get started on why it didn't pass the emissions test. I spoke to the mechanic around 1:30. I'm impressed that they were able to receive all of the parts and get that many repairs done by 5:30 when I stopped by.

The shocks were kind of strange. I goofed up my order from Rockauto and only got one. I went to see my Dad and ordered another one with the exact same part number. When I received the 2nd one it was sealed in the box just like the first, but the this one was 3" shorter. I don't know if they compress them tighter when putting them in the box for the Canadian market or what the deal is. It spooked me that I may have gotten a wrong part until I saw them installed on the car.