the Walnut Diary

Everything went fine this afternoon as I completed final stages of the transaction for the Tacoma until I tried to attach the front plate. Uh, where does it go? There are no holes.

To back up a bit, the truck breezed through the etest and safety check at Canadian Tire this morning. This afternoon at the Ontario License Bureau the lady methodically processed my documents, and then charged P.S.T. on the amount on the bill of sale, not an arbitrary figure concocted by their computer, as in the manner of domestic sales. This sounded very good to me.

When she handed the plates across the counter I realized that the thing had actually worked. There was no Lucy van Pelt waiting to yank the football away from me at the last instant.

So I put the sticker on a plate and attached it to the back bumper. No problem so far. But the front was another matter. No place to put it. This called for an expert, so I headed to the shop of Dave Matthews, body shop owner and restoration expert. Dave looked at the situation and shared a laugh with his staff. Stickers apparently go on the front of a commercial vehicle, not the back. That his former English teacher would fail to read a simple set of instructions caused him a good deal of unseemly mirth.

Once he got his breath back, Dave ran his fingers over the front bumper and miraculously produced four little indentations in the plastic cover. Out came a drill, in went the holes, and on went the correct plate. I tried to pay for his time. His reply? “Go hit a deer!”

Here all these years I’d thought he hadn’t paid attention in class, and now he gives me a lesson in irony with a bit of nemesis for homework.

Note:  For the other articles in this series, please click “Importing a Tacoma to Canada” on the column to your right.

Quite a few hits on this site are from people bringing cars from the U.S.A. into Canada, so here’s an update which may be of benefit.

I have hit a snag with the R.I.V. The instructions for preparing the documentation for the submission to R.I.V are readily available on the Net, but nowhere did I read advice on how to get the Recall Status statement from the company, Toyota in this case, to the appropriate file at R.I.V.

The guy at Canadian Customs checked my documents and wrote a couple of others, took my money for the application and G.S.T., and told me that I’d receive the rest from R.I.V. in ten days. No mention was made of the letter from Toyota clearing my truck of recalls. It was in the envelope with everything else, but he didn’t ask and I didn’t give it to him.

After ten days a letter from R.I.V. informed me that the application couldn’t proceed until they have received the recall declaration. I faxed it off, asked for the inspection certificate by return email, and settled in to wait another ten days.

If I had known enough to get that declaration of recall status included with the package sent to R.I.V. from Canadian Customs, I’d have an Ontario plate on my truck by now. Live and learn.

UPDATE: November 5th, 2007

I waited and checked my email faithfully, never giving up hope, and today the inspection form arrived by regular mail. The local CTC service manager completed the inspection in ten minutes at no charge, then faxed the form back to the R.I.V. The lesson here? The R.I.V. personnel mean well, and perhaps don’t pay much attention to what we ask, only to what we need.

Tomorrow CTC will do the safety and emissions checks.

The Internet is full of discussions among car owners about DRLs, as they are known among the acronym set. American truck owners desperately want to disconnect their DRLs for reasons that would boggle the mind. My favourite was the Toyota owner who waits for the train in the early morning with his engine running to keep the truck warm. He doesn’t want to disturb the suburban residents near the station with his lights. Another serious off-roader worries that he will blind the track marshalls if he flashes his lights in their eyes at a critical point on the course. About one in ten fears that the increased use from daylight running will wear his lights out. Two contributors seriously discussed the risk of frying their trucks’ wiring by operating their lights in daytime. Many worry that their V8s will get worse gas mileage from producing all that electricity.

Canadian owners, on the other hand, desperately want to find out how to install the DRLs so that they can register their new vehicles before the temporary plates run out. Most will be happy merely to pass the test, but the owners of Honda S2000 models want the ultimate in DRL-cool, the 60% dimming effect. This seems to require a great deal of experimentation and not a few mishaps involving lost high beams, if one is to believe today’s posts.

The Hamsar module’s instructions called for the green wire to be fastened with cable ties next to a spark plug wire to draw impedence from it and activate the module. My truck has no spark plug wires, just little solid state things sitting where the plugs should be. I asked for help on two Toyota forums. None was forthcoming except for one moderator who stated that any module which tried to take power from a spark plug should definitely not be installed. In desperation I asked the readers of Yesterday’s Tractors — a collection of uncommonly smart and helpful people.

In a few minutes a guy named Vern sent me an e-form for a customer inquiry from Hamsar, the Markham company which produces the DRL control unit. The response came inside fifteen minutes. Caroline, the company rep, suggested that I connect the green wire to any circuit activated by the ignition switch. A careful examination of the instructions revealed that yes, hard-wiring the green wire to the oil pressure sender would also do the job.

A brave dive under the truck turned up the missing oil pressure sender, and I was even able to track it up to the surface of the engine where I exposed the green and yellow wire after knawing through three levels of protection. The downloaded Toyota manual gave me wire colours and locations. Mind you, it took a week of reading.

All that remained was to hook the thing up. The little clips which come from Hamsar are dreadfully dull. I broke the first one without denting the headlight wire. Fortunately I had several of the splicing clips left over from a trailer-repair job, and they went right on.

Bet held the light as I did my usual chaotic wiring job and then held her breath as I touched the green wire to the battery terminal. The lights all came on. I disconnected. They went off four seconds later. It works! I clipped the green wire to the oil pressure sender wire and fired her up. Oil pressure light still works. The lights come on by themselves as soon as the truck starts.

Flushed with success and telling myself it only has to work once for the inspection, I quickly stuffed the DRL unit down behind the battery and started up a couple of more times. High beams work normally. All lights come on at full intensity — had I bought a more sophisticated Hamsar unit they’d only come on at 60%, but this one was on the shelf, and what did I know?

Anyway, it works. The truck is now ready for the next step once the package comes from the Registrar of Imported Vehicles. Cool!

The following day dawned clear and cool, perfect driving weather. I followed Charlie from wherever we were out onto the highway and drove north to a breakfast place. I don’t know if it was Claire or Charlie who suggested the turnoff he chose, but we ended up in a lush college town with wide streets, beautifully landscaped parks, and a worn, if cozy local eatery for breakfast.

The most interesting thing about this town was the land development on the outskirts. It was groomed like a golf course, but had a sign advertising “Lots: 1 – 94 Acres For Sale.”

Then we drove some more until we hit Buffalo. A right turn and we were on to Syracuse, though the scenery was quite delightful on this leg. North to Watertown and I was feeling the drain of a weekend of driving. The truck chugged along very well, though.

At Watertown by prearrangement we left the truck at the local U-Haul franchise just off 81 at Exit #48. The owner rents garage space to store cars for the 72 hour wait period required by Homeland Security before a vehicle may be exported from the U.S.

An obliging U.S. Customs agent let me drop off the bill of sale and title for the Tacoma, so home we went, happy to have gotten this far on the project.

Three days later my mother drove chase car for the last leg of the trip. Just because she hasn’t been across a border in fifty years was no reason not to make the trip, in her opinion. Away we went in her CRV. The freeway and the tall bridges were no problem for Mom. It turned out even stern-faced customs agents showed their human side with her. We breezed through the importation process and the truck arrived safely at its new home.

The most interesting thing about the last leg of the trip was the assortment of golden eagles and hawks perched on steel fence posts along the edge of Hwy 81. You’d think posts that narrow would be uncomfortable for such large birds, but there they sat.