Three and half hours after an 8.30 start saw Pop and I looking over this.
Oh my! Well hello! An '89 Isuzu Elf in nicely tarted up condition. It was sort of karmic tho, it was supposed to be the daughter's horse truck, Daddy being of means and inclination picked this up in less than lovely condition. A well used delivery trick with rust and generally ickiness. It started life with a 5 speed automatic gear box that was replaced by a 5 speed manual item by Daddy. There is a whole christmas tree's worth of now non applicable lights on the dashboard. No a/c or exhaust brake either, sadly. 24 Volt. Went for a short drive, seemed to go ok.
On the bright side, daddy's panelbeater cut and welded all the rust then painted it a nice nondescript white. The cab upholstery was redone in red paisley and a huge tray and solid tow bar added. The deck is huge , 4550mm by 2200mm. By my measuring it'll swamp the camper body by about 90mms a side. More on this later.
Some brake and injector work later and it was given to Daughter. Dad, it's too slow, I want a faster one. So a short deal later it was all mine.
Dad was a nice guy, an earth works and transport contractor as it turned out. Now the truck was mine, how to get it home...
My original plan called for leaving it there and coming back a couple of days later with a driver. Dad's wife Mum (nice lady too, must be something in the water.) worked for a car hire company. She had it figured that I could pick up a rental for delivery in Wellington, drive it to New Plymouth, pick up the truck and drive home. Long day in the saddle but well do-able.
Or.....
We could put the station wagon on the back of the truck......ooooooo..... 'Oh sure,' said Horse Truck Dad, 'no problem.' Oh right, there will be a ramp here some place. No, better.
Oh yum yum! Daddy's drive, a nice new Volvo flat loader. Back the Honda up the ramps and...
The man carries dozers and diggers and stuff, of cause my Dad's Honda'll fit...just drive straight ahead and think happy thoughts...
I've paced it out, I'm sure it'll fit, but that deck doesn't look very big even so. This is silly, I'm less than a meter up and I feel like I'm on stilts, harden up!
Tahdah!
I was all set to buy a bunch of rope, but no, good egg that he is, Horse Truck Dad came to the party with 4 large ratchet tie downs and in less time that it takes to tell, Honda was hog tied to Isuzu. Hope they get on. I offered to courier the tie downs back, but no, they were a present. Thanks! Nice guy.
I figured the Honda for a bit over half of the Isuzu's max loading, so no strain there, certainly it didn't feel funny once we were under way. I could see what the daughter was on about, though, no land speed records here. Patience and spacing the 5 gears eventually resulted in a comfortable 85-95kph, unless there was a hill. For a 3.3 liter diesel it seemed pretty relaxed about the whole affair. Still. Go it did, and in adequate comfort and handling. Not as loud as some I've driven, a conversation with the passenger is easily possible but I dont think I'll be fitting a stereo anytime soon. There is one, an A.M only radio in the dashboard hooked up to a single speaker someplace buried. OK when you're parked or in traffic. The thought didn't escape me that the Transit was easily as fast and a lot nicer to drive, But that's ok, all in all apart from the slightly hunched seat it's a running thing. A couple of hours later the hunched seat thing started to really piss me off. I was sure the seat was as far back as it would go, or at least that's what I thought. A tug on the seat slider and the seat lurched back another 6 inches, oh better! A grope and pull on the back rest adjuster and I had optimum driving configuration, yeehah! Now why didn't I do that right at the beginning...
Leisurely pace not withstanding, the trip home was nicely uneventful. Now all I had to do was figure out how I was going to get the car off the back of the truck once we got home. Hmmm. Just as we drove into Shannon I vaguely recalled seeing a loading ramp in the rail yard near home. A quick investigate and success!
Job done! Home was a 2 minute drive away and all had gone swimmingly! I like the truck, it's easy to drive (idiosyncratic gearbox not withstanding. Gear changes need to be lined up with some care if you don't want to be left hanging in the middle of an intersection in Wanganui, eek!), all in all I think might have got lucky! Time to start thinking about the swap over.
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