Between this and that, a month went by, and I got a call that my stuff arrived. Weirdly, while my pots and pans got immediate customs clearance, the car did not, for reasons entirely unknown. I finally did get a call to come pick it up, and me being the optimist that I am, I had an excellent plan to get everything wrapped up, especially after having been in a anonymous grey van rental for almost two weeks at that point. So I extended the rental by an additional two days to pick up the Cruiser, get it plated the next day, and return the rental the following day, keeping a day of backup. Ah, the naiveté of the meek.
First, I showed up to the warehouse where the car was at 4pm. I had to go get temporary plates for it, where I discovered that temporary plates are being given only for 5 days. They cannot be extended, though a new one can be applied for. The 5 days is calendar, so even if it ends on a Saturday, well, you can't apply for a new plate on Saturday because the city hall is closed (and I have no idea why the city hall issues these). On top of that, you can only apply for 3 plates in total. Unless you go to a different city hall. On top of that, you need to write the exact route your car will follow and the reason why you need a temporary plate ("for inspection" is a valid reason). So I wrote that I would drive it from the warehouse to my home via places X, Y, Z, and the clerk busily stamped many stamps and handed me a plate with a huge red line through it, to show that I am driving an illegal vehicle that is exuding illegality by its mere existence because it hasn't passed the stringent and, frankly, pointless fervent stamping process that an inspection would go through.
But first, I had to get out of the warehouse. Which turned out to be a very peculiar endeavour.
You see, the car would not start. I suppose I should listen to voicemails more carefully, and read emails more carefully, but when the warehouse emailed me and called me to come pick up the car, they did, in about as many words, tell me that one tire was low, and
that the car would not start. I brushed that off because I assumed the battery was dead, so I showed up with one of those cute little battery boosters that are good for boosting motorcycles, charging iPhones and electrocuting pigeons, but little else. What I should have done was asked pointed questions about what
exactly they tried to do to get it started so that I could've at least planned for some intelligent troubleshooting; instead, I showed up with a USB powerbank and a whole lot of bravado.
The warehouse guy tried to explain to me that there seemeed to be an issue starting the car, but I waved him off because I know my car and I know it will start fine, after all, I drove it into the container myself. They just don't know how to start old Land Cruisers, I implied. The obvious look of concern on the guy's face should've been indication that I may be getting into something I'm not fully aware of, but I have a tendency to ignore opinions and advice (look, I had a freaking 30 year old Land Cruiser shipped with pots and pans, do you really think I'm going to listen to advice here?!), so I just stormed right ahead. USB powerbank connected (in retrospect, I didn't even try starting it without the booster!), I cranked the car. It happily turned, but nothing - no start. Not even close. I cranked it some more.... same thing. Acting extremely smart, I took off the air filter and sprayed some brake cleaner into the carb, once again, under the oddly concerned look from the warehouse manager. I explained that for old cars, this is the way to get them started, and I knew what I was doing. He seemed unconvinced, but it was my car, so he was OK with me doing whatever I want as long as the tables and chairs right next to it wouldn't set on fire. However, after three or four tries, the pigeon-booster-turned-iPhone-charger made a dying wail and trailed off, and I was left with absolutely nothing to show for my supposed ingeniousness - so I reattached the air filter, and started reflecting on wtf did I get myself into. He suggested that maybe the tank was empty - a valid suggesion (though I did try starting it with both the main and the sub tank), because when I parked the car, I took the ask of the shipping company a little bit too seriously, and I ran down the main and the sub tank to pretty much fumes, which was likely dumb of me. So I decided to go pick up a jerry can and see if I can get it restarted again. The warehouse manager told me that I'm unlikely to be able to do that, because due to recent bad evil people doing bad evil things, they don't really allow jerry cans at gas stations. I thought that was odd, but absoultely nothing surprises me about this place. So I left, since it was bordering on 5pm, and told him I'll be back tomorrow with a new arsenal of good ideas.
On the way home, I stopped by a gas station and asked the attendant if I can fill up a jerry can. Turns out that yes, I can, but I have to show ID so that they can record my name in case I do anything bad, like set myself on fire, set someone else on fire, or both. It seemed like another example of pointless process, kind of like the I-94 form in the US asking whether you are a terrorist (Y/N), whether you're bringing illegal guns (Y/N) and/or whether you have illegal drugs (Y/N), supposedly on the assumption that if you are a bad, evil warlord, you would potentially answer Y to at least some of those questions, which would simplify the detainment process. Similarly here, the assumption likely goes that if you provide your ID, then you are less likely to immediately set yourself on fire, even if it's in protest to this idiotic process. But I digress.
On the way back, I went and bought a jerry can. It's funny that I did that, because a couple of days prior, I actually picked up a brand new OEM Toyota jerry can in NATO green. It's really cool. It's also completely brand new, and that makes me not want to use it for the one purpose it was actually made for, so instead I went and got a cheap throwaway $10 jerry can to perform the one function (hopefully) the one and only time.
Next day, I got up bright and early and showed up to the warehouse around 2pm. No, it didn't take 6 hours to drive there. Let's not go there. I woke up when I woke up and I got there when I got there. Armed with gasoline (that I carefully produced my photo ID for and promised I would do nothing nefarious with it) and my pigeon scorcher, I filled up the main tank and sprayed a GOOD amount of brake cleaner into the carb because my good friends John, cruisermatt, Zane and Travis, while making humongous fun of me, did guide me on how to properly spray flammable fuel into a carburator. "Did I really just wake up to 400 messages of you figuring out how to spray a carb", said cruisermatt. Yes you did, yes you did.
Fuel in, carb sprayed, powerbank connected, crank it I did... and I got nothing. Engine turned over happily, but zero ignition. One more try ..... nothing. Third try ..... nothing, and the powerbank died, and so did the battery. F'k me, I thought. What now? Oh of course! I can boost it with my rental! So I drove the rental into the warehouse (which did not really please anybody there), hooked it up with booster cables... and got absolutely NOTHING from the Cruiser. Not even a crank. I guess the main battery was so dead, that the slushbox van couldn't even power it to start. I guess picking up a new battery was the sole remaining option. Hardly an ideal one, because I'd normally buy one on
Amazon or something for some reasonable price, but since none of that was possible, off to the car parts store it was - and an hour later and $300 poorer I was back with a fully charged battery. The warehouse manager kept looking at me with great concern, partially because I was preventing him from stamping many papers, but probably more so because it was looking more and more like something complicated would have to get done, and complicated wasn't whet he was envisioning in his immediate future, so it was creating much concern for him.
Swapped the battery and tried cranking again, nothing. Again, nothing. At this point I was quite seriously concerned, so I wasn't sure what to do anymore. I became weak and started calling for outside opinions - called a couple of garages, places that would likely have dealt with carburetors, but I either got nothing, or a "I'm sorry, you're a first time customer, we are rather too busy collecting lint, we can only accept your car after all lint has been collected and catalogued, you understand, it's not anything about you, it's just that the amount of lint is truly excessive and we can't possibly take a new customer while this remains the reality". It's a common theme here, you see - there's even a word for it in the language, which effectively means "rejection of first time customers". An assistant manager stopped by, made some phone calls, and came back with a suggestion to take it to a Toyota dealer. "Sure," I thought. "This country hasn't seen a carburated car since the late 80s, I'm pretty sure if I took it to a Toyota dealer, they'd suggest me to buy a brand new 300 series, with a 4 year wait, that is." I didn't say anything, though. I wasn't really in a good position to.
At this point, cruisermatt got annoyed with me and said dude, just go crank it. But but but... I said. I'm on my second battery, and if this fails, I'm dead in the water because I have no way of charging it (well, without going home, anyway). Just do it, man, he said. I don't know if he was annoyed with me pestering everyone with idiotic questions, or if he just wanted to see what happen, or if he wanted to test the axiom that "a LandCruiser will
always start". Maybe a bit of all. So I just hit the ignition again. And again. And again. And again. And again. At one point I sent him a video of the car kind of choking but still not catching. "More! DO IT MORE!" he screamed at me. "Just let the starter go sometimes so it doesn't burn". The warehouse manager looked absolutely stunned at how much dedication I was throwing at this. So I kept hitting it and hitting it and hitting it until .... BAM, it just started and ran just fine, as if absolutely nothing was the matter. No choking, no rough idle, absolutely NOT. A. THING. This was mildly annoying, but I wasn't going to argue with my luck, so I packed up all the crap into the car, drove it out of the warehouse, slapped on the temporary plates, inflated my tire with the ARB compressor, and it was time to head home to a whole new level of stupid.
