I didn't want to create a new thread for this so I'm just throwin' it on this one. Today, Friday the 13th (which was actually yesterday, by a hour and 15 minutes), was a pretty crazy day. Bad news and good news.
The good news is my torsion bars are cranked, my wheels are aligned and my 33's are on. The truck looks great; its really starting to come together. I couldn't be more satisfied with them.
Here is the bad news. I dropped my truck off at the tire shop at 9am. I was scheduled for an alignment and 4 new tires. I was talking to the guy at the desk and I told him that I had wheel adapters that needed to go on or else the tires wouldn't fit. He gave me a weird look and I instantly knew the day was going to be more difficult than I had planned (boy was I in for a treat).
He took a look at the adapters and told me they could not install them (or the tires, obviously) because they pose a liability. After a few minutes of frustration and reasoning, I asked if I could take off the tires on my own, install the wheel adapters, put my tires back on and bring the truck back for the new tire installation. Again, he denied. I even asked him if there was a waver I could sign releasing them from any responsibility if the adapters did in fact break.
Nope.
We came to the conclusion that my one and only option was to take off the wheels myself and bring
just the wheels back. I was pretty angry, but I had no choice. I was to get my wheels aligned, pick up my truck then take the wheels off at home and bring them back for the new tire installation.
I went home (driven by someone else) and waited about a hour and a half for them to call me and tell me my alignment was done. Got the call and was driven back to the shop. For a reason yet unknown to me, there was a police officer in the parking lot of the tire shop; I thought nothing of it. I walked in to get the receipt for the alignment and the manager came up to me and told me that the police officer needed to see my registration and insurance information. With a dumbstruck look on my face, I asked why. She told me one of her employees was parking another customers car and had side-swiped the back corner of my truck. I'm sure you all can imagine being in that situation, so I don't have to describe how angry I was. It wasn't just because the corner of my truck was side-swiped, but because that
had to happen right after I found out I had to do all the tire-work myself.
My truck turned out to have minimal damage. The other customers pickup truck, however, was in bad shape. While I had only scratches and scuffs on my back bumper and under the tail light, her pickup truck had dents 2-3 feet in length. The tire shop is going to pay any body shop I choose to fix the scuffs (which are not too bad, fixing them myself wouldn't be a problem).
After that whole ordeal I had to bring my truck home, jack it up and leave it on blocks. Thankfully, my dad has a work-pickup that he let me use to haul the wheels to and from the tire shop.
So tomorrow, or today technically, I have to go to the police department and pick up the police report. Then I have to go to a body shop and get an estimate. Instead of having the tire shop pay for the body shop work, I think I'm just going to tell them to give me a free 33" BFG as a spare.
After all that, SKIDZ FLARES!
(I PB'ed them so I should be able to get them off now.)
's as time passes.
Looks clean!
