SP steering rack a bit dodgy

[kenny38]

I asked on the tech site what to do about a leaky rack. Get it fixed, don't bother with additive unless selling was the general reply. So I phoned a large "rack place" in Sydney. Nice fella answered. "Yes of course just take rack off and courier to us and we will send back in a week" Oh goodie i thought as no one here wants or can do the job as it means car is using up space "and they always say a week....more like 3". Price was asked and after a bit of shufelling bloke asked make of car. i told him a Jensen but nothing exotic about the rack etc.He quoted me $1100 plus back courier. Garage who was prepared to remove rack as a favour to my wife (??) quoted another $600 for removing and putting back on. So about $1800 all up with couriers.
I mentioned this to a member of the local classic car club. He said "first mistake was saying Jensen or Jag or BMW etc, up goes the price together with mechanic refitting fees. Everyone clips the ticket on the way through". He gave me a name of a place in another town "that does racks but do not specify make as you will identify your social circumstances and the price will rise". I rang this rack man and he does racks in around one day if booked in. "Will you take rack off/on" I whispered. How much says I. Off and on again around $650 says he. Bring her in next week. I did and he did a double take.Had a ginger beard down to his groin. Never seen one before. "Why didn't you tell me make of car as price maybe higher" I told him just a bog normal Adwest and after looking on the hoist he agreed. His young apprentice also very inbred told me outside that the boss always charges more for "quality cars". Went back the next day and he proudly trold me that he had a stream of gawkers looking at the "Bond Car" while parked outside. Charge was $680 "as took longer than normal." No more leaks or twitches.Inbred apprentice's very large (and I mean large)girlfriend wanted a pic of her and me standing by the SP. I refused. These pics can be classed as obscene if placed on the web. Kenny38

[Grant]

Oh we have to love you KennyMan ..Go for the photo shoot

[RockyUSA]

Funny story.

Did the GF want to see your GingerP along side of the Ginger Beard?

Glad to hear everything worked out well.

You are a shrewd consumer!

Rocky

[felixkk]

Almost missed this because I thought it was a technical thread. One thing that happened to me last year was that I parked the C-V8 in the seedy part of town- I got out and immediatly there were three very big and very spooky/unsavioury looking guys looming around me and the car. One of them said/asked, in broken German: this car, how much? Half a million? Not even close, I said. More? He asked, grimmly. 30,000 plusminus I replied, their faces turned from menacing to digusted, and they were gone, just like that. Other spooky encounter I had was when a bearded cyclist followed me into a garage. I turned right, so did he. I turned right again and he was still behind me. I parked the car and got out and there he was standing there right in front of me: "really cool car, had to follow you and find out what it was"

[Keith]

Had a ginger beard down to his groin. Never seen one before.

I'm with you there Kenny, I've never seen my groin either. It's the beer. What's your favourite tipple?

[kenny38]

Hi, Keith. Nice to here from you. Hope you are well. How on earth did you know I like an ocassional tipple? I do prefer a Quality Claret, generally on my rear verandah with a good book. After 4-5 glasses I let the book fall and ponder the creepng shadows. Brings to mind that wonderful man and poet, Omar Khayyam. A line comes to mind sometimes....." a loaf of bread a jug of wine and thou beside me in the wilderness and wilderness is paradise enow" Well that's how i remember it. My intellectual tastes have markedly declined and I have taken to reading possibly the worst book ever published...Fifty Shades of Grey. I takes me hat off to that squalid little author. He writes one sodding rotten book and is now in Monaco. Where is the justice? Kenny38

[VFK44]

Brings to mind that wonderful man and poet, Omar Khayyam. A line comes to mind sometimes....." a loaf of bread a jug of wine and thou beside me in the wilderness and wilderness is paradise enow"

Handily, I found out many years ago that Fitzgerald wrote, over a period of thirty years, five different editions of his translation of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. If anybody tries to correct my quotations, I simply say "Ah, but which edition are you referring to?" Mind you, I think they all specified that his floozy in the wilderness had to be singing.

Omar was also quite keen on his occasional tipple, calling alcohol, "The subtle Alchemist that in a trice, life's leaden metal into gold transmute." Try saying that after a few glasses of claret.