("The
Rant" Continued from page 2)
Sprite
was quietly tucked away, behind the gate, and out of site from the street.
Which
left me with the Riley and it's dysfunctional front brakes. The prognosis
was that everything that wasn't leaking was frozen, with the exception
of the brake hoses, which were blocked. The good news is the Riley
RMA series has hydraulic brakes on the front only, (the rears being mechanical),
and I already had all the parts to rebuild everything. The bad news is
that the master cylinder is buried under the floorboards amid a tangle
of control rods and brake hoses, and by this time the officer had begun
stopping by unannounced to check on the Riley's progress Based on his comments,
it was becoming apparent that he was beginning to doubt that this car even
ran, let alone drove and stopped. On top of that the neighborhood
nutball had begun videotaping me working on the car at night. If
I was on the outside looking in, the circumstances may have seemed comical;
a bizarre game of Brit-car beat the clock, Daren vs. the City, with the
off-balance neighbor as the wildcard (literally). Finally and just when
I think the officer's patience had run out, the Riley was ready to stop
and go.
An appointment was made
with the City's Vehicle code enforcement officer, and then after all the
time & effort that was spent bringing my offending cars into compliance,
it was over. As soon as he heard the Riley running, and saw that all the
wheels were on, he deemed it operational and closed the complaint. |
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