Remember the old Carly Simon song about Anticipation? Well, my wife, who owns
the '58 Apache in our family, has been waiting for about 3 months to get her
truck back from the paint shop. Why so long? Well, besides the fact that our
paint guy takes a very long time to do a job (He does it right!), it turned
out that that danged ol' drivers side door that never would shut right, and
had to be slammed so hard that it rattled the windows on houses up and down
the street, had a worn out hinge at the bottom. Could not be fixed, even with
the new hinges that I bought for that purpose. Problem was not in the hinges,
but in the door. Been welded back so many times, and broken off and welded
back, that there is no way to line the door up, and it will never again shut
as it did 40 years ago.
So what do you do? Buy another door, one that has a good hinge base, and will
bolt on and shut like it's supposed to. Well, finding a door for this truck
was no picnic, but my wife persisted, night after night on the internet, until
finally, we found one in California. (We're in Texas) Okay, no matter the
cost, we need a door. The guy had a great door, of which he sent us a
picture. In the picture, the door closed tightly and totally aligned on the
drivers side of the truck. How nice it will be to have THAT door on our
truck! So we agreed on the price, sent the cashier's check, and sat patiently
in the driveway, looking and listening for anything that sounded remotely like
an approaching delivery truck. Eight days later, here it came. A fairly
clean (they never look like they did in the picture), restorable and useable
door. And it had a GREAT hinge base at the bottom!
So off to the paint shop.
Proudly my wife pulled in the paint shop driveway and called our paint guy to
come get this door, so he can paint it, finish the truck, and give her back
her "baby." The paint guy totally agreed that this door was in really good
shape, and would fit this truck like the proverbial glove. Only one problem:
I DID say we needed a drivers side door. This door was for the passenger
side!
So NOW what? A call to the door guy. No answer. E-mail to the door guy. No
answer. Finally, a couple of days later, we received e-mail that the
"mummies" who work for him were actually the best help available, but as we
know, *%@# happens. So we are now once again sitting in the driveway,
listening for the sound of an approaching delivery truck, to receive the
proper door, for which we were not charged, by the way. My only hope is that
the "mummies" did not send us a tail gate!
Smokey Culver
League City, Texas
'50 3600 5-window (mine)
'58 Apache (hers)
'99 Intruder LC 1500
See 'em at http://sites.netscape.net/ChrlsCul/homepage
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