It was the stuff that nightmares are made of…
Overall, both trips were a roaring success, and I came home from Canada in the end with TONS of vintage Jaguar parts – literally! But this second trip up turned into a little more of an adventure than I had planned…
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- I didn’t take alot of travelling photos on the second trip up, so the photos just start when I arrived back at “the farm.” Max had moved all of the E-Type parts out of the shop and into a trailer that was parked out front of his garage, and had also moved up all of the other parts out of the barn. This shot shows an IRS cage, a couple of hubs, and 4 E-Type bellhousings.
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- This trailer contained all of the parts from the shop – everything that had previously been shown on the shelves on that one wall – plus some extra stuff as well.
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- Here is a box of E-Type heaters and various other brackets…
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- E-type window regulators and chrome channels – plus some wiper racks peeking into the bottom right corner of the photo.
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- Here is where things start to get interesting… 3 pairs of OTS boot lid hinges, and just boxes and boxes of small E-Type parts – aka, GOLD!
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- Consoles, dash panels, brake bellows, and look at all of the 1/4 windows! You can also see some door hinges – lots of those too. YEAH, BABY!!!!
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- Steering wheels, steering racks, more dash pieces – and half a dozen E-Type oil filter housing – plus MORE!
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- ALL E-Type, and the fun just seemingly never ends!
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- These are NOT Jag IRS halfshafts and hub carriers – they are DeTomaso’s knock off pieces of the Jag rear for the Pantera – similar, but MUCH stronger!
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- These are some of the crummier large panels and pieces – I had taken most of the really good stuff in the first load. Overall between the two loads, there were 14 doors, over 20 front wings, about a dozen bonnet inner valances, and the list goes on and on… In the first batch of parts, I brought home 9 FHC rear hatches, and 4 OTS boot lids, so you know that at least 13 E-Types were parted out here – Max called it “breaking” them…
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- Next, I made a deal with Max on all of his leftover XK-120, 140, and 150 parts as well, and this is the entire lot.
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- Here is a shot from another angle – the top frame is for an XK-150S drophead.
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- Assorted XK dash panels…
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- …and more dash internals.
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- This is an XK-140 oil pan. Max thought that the other oil pan in back of it was for an XK-150S, but I believe (and hope) that it is the smooth-side early E-Type oil pan that my customer needs.
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- XK intake manifolds…
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- …and other various goodies…
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- …including a couple stering racks…
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- …some rear bumpers…
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- Overall – it was a great pile of XK stuff and I am already working on finding a good home for this stuff!
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- We spent a few hours loading up the parts into large plastic bins I had brought, boxes, milk crates – you name it. We finished just before a little rain started to fall, and then wnet out for lunch. I had “Poutine” – for the first time – it a Canadian thing that is basically frech fries with gravy and cheese curd on them. It’s pretty good!
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- After a long day. I headed back over the bridge back to Ogdensburg, NY.
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- Here is another shot of the St. Lawrence…
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- Home Sweet Home – NOT! This is where the nightmare started… When I reached the customs booth to get back into the US, because these were parts for a business and not personal use, I did not have the right paperwork, was told I needed a customs broker, and to “just go ahead and turn around here and head back over to Canada.” Oh My God – WHAT!?!
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- And so I ended up spending the night at the Holiday Inn Express in Brockville, Ontario (although I did NOT feel any smarter the next morning!) In this photo, it is Tuesday morning and I am waiting for 8:00 AM so that I can start calling customs brokers…
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- Now, the night before, they said that “I” could come back into the US, just not all of this stuff. But that didn’t do me any good for 2 reasons – A) I had nowhere to leave the trailer, and B) even if I did, all of the stuff in the truck would have to go into the trailer, including the ’66 E-Type engine block – just a little more than I could handle on my own!
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- So here I am with this mess to get through customs… I called the local customs broker, who was very nice, but explained to me that the ONLY way to do this was for me to provide him with an ITEMIZED LIST of what is in the trailer!!! AAAAAAGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!! I told him that I didn’t even think that was possible, but that I would try and do the best I could. GULP!….
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- After the phone call, I probably spent 20 minutes just milling around thinking that this just CAN’T be done!
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- And of course – I took EVERYTHING that was there – even stuff that was a little suspect, like this tired Series 2 bonnet…
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- Seriously! Where do you even start!?!
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- What I finally came up with was to label each box with a number, and then just attck them one by one and make a list of all of the stuff in eaxh box, then move to the next. The first step in this process was to pull ALL of them out of the truck. Every single one was packed FULL to the top, and some of them were pretty heavy!
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- By the time this shot was taken, I had already listed all of this stuff…
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- …and the stuff in these boxes and loaded them back in.
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- Still plodding along – after about 4 hours now of unpacking, writing, and re-packing – as fast as it could possibly be done…
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- How do you categorize this stuff? I listed 5 throttle pedal boxes, and 2 brake pedal boxes – hope that means something to the customs broker! Of course, even though it was a nightmare, the whole time I am LOVING all of this GREAT STUFF!!!
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- Finally, it came time to get the block out of the truck so that I could head back into the US with my list. Where there’s a will (and a door in the side of the trailer the same height as the tailgate of the truck), there’s a way!
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- The people at the Holiday Inn were great – I explained everything to them and they had no problem with me leaving the trailer in their parking lot while I worked out the customs documents – which was a good thing, since this photo of me going over the bridge was taken 3 days later! This is a grain elevator (I think) on the Canadian side, loading a ship.
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- Here’s another shot of that. I slid through customs this time in a breeze – the right papers will do that… Luckily for me, I was on “vacation” the hole week anyway, and our Summer place is only 15 miles from the bridge.
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- NOW I’m home – this photo was taken in the front yard back in Maryland. This DID turn out to be the correct early E-type oil pan, and so Jim – this one’s for you!
