Bulkhead Arrives

The bulkhead is finally here. Thanks to a screw-up by the shipping company, SeaBird, and with the agent here, Ecu-Line, apparently unable to do anything about it, the bulkhead couldn't be delivered to my home, and so had to be collected in Toronto. And it had to be collected this week, or storage fees would start to be added on. On Thursday I rented a cargo van from the excellent foks at Enterprise, and headed off to Mississauga at 6:00am. Thanks to arriving in Toronto at rush hour, it took 2 hours to traverse the city (do people really do that every day? Both ways?). Everything else went smoothly, the bulkhead cleared customs and the duties were paid, the Toronto agent was paid the handling charges, the warehouse were paid their dock fee, and a few hours later the 7 month wait for the bulkhead was over.

The only surprise was the $537.87 I didn't know I'd have to pay, on top of the bulkhead and shipping already paid, for all the above (unless, of this, I was actually supposed to pay the $190 Ecu-Line handling fee and $50 dock fee from SDV Logistics all along - but it would, in this case, have been nice to have been told this ahead of time at some point in the purchase process). This in spite of an assurance from SeaBird that delivery to my house had indeed been paid for.  SeaBird have now offered to reimburse $210 for the delivery mixup.

Duties and taxes were a further $281.79, not included in the above, but they were expected.

In this view: Crossing Toronto to get to Mississauga....two hours of this, one way!

Somewhere in here is the bulkhead. I forgot to take a photo, but it was extremely well packed by SeaBird Packaging. SDV Logistics kindly said I could leave the pallet and wrapping there, as I didn't need them. The person who helped get the bulkhead said the blue pallet at bottom right, which had been lost by another company somewhere in transit and only just found, contained souvenirs of the UK's Royal Wedding - just a little late!

The bulkhead, sans packing, loaded into the cargo van.

And there it is, in the garage back home. The garage is now officially overcrowded. : )

Ashtree very kindly sent some galvanized extras with the bulkhead, very nice indeed! A lot of work to do on the bulkhead before it can be painted and installed, but I'm looking forward to seeing a bulkhead on the chassis at last.