A Weasel adventure. (long)

Woo-Hoo! Back home and playing with a "new" Weasel.

It all started when I dropped in to visit Marlen Halverson at Glasgow, Montana on my way home from South Bend. He advertises a lot of parts/cars in TW, and I figured I'd check out the flock.

I got the tour, and discovered he had one sad, rusty Weasel there, but which still had a great many good parts on it, like most of the power train, for instance. So I made a deal to buy it, and gave him a deposit.

Work got in the way; I was away for 9 weeks.

Marlen called early last week, and said he was going to be going to an auction of vehicles and wagons, including a Studebaker Six wagon, at Cutbank, Montana. He said he would haul the Weasel out to Shelby on his trailer, if I were to meet him there, where we could transfer it.. I said OK, and agreed to meet him Monday morning at Shelby. He told me the day before he left, "by the way, the body of the Weasel fell apart while I was loading it." Well, it WAS rusty.

I got to Shelby about 11:00 Monday morning, after waiting nearly half an hour at the border just to get the necessary vehicle export form. Well, the Weasel was spread out all over Marlen's great long wagon-toter trailer, like a Revell kit from H*ll. There was NO way it could be rolled off one trailer and onto the other. We wandered arounf Shelby trying to find somebody with a forklift or picker, and finally wound up with me hiring a big picker truck from the trucking company right next door to the Town Pump truck stop where we met. This did the job in 15 minutes, with no sweat required. Cost $120, but it was worth it.

While loading the Weasel, I was back and forth on the cellphone with U.S. Customs and Border Protection at Whitlash, MT, trying to get the export paperwork for the Weasel squared away. Finally got that done; the final message being "call me back tomorow at 9:00 A.M. or shortly thereafter." Spent Monday in the motel at Shelby, and called the Customs guy in Whitlash the next morning. "Call us back after 4:00 P.M." and we'll let you know if there are any hitches with the paperwork." OK. I went with Marlen to the auction at Cutbank, some 23 miles west of Shelby. I honestly didn't see a darn thing that felt like bidding on. Marlen did buy a whole bunch of wagon and buggy stuff, ranging from loose axles to entire wagons. The "Studebaker" wagon, wasn't. Some unknown running gear with what MIGHT have been a Studebaker box on it.

So I stayed another night in the motel at Shelby, watched TV, and had a few beers at the bar across the road. I know now what I SHOULD have been doing.... Had a good sleep, slept late, had a nice big breakfast at the Town Pump cafe, and drove off up the road toward Sweetgrass, only 30-odd miles from Shelby. Parked in the Sweetgrass rest stop, and called Whitlash again. "We got the paperwork back from Washington, DC. All is OK. We'll fax it to Sweetgrass inside of an hour. DON'T go to the crossing until at least an hour has passed." Me: "OK, thanks for your patience."

So I wandered across the road to the Glocca Morra bar, and had a couple of Coors Light. Danny, the owner of the place, is a big collector of military vehicles, and we chatted about Weasels, etc. By 1:30, my hour delay had well gone by, so I drove around to the U.S. Customs office, and went in with my bill of sale. Finally got the export OK'ed, although I got chewed out for presenting a carbon copy of the bill of sale, and for not having a document from the state of Montana stating it had never been titled. (It's logically impossible to prove a negative, anyway, right?) I understand the rationale for having export controls on vehicles; it prevents stolen cars from being "laundered" in Canada, which has much slacker rules for registering/titling vehicles. I went through the EXACT same procedure with my '96 Suburban that I bought in Oregon, but I had done my homework, and had all the paperwork in order. I was kind of caught off-guard, picking the Weasel up on short notice, and kind of hoped that somebody at Customs would simply LOOK at the heap of parts, and make an executive decision: "Yup, that is indeed a heap of parts, not a vehicle anymore. Have a nice day." But the rusty relic of a Weasel hull still bore a serial number, and the hoops had to be jumped through.

Anyhow, I got cleared out of the USA with the poor old wreck, and rolled up the road to Canadian Customs. Home free? Uh-uh. The gal minding the store in the Canada Customs post took a look at the Weasel, and said, "I've got to turn you back. There is too much mud and soil embedded in that thing. You have to go back to the USA and wash it. Department of Agriculture rules." Again, a case of the rules making sense in general, but being kind of ludicrous in the particular, since if some nasty bug exists in the soil of northeastern Montana, it probably also exists in the soil of nearby southeastern Alberta. Nasty bugs being no respecters of lines on a map, you know.

But I didn't argue; that would have been pointless, so I took the U-turn route, and went back into the USA. As luck would have it, the blonde woman who had processed my export of the Weasel was stationed in the Customs booth as I rolled up, and I told her that I'd been turned back for excess mud on the Weasel. I said, "I guess that Montana mud isn't good enough for them." She laughed and waved me through, saying I would find a coin-op car wash in Sunburst, about 7 miles down the road.

So I drove down to Sunburst, and tried the car wash on the mud. Effective, NOT. I got out a screwdriver, and began digging mud and gravel out of the various nooks and crannies in the suspension, bogie wheels, and body openings. Let me tell you, when it comes to nooks and crannies, Weasels have the market cornered. I spent 3 hours with a screwdriver and my fingers, digging mud out of that thing. Then I spent $12.00 at the car wash to spray off as much of the remainder that I could. I didn't get all of it, but I must have gotten close to 90% of it, a large part of which simply migrated to my jeans and sweater. I figured I had made a sincere effort to comply with the soil regulation, and if they wanted the Weasel "surgically clean", that I'd simply store it in the lot at Sweetgrass, and come down with tools and dismantle and clean it right there. But the effort I made proved sufficient, and they let me in without any trouble, putting the Weasel down as "auto parts". So now I have a serial number that I cannot register, since I don't have the K-22 form for it. Not that it's a big issue, since it's an off-road vehicle, anyhow. One pleasant surprise was that, since I'd been out of country for more than 48 hours, I was entitled to a $400 exemption on GST, so instead of paying some $60 in tax, I only got dinged $38.

After getting through the border, the remainder of the trip home was uneventful. Had real nice weather for the entire trip,

Lessons learned:

1. There is a booklet available at U.S. Customs, "Exporting a Vehicle / Shippers and Exporters", Customs Publication No. 0000-0147. It's also available on the Customs Web site. According to this booklet, even a parts car is subject to export reporting, and the age of it is not relevant. If the main body shell, the part that bears the serial number, is the piece you need, you have to run through the hoops. OTOH, it would appear that a power train, 4 quarter panels, and a bunch of other loose parts, would not trigger an export report. If I had left the Weasel hull behind, and just brought engine, power train, and suspension, I'd have had no trouble.

1. If the vehicle being imported is dirty, or full of trash, clean it out before heading for the border. Aside from the mud/soil issue, what would happen if the Customs inspector found a bag of pot under the seat of a car that you were hauling? I'd sooner it were ME to find and dispose of questionable things like that!

2. If a Canadian buys a used car, or parts car in the USA, he should be sure to get one of: a good title, released by the title holder of record, or a valid junk or salvage title, or a bill of sale PLUS a document from the state of origin which indicates that either no title is required for the vehicle in question, or that it is no longer in the records. Things like this can take time to get! If the parts car is worth enough to go many miles to fetch it, then it's worth taking the time to get the paper trail in order.

1. If you get all your ducks in a row, you can notify U.S. Customs by phone, and fax them the necessary documents several days before your departure, so that the completed documents are waiting for you at your port of departure from the USA. Makes the whole process pretty painless.

The U.S. Customs Website is Go there, and you can probably download the above-described publication as a .pdf file. It's less than 20 pages, and pretty straightforward. Once you know what documents you need, and where to send them, the actual process is no big deal, really just a formality for most of the cars that interest people on this group.

Well, a long, but hopefull not pointless story.

BTW, I did get into Weasel rendering today. I got the two front idler wheels off, and the swing arms that carry them, and removed the front axle ( a part I need for my driver Weasel). Pulled out the radiator, and a fuel filter, and several of the brackets that the track tension springs abut against. Since the front panel of the hull was torn loose and hanging by a thread, I air-chiseled that off. Rolled the gutted hull sideways off the trailer all by myself. Not very heavy at all. Still some nifty brackets and gadgets attached to that gutted hull, like the bracket for the Pyrene fire extinguisher.

Used my tractor and length of chain to roll the skeletal remains of the hull tunnel and track suspension off the trailer. No ramps, just pulled it off the back, kerplunk! The hull separated from the tunnel because the floors, which join the two, were gone, gone, gone.

Used the tractor loader and a chain to hoist the track sections off the trailer, and stack them on a pile of wood poles. I have one complete, but broken late M29C style track, and one "French" track, apparently missing a few links.

Swept the remaining mud off the trailer, maybe half a pailfull. Left a BIG heap of mud at the carwash in Sunburst, MT.

Time to go make a bite to eat, I'd say.

Gord Richmond