Barn find shitty situation (pics)

[dave21478]

Well, no..... Its a garage, not a barn and I didnt "find" it as I put the bloody thing in there in the first place, but since when has these sorts of details stopped anyone else?

 

Anyway, round the back of Maison_21478 is an abandoned double length garage that I use as dry longterm secure storage. There is a colony of bats that live in there over the summer which cant be disturbed so I only use this garage for storing stuff I dont need access to in a hurry.

Some time ago I banged my Mazda pickup in there until I could be harrissed to make a decision about its future. The bats have gone now, left for their winter roosts. During the summer some experts had visited and estimated there were about four thousand of them this year.

Today I decided to pull the Mazda out today to make an assessment. Turns out that I forgot to put a tarp over it when I laid it up.

 

Damn - no tarp. Eh, doesnt look so bad.

 

Kinda grimy. Note front wheel buried up to the rim in black stuff.

 

Oh, man is covered in poop. Put a battery in it and it fired right up though. In daylight the problem is evident.

 

 

A nice thick layer over the bonnet and screen.

 

One of the culprits looking kinda dessicated...

 

Fortunately, batshit is relative innofensive smell-wise, but bat piss apparently dries to a fim which goes all stringy and gooey when jetwashed off.

 

:boke:

 

 

Anyway, a quick prod underneath reveals less actual holes than I remembered, but the entire chassis is flaking off its outer layer in big scabs...

 

It needs a couple of patches on the inside faces of the chassis rails at each rear shock mount, but will need a more thorough prod. I am vaguely considering lifting off the bed for access but am scared that this is just inviting more work in the long run.

Is it worth it? I dunno really. It would be scrap foddder in UK, but here it has a not insignificant value if I can get it sorted out.

[John F]

MAZDA IN "RUSTS LIKE FUCK" SHOCKER... lol

 

Nice batmobile though.

[anonymous user]

That's some batshit crazy storage you have there.

 

 

 

 

 

Sorry, I'll get my coat

[UltraWomble]

Bat shit is quite a good fertilizer.

Put some on your rhubarb

[Bear]

Wow. That's guano take a lot of cleaning.

 

(Sorry, Shit pun).

[garbaldy]

Is it also not very dangerouse to humans

[Matt]

I propose that we band together some money so Dave can put it on Le Bon Coin/Ebay/whatever as is and we can have a laugh at the responses.

 

In all seriousness to remove it I would suit up in some protective clothing, power wash off as much as possible and use a claybar (or 50) to get the rest off.

[steve_earwig]

Stick it back in and we can have a larf at how bad it is next year (and the year after...)

 

Well done for the bats, what sort are they?

[chaseracer]

^ Dysenteric?

 

[Junkman]

Oh. Shit.

[mercrocker]

Shame about tarp.......Batshit challenge would have been better than Cat Piss

[beko1987]

Quick flick of the wipers would see most of that off...

 

Have fun with the pressure washer!

[Ghosty]

Shouldn't have stopped there, it's bat country.

[Bear]

Is it also not very dangerouse to humans

 

It ain't the best stuff to be breathing in when you disturb it. Pressure washer and facemas/goggles would be advised, but then I eat biscuits with the same hands that just got doused in EP75, so what do I know.

[overrun]

Well done, you have found a use for a rollover car wash!

 

/They're in my hair, they're in my hair!!

[Dick Cheeseburger]

Have the Polish opened up a load of cheapo car washes in France as well? If so, take it along, record their reactions for our delectation and then offer them double the going rate.

[Bobthebeard]

Sorted, leave it in an American mid-west cave for a while!

 

"A species of blind, cave-dwelling salamander in the US mid-west has switched from a normal carnivorous diet to eating nutritious bat guano, say subterranean researchers.

 

Because bats don't digest their food properly, weight for weight their droppings contain more protein and nutrients than a Big Mac. This makes them a perfect snack in a pitch-black environment where food can be scarce."

[vulgalour]

Stop Robin all the good puns!

[NorfolkNWeigh]

My brother got bitten by a bat whilst relocating some from his garage to a barn in a bucket. He had to have a course of unpleasant anti rabies injections, but at least he didn't have bat shit on his car

[Twiggy]

Bat shit is quite a good fertilizer.

Put some on your rhubarb

I put custard on mine...........

[cort16]

Think how bad it might have been if it wasn't covered in bat shit

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Have you done a RHD/LHD conversion on this too?

[dave21478]

I would like to, but a complete lack of suitable parts for the conversion at a reasonable price have put that plan on hold. You never see these or the Ford Ranger version in scrappies at all.

 

I advertised it for sale about a year ago and got a fair bit of interest despite it being Rong Hand Drive but never sold it after getting the hump with 'tarded buyers and dreamers hoping to pop down on the train from Paris and take it straight to Africa.

[lisbon_road]

Friend of mine sold a scruffy Ranger on ebay and the buyers were African, turned up, polite, paid cash and took it off to their continent.  So it can work.

[dave21478]

Oh, it absolutely can work, but when you get 7 or 8 callers all unable to grasp basic geography, expecting me to deliver the car several hundred kilometres, expecting me to take a cheque that looked like it had been printed on his Epson the night before, expecting me to offer a guarantee, expecting me to offer a 50% discount on an already cheap car because they dont like some minor details or any number of other idiotic demands you eventualy get the hump and say "fuck it, I would rather keep it".

 

There are a lot of people who make good money exporting this sort of thing to Africa but these clowns were dreamers and arseholes.