Will Work for Lightweight Aluminum Trailer
March 9, 2011 | Posted in Corvettes, Travel Stories | By fastwrecks
The time I spend straightening out UHaul issues is time that I’m NOT spending earning cash toward this very admirable goal.
I enter all of the information about my truck, the car to haul, what I want to rent, and my personal data into the UHaul website. Everything works properly, so I should be fine, right?
Except there’s a problem more often than not.
The last time I was told “sorry, your truck + auto transporter + Corvette = epic brake fail” the person ringing me up had entered something wrong about the truck into the system. We fixed it after about 20 minutes of phone calls and my pointing out the correct facts about the truck. After driving to West Virginia in a surprise snowstorm, I wasn’t about to give up that easily.
Today was a totally different story. We showed up in the Detroit area to “import” a Corvette. After a 4-hour trip, booking the UHaul in advance, and even speaking to a customer service representative, I was denied again. Too much weight for the truck to handle with the auto transport and the car. Never mind that the Corvette was basically a frame on wheels (no engine, suspension, or other heavy stuff) and weighed probably less than half of its original weight. If the computer system won’t allow a certain combination, no amount of pointing out facts and logic to the local UHaul or their corporate offices will help. What is extra frustrating is that I was allowed to enter that same exact information on the online confirmation screen and didn’t get any indication that there would be problems on the other end. We got sent to another UHaul in the area with a lighter trailer that would work with our truck.
If something sounds easy enough, it probably isn’t.
The trailer in question was at the second location, but so was a host of computer system issues. It took over a hour to take care of things there, and if the manager hadn’t shown up to help, I probably would have had to swipe my credit card a third time for this rental. If that wasn’t frustrating enough, I had to scramble for a second form of ID because it was an out of state rental…which baffles me, considering we do most of our renting outside of Ohio and have never been asked for that before. It’s the first time in a long time that my George Costanza wallet with EVERYTHING helped rather than hurt.
Total time to resolve all of this: 2 hours. I wasn’t able to get any sort of refund for my troubles. Which is unfortunate, considering that those extra 2 hours will cause unloading the trailer to be delayed by a day. As much as I would like to be Superman, unloading cars is at least a three-person project and requires scheduling help – and NOT at 10:30 pm, which is when we would have gotten to our destination.
So, why is it that if I show up to my local UHaul rental store (a company store, not a franchise like the three places I mentioned earlier) and request an auto transport, I can get one without any problem?
If anybody from UHaul is reading this and thinking, “Well, I don’t know…” now you understand why a trailer of our own is such a good idea.
The 1977 C3 Corvette is now going to be restored!
February 27, 2011 | Posted in Corvettes | By fastwrecks
After a lot of thinking, debating and chat amongst ourselves and other Corvette folks, we’ve decided that the 77 C3 is going to go through a light restoration instead of being parted out. It’s just too nice.
We purchased a 1978 shell in Detroit and it’s going to donate it’s front clip to our restoration project. We’ve yet to pick it up, but that’s in the very near future. The 1977 will be repainted to it’s factory Code 10 White, with the factory buckskin interior also repaired. Since the car has a 1982 305 (5.0L) motor, it’s going to be swapped out for a 350 (5.7L) rebuilt motor with a mild street build to about 350hp.
Stay tuned!
P.S.: Here’s a video walk around of the car!
1977 Corvette C3 Walk Around / Start Up.
New C3 parts car
February 22, 2011 | Posted in Corvettes | By fastwrecks
Now that we know our ’77 orange beastie runs, it’s time to make it pretty. We’ll be picking up another C3 with the front clip and doors we want (plus some other items), and the rest will be listed on eBay. After posting on the Mid America Motorworks Facebook page, we got some pointers on a few things to look for. Very helpful stuff!
In other news, I recently stopped by Summit Racing. (Warning: May be hazardous to your wallet’s health.) This was on the same day that we separated all of the transmission and suspension parts from a C5. While waiting in line, their TV featured a guy doing – you guessed it – the same kind of thing. He didn’t have a speck of dirt on him OR the floor, nor did he have any scratches on his hands. And they say supermodels are photoshopped!
Our first video…
February 5, 2011 | Posted in Corvettes, Humor | By fastwrecks
Cute Puerto Rican Girl Blows Up A Corvette!
Sometimes the monotony of a simple task can lead to a very funny moment… That was today…
Filling up the tires on the 1977 C3 Corvette, having not relocated a compressor, and a LOT of funny stuff happening today led to this video.
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