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Reversal of Fortune: Of Fenders and Leather Seats...(long)



Ever since I purchased my red mk1 back in June, I've been on the prowl for a clean set of fenders. The passenger one got pinched by the PO and the driver had some minor corrosion at the lip (good enough for gov't work, but not on a resto car). I'd come across at least 10 mk1's in the yards over the that time and hadn't even found one fender - D or P - that was worthy. Given that the big strip-down is going to begin in May, I was getting a little worried that I would have to start calling wreckers and/or even having to pay $$$ to have them shipped here...

Recently I started expanding my scope - thinking about buying a parts car, or going to yards a little further away. In a recent thread on Vortex, a retired lister, Alex Ting told me there were a couple Mk1's out at the yards in Sacramento (about 2 hours drive), but he had never checked the condition of the mk1's because he doesn't own any.

My wife was taking our son to a baby shower on Saturday, so I decided to take the gamble and drive all the way out there. Our 4Runner is currently the only car with a base for Justin's car seat (even though we just bought a second base a couple of days ago, I was too lazy to put it into my car), so I had to take my 535i. 

I managed to convince my buddy, Jason, who has fender removal experience, to come out there to help me. We showed up at Alex's at 9am and dragged his ass out of bed and went to the Pick-n-Pull near his house. Check this out - the one and only mk1 in the yard had very clean fenders!!  I was so stoked, I couldn't believe my good luck. The damn yard wouldn't let me bring my torch in, so we had to do it completely cave-man style. Also had to make a run to Home Depot for some more bailing wire, but _they don't carry it_.  WTF??  Anyway, we made do with some other sh*t HD had and got them off an hour later.

$90 later, they were mine. Had to put my tool box into the back seat because the fenders took all the trunk space in the BMW. The leather has been toughened by age, and the tool box was heavy enough to provide stability, so I didn't think it would be an issue. I was wrong.  Some time during the drive on a large left turn, the tool box slid over to the other side of the seat and put a 6-inch gash into the seat base...  >:(

Moral of the story?  Laziness is costly.  But the irony?  I'm so happy I got my fenders that the seat issue is largely secondary in magnitude... Isn't that scary??

Jeff