The journey of my beloved Z06 beings!

VelocityYellowRules!

VelocityYellowRules!

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Jul 15, 2012
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Fairview, Alberta
VetteCoins
107
Car
2006 Z06
The journey of my beloved Z06 begins!

I'm a bit tired but would like to share what may be an amusing story about getting my car ready to go to Manny's. But I have about 4 or 5 pictures that I would like to post but still have not taught myself how to shrink them down in quality but to still keep the same size so they will be large in the post.

Manny I'm not sure if you know how to do this. But if one of you would like to do this for me send me a private message with your email and I'll send you the pictures as I think they would add a great deal to the story of what getting the car to Ontario is involving.

As usual it will be a long story so I'm going to wait to tomorrow morning when my son will be asleep and I should have time to write it up before I go for my walk.

As is usual for my life, today was just one of those days.............

Thanks,

Garry
 
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Good morning Gentlemen,

I finally was able to get the images off to 427Carl but I will eventually sit down one day and see about becoming skilled at image resizing myself.

So here is how my Saturday rolled out.

To start with I get a call from the farm equipment dealer in town. They have been sold so they had to sell off all their inventory. Mom decides that it is a great idea for her to commit that I will buy 10 grain bags. These things make giant sausage tubes of grain so you can store grain in the field without having the delay of trucking it home. You use either an extractor or an oversized vacuum cleaner to load it up into trucks afterward - Google "grain bagger" if you are curious. And they are 20% off. I asked her how many she and dad bought since I only have about 30% of the acres on the farm and she tells me "oh we didn't buy any, we have no $ at the moment". So I was sort of surprised that she would be expecting me to buy them but so be it. About $675 each so there went $7,000 out of my bank account. The saleman told me what a good deal I was getting and I could resell them later for more money (he could tell I was less than happy about the transaction I guess!) so I asked him how many he had bought "none myself". Such a great deal eh?

Anyway I loaded eight into my truck and two into dads and discovered that my left rear tire must be leaking and was almost flat. The mechanics at the dealer generally lock up their tools and so initially we can't find an air chuck to put air in the tire.

Then these things weigh close to 400 lb each and for dad and I to unload these things and drag them into my SeaCan was some physical exercise.

Then dad tells me that one of my bins of grain that the roof cap got damaged on got some rain and snow in it and it started to spoil - but just about a 6" layer at the top.

Now you'll really think I'm jinxed. When I was in the basement getting ready to leave to start all of this fun, my furnace came on and then shut off and then cycled inthat fashion. The fan came on, the burners lit and then it would shut off! Just what I need, in the winter as well and on a Saturday when the furnace place may not even be open I'm thinking! Lucky after unloading the bags I took a closer look and thought the problem mightbe with the flame sensor, removed it, it was oxidized, cleaned it and I was back in business. If you don't yet know, learn how to replace a flame sensor and ignitor and have spares on hand. I do at my other house but not the acreage - yet!

OK, lets see, now what? OK, there was a mix up at the fertilizer dealer with billing and Dad now tells me that 4 months after spring, I owe another $6,000 for fertilizer. So now my bank account is $13,000 lower than when I woke up this morning.

My son is going to a Halloween party so I drop him off on my way to the car which is 100 km away. Arrive to find about a foot of snow on my driveway. No problem as it has not been cleaned yet this winter and I have a shovel and snowblower.

Now I had to clean the driveway anyway as a lady called to say she wanted to come and see that house - possibly today (Sunday) but she has not called back yet. It was the one really positive thing going, possibly getting my other house sold finally.

But it was recommended that the Z06 be loaded into the trailer front first. Of course I drove it into the garage front frist so I have to reverse driection. So thankfully the car starts, only -6 but you know my luck. Back the car out and swing around to my right - the town where I used to live in the 16 years I was there never managed to learn how to clear snow from the streets so I don't want to drive there (yet as it turns out). So I have the car perpendicular and so I go forward and turn to my left. I do start to move forward and even though I am feathering the clutch the back end slides toward the road. My driveway both slopes down and also from right to left. In the end I have the car sitting against the side of the driveway and about 4 or 5 feet onto the road.

Call a buddy of mine who happens to be in town returning bottles and he shows up. Any idea of where to attach a tow rope on this car??!!

So I decided the 1st place to start is to see if I can at least aim the back of the car toward the garage door. So I run the tow rope through the right rear rim spoke, thinking that if the driveway is so slippery I can't get any traction it should skid easily to the right. Well even with 4 wheel drive it doesn't happen.

And of course while all of this is going on people are driving back and forth, everyone stares but no one stops to offer help. Small town folks in western Canada used to have a reputation of helping others but maybe this wan't obvious enough.

Finally 4 young guys, maybe 15 or 16 years old come and ask if we need help. I'm thinking that the only way out of this may be to try to make for my neighbours driveway which is inclined upward. The driveways are also in line with one another. Then take a run backward and get enough momentum to zip up my driveway and hopefully make it inside without ripping off the side mirrors.

My b uddy doesn't want to do this yet as he thinks they can push it upward from where it currently sits. I'm a bit worried about this as I know that the body of the car is not that strong but sure, why not. So we get it back about 6 more feet but not more.

So I decide to try for the other driveway. Pushing on the back of the car is even more dangerous than the front and so I ask the kids, while I really appreciate their help, to be as careful as they can.

As an aside not only did they recognize that it was a Corvette (this is truck country remember) but when they saw the Z06 emblem they knew what was special about that).

So I get up the opposite driveway, when traffic was clear they give me the get go and and I go down the driveway, across the street and up my driveway and into my garage and manage to stop before I hit my work bench with the car!

Sheesh was a chore! Kids refused to take any $ as well. Good kids for helping someone they saw needed help!

Leave just in time to go back and get my son, the roads are horrible, white out conditions when a semi passes you.

And my thought now is come Monday morning when I return with the trailer, will I be able to get it up my driveway?

Will my leaking truck tire last the trip to Edmonton (currently it seems to take about 4 to 6 weeks for it to lose 1/2 the pressure?

Well, stay tuned as I am sure this will not be an incident free trip either, but hopefully with just more funny, frustrating things than serious problems.............

And life goes on. And I do hope you do find a smile crossing your face when you read this. It could have been worse, it might have been you!

Cheers,

Garry
 
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Garry , OMG ...............it just looks so wrong seeing your vette in the snow .

Ok , life is never without challenges , we all know that .

You do seem to be having your share + a few more .

I can only say this to you ............Everything I have ever wanted out of life came on positive thinking . I know it sounds corny , but being positive helps to draw positive energy into your life .

Now don't get me wrong , I have my own share of things that go wrong ......just look at my attemped LS7 acquisition :rofl: just got the the credit from the Mastercard on Friday :D

On a positive note I am having an LS7 delivered Monday morning , found it on 15mins from the shop .

So now some positives for you Garry >

You have a dream car -C6 Corvette Z06
It is going to get the royal treatment at Dasilva Motorsports
It will be one of the quickest cars in your neck of the woods
Its only 2 more sleeps until its on its way
You are doing what you love
You woke up today , and you were healthy :D

Now lets build on these positive points for an incident free delivery :seeya:
 
Good morning Manny,

So I guess I can't advertise the car as never having seen snow, good thing I don't plan on selling it then!

No doubt that I seem to have the odd bump in my life but if it can let others know and realize that you just tighten you shoelaces a bit and carry on. Remember once I said that I stopped telling myself how could things get any worse? I've found that I am actually pretty resilent and just start to take these things in stride.

But it was not a nice feeling when I had the car stuck at the bottom and I was alone, I couldn't even call a tow truck and I'm not sure how they would have moved it and my biggest fear was damaging the car in the process of getting it in the garage or if I coudn't move it how I would load it into the trailer Monday morning.

It is back in the garage, safe and sound, and while there may be a few more challenges yet to get it to Edmonton that is 24 hours away from now and perhaps today will not have anything go remiss.

I'm currently listening to the sound of my furnace working and it is amazing how you can take things like that for granted!

Overall these things are minor, even the heated grain, but seem to be funny enough if I was standing back and an observer and not a participant that I always think that others might just chuckle and shake their heads at these situations.

I know it will all work out and the car will get there, just that I always hope for fewer "incidents" in the process.

But it does hurt that October, since the 8th, has basically looked like this when it should have been a nice decline of 5 to 8 above.

I have to take my son out for Halloween in this on Wednesday and the forecast is -9/-19!

Cheers,

Garry
 
I do find moments of optimism - the furnace stopped working while I was here, in the basement about 8 feet away from it. For Old Garry it would have stopped Monday morning while I was heading down the driveway, oblivious to what had happened. That happened to us back in 1980 the first winter after we moved here and we had gone back to Montreal to get the rest of our stuff. The pilot light went out and we arrived back after about 10 days to frozen pipes with come that actually cracked. So this is a walk in the park compared to something like that.

I put it down to part of the history that I will have with my Z06 experience. Afterall, it makes it a lot more colorful than to just say, "ya, I owned a Z06", I'll have a whole bunch of stories revolving around what else took place as a result. While I'm still the poster boy for introverts, I am experiencing more life now thanks to the car.

Cheers,

Garry
 
Good afternoon FordPrefect, xlr8r, Manny,

I am sure that as much as there is some grief I could do without now I will find that insignificant compared to the first drive this spring! But right now it seems a long way off and not as smoothly as it could have been. The snow was a bit of a disappointment.

Well, when ever the work gets done Manny is going to keep it for me until the weather improves after the winter and then when it looks solid I'm going to fly down and have a hopefully trouble-free and enjoyable drive home.

Maybe Colin was going to rent it? Maybe a test mule for future DeSilva Motorsports projects? Gofer car for DeSilva staff/mail/coffee runs? End up on eBay? Who knows...........

2000 hp?! Uh, remember that the goal of this was no internal engine work! I mean if you can give me a reliable 2000 hp without changing internal components we can talk but other wise the north side of 700 will do me fine I'm sure!

It got a lot worse today, another 4 to 6 inches of snow. I hope the highway boys get their act together. I might have to throw some fuel in my box tank for ballast tomorrow. I figure the challenge is to back the trailer up my driveway and if I get that done I'm good to go. But I'll have to shovel the driveway again so there will be a little delay there. But I fully expect that I will be in Edmonton tomorrow night, drop off the car Tuesday morning and then hope for the best............

Wow. Maybe 20 hours and I should be loaded and on my way!

Cheers,

Garry
 
Hi LSXtsy,

I'm sure Manny would appreciate the company and you can encourage him with the work! It will be nice to have so many people cheering him on with the project.

Cheers,

Garry
 
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