Friday 10 July 2009

Christmas in July!

Well the eBay sellers came through in fine fashion with two (count ‘em – two!) packages arriving at the humble abode today. Woo hoo!
But let me digress for a moment. There was one small surprise. One of the sellers shipped UPS instead of USPS (my bad - I forgot to No UPSspecify) and as a consequence I got hit with an extra charge of $55 for brokerage fees and taxes (this on a $100 order). So, note to anyone Stateside: If you ever want to ship anything to a Canadian relative or a friend you want to keep, DO NOT ship UPS. They will charge a brokerage fee on pretty much anything crossing the border, which is just a huge rip-off because they do nothing different than what USPS does for free. Rant over – don’t use UPS.
So it’s up to the garage with the parcels and, just like Christmas, in 37.5 seconds I had everything unpacked and this pile of chrome parts on a bench.HD parts Being used, of course there were no installation instructions. No surprise there, but it does make it a bit more difficult for the spousal unit to offer “suggestions” when she doesn’t have a roadmap to point to. And besides it gives me an excuse to make several trips to the dealer to ask whether tab A really fits into slot B, and where the hell is slot B anyway? Or why do I have two of these, and what are they? And while the parts guys are chasing down the answers I’ll get to sit on all the new 2010’s on the showroom floor and fend off the sales reps touting their key exchange program. It’s all good.
But for now I’m just trying to make sure I have everything I need to finish the job once I start the tear-down. So I’ve been trying to dry-fit all the bits and pieces and producing huge lists of special bolts, acorn nuts, washers, spacers, and anything else I just “might” need in the process, which is, after all, half the fun.
The other half of the fun is putting it all back to stock when you are 95% complete and find you are still missing that one critical piece which is on backorder and won’t be available until the real Christmas arrives in about 6 months. But that would never happen to me. No.
Anyway we’re supposed to get a few (more!) days of rain coming up, so it’ll be a good time to do some wrenching and see if we can’t change her character just a wee bit. Stay tuned.

7 comments:

  1. I have the same feeling whenever I get an ebay package. Looking forward to the mods to your bike!

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  2. So, what all do you have there?

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  3. Lance, stay tuned. I'll keep the updates coming as progress is made.

    Danny, complete (I hope) set of forward controls and detachable sideplates so I can remove the luggage carrier and back rest when not needed.

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  4. I think this is brilliant as a kit...let's see if it works out well.

    Too bad about the UPS brokerage, etc...charges...They know how to screw us well over here.

    Oh well...C'est la vie

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  5. Looks like you got some nice chrome bits there! Agree about UPS, which is why I always try to contact eBay sellers beforehand to make sure they agree to ship USPostal. Most are OK with it when you explain the brokerage fees. Same thing happened to me a few years ago when I ordered a $150 tankbag from TwistedThrottle then got slapped with a $75 brokerage fee. Can you say "ripoff"? I know you can...

    Cheers,
    Lucky

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  6. Lucky, thanks.
    And it is a ripoff that's costing them business. I won't ship anything - international or domestic - with UPS on principle. (A policy which I also used to apply in my business dealings.)
    So three cheers for USPS - good rates and great service IMO.

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