lorry – One Man And His Mustang

Saturday was a big day for me that I have been waiting a long time for to be honest. The day the car was going to Mustang Maniac for the heavy restoration parts. The rear quarter needs to go on, a few bits on the chassis need to be welded up, the engine and gearbox will come out and be prepared for the paint, all of which I can’t do myself. My car was to be picked up by John from Mustang Maniac in a LAR Recovery services lorry. Eight o’clock I was ready, the car was pushed out of the garage, all the rubbish inside had been removed. The additional parts of the painted valance and stone guard I done were inside the car laid out lovingly on old towels and the hood was resting by the car. Then I waited for what seemed like hours, every car was “the lorry”. I was pacing like an expectant father outside a delivery suite, what on earth was wrong with me? I went inside for a cold drink as the weather was warming up nicely and turning into a gorgeous day. Typically no sooner had I poured a glass of fruit juice and the lorry turned up. I ran outside and greeted John and the kettle was ready for the mandatory cup of tea. John had a wonder round my car with his tea and looked her over as I was waiting nervously for the sharp intake of breath, there was none I am glad to say, although he had spotted the bits I knew about straight away.

The lorry curtains were mechanically wound back to expose the bed. The bed was slid rearwards and eventually lowered down to form the ramp. We pushed the car into the road and lined her up to the bottom of the ramp. John latched the straps to the front chassis which was in turn attached to the winch at the front of the bed.

bed down

John attaching the straps

Slack was taken up and gently pulled up to the bed. I was making a few small turns to the steering wheel to make sure she was on square. little by little she was moved up until the weight was over the lorry axle on the bed. John lashed down the rear wheels securely to stop any movement during transit.

up she goes

John lashing the rear down

The bed was then lifted horizontally again and slid back towards the front into place on the lorry. Within seconds the curtains were rolling back to encase her like the curtains closing at the end of a play. There she was in her own little world, all we had to do was load the hood onto her old carpet and shut the rear curtains.

Ladies and Gentlemen the Mustang has left the building!

Special Thanks to Adam at Mustang Maniac for allowing me to use their photos on my blog as well, all the pictures are on their blog here.

After the trip to the Mustang Maniac the process was reversed and lowered into the main yard, the car was pushed onto some ramps for the initial look for anything major to report.

initial look inside

in the yard

on the ramps

After the inspection she was lowered down again and pushed into her new home for a while – Mustang Maniacs panel shop!

Emotions running high, I know she has gone to a better place. In time she will look like new and be back home. I still have a few parts here and there that will be cleaned and ready to go back on when she is ready.

Special Thanks to John for taking such good care of my car.

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A great weekend for weather and lots got done on the car. To start with I finished replacing the other door hinge pins and re-aligned the doors again. After that I adjusted the hand brake so it now works properly instead of dragging just a little bit! I replaced the steering ram rubber gator that was split and ripped in half. Then on top of all that – I treated the inside under dash with a little more anti-rust treatment. I have placed all the pictures for the hinge pin replacement in the “Photo Menu – Bodywork Section” or click here for the link. Again all these things you will not see but have to be done. I just thought I would share this picture of Mustang with virtually no body work that is totally open the elements, hence the good weather means a day of this sort of thing!

I am going to have a little rant now; If I offend anybody it’s obviously not you that I am referring too. There are a very small percentage of lorry drivers out there who drive dangerously and think they own the road. Before any lorry drivers start getting on their high horse let me explain. The vast majority of lorry drivers are great drivers, it’s a difficult job I appreciate that, it takes a lot of skill and I dare say can be quite boring driving hundreds of miles on motorways all day and night. But boredom is one of the things I want to investigate here. I have to use a main dual carriageway road to get home. To get onto that road it’s via a main down ramp onto the main road with a little slip road. This week coming home there was not many cars on the road and it was just getting dusk, I was on the slip road accelerating up to speed and the lorry was coming up beside me, I was indicating and my lights were on, his were not I might add. Now he didn’t move over to allow me out, there were no other cars the other side of him. He just sat beside me until I almost run out of slip road, I even hooted at him, in the end I had to break and let him past. I should have swerved as soon as I could, that way I would have been in front of him, but that is not nice etiquette for the road. When I pulled out from behind him, still there are no cars close by. I gave him some horn treatment to express my displeasure and indicated via a hand gesture it was not a kind thing, or accepted thing to do. What did he do? Yep, horn back at me, flashing his lights and then started swerving in both lanes! He left his lights on full beam even though other cars were flashing him coming the other way. What was that all about? Now this has happened to me in the past as well and I get really annoyed about it. OK, so it not usually as bad as this performance from this individual who has an IQ the size of his wheel radius, but the not letting me out part I mean is just pathetic. There is a new law that has been passed in the UK that makes it illegal to tailgate now. But, when In slow-moving traffic the lorries sit so far up my ass I get imprints of the number plate on the back of my seat, it’s dangerous so back off! So I have a few points to make 1) My brakes are better than yours for stopping quickly. 2) If you have to stop that quickly the trailer will be out of control and cause an accident. 3) If you don’t react quickly enough you will slam into me, causing an accident. 4) If your tired and don’t notice the traffic you will have an accident. 5) Your forty or forty-four ton lorries will pulverize anything that they hit when you have an accident. 6) You don’t have to swerve out at the last-minute to overtake another lorry that will take you ten minutes to get past, just because you are going a quarter of a mile an hour faster. 7) If my car misfires and slows suddenly you will go into the back of me and cause an accident, probably killing me. Get my point here? Do these bad lorry drivers play these games to give them something to do? I know for a fact that lorry drivers do not want to change gear or slow down, a good friend of mine is a lorry driver and he has told me this many times as it effects the mpg figures. He also admits that there are some very poor drivers out there that give them all bad names. Most of the time if I am slowing to turn off I will flash the lorry in to allow him in front of me, to which I get a thank you back. That is how it should be. But, why do these people do it and make life dangerous? There are eighteen gears in most lorries, if you don’t want to change gear – don’t be a lorry driver. If you want to play life and death – join the army. There are always reports of lorries killing people in accidents, just as there are cars killing people. But with that amount of vehicle and weight, the consequences are that much more dangerous and carnage usually follows. Please give as car drivers a little room, your lorry is not a weapon. I do all I can do avoid you guys and let you get on with your jobs. Don’t get me wrong, there are thousands of lorry drivers out there who are great drivers, let me out fine and I have no issues what so ever. Perhaps the drivers I have issues with are non-UK drivers and their standards are not up to the UK standards. I don’t know, but I am sick of having to play “Road Roulette” with lorries. Apologies to all the good lorry drivers out there, but I just had to get it off my chest. Yes, car drivers are probably just as bad and it could be said about them too. Rant over.

As a result of this I am thinking is it just me? I have created a little poll to get your opinions. Please vote, nothing but the percentages will be displayed.