On Matters Chassis

Land Rovers are known for corrosion issues suffered by their frames. This is hardly surprising -- many of them are twenty, thirty, fifty years old, or so on, and the chemical processes that cause rust are, like death for us organic beings, absolutely inevitable. No matter how well you take care of your steel, eventually rust will find a way to return your well-manufactured metal objects into a pile of red dust.

Almost every would-be Land Rover restorer has, at some point, taken a hard look at his/her chassis and had a cup of tea and a bit of a think. There are many issues to consider, as I wrote about previously. We are fortunate as restorers to have access to new-build replacement parts so we have two choices: rebuild / repair what we have, or buy a new replacement. 

As the reader may know I decided to buy a replacement chassis from Richards Chassis in the UK. I thought I would take a moment to write about the process for others who may be curious about 'how it all works' and outline for you the costs involved in going with this route. They are significant. 

For me, a layperson, the process has been pretty... interesting, actually. I've now had the opportunity to peek into the international freight / shipping process and learn a little bit along the way. It's pretty fascinating to see how 'stuff' that is made by a manufacturer goes from one place to another. Conceptually it's not that complicated: put your stuff on a ship or a train and hey presto, there you go. However it's not at all that simple because we have governments and corporations and rules and regulations and tariffs and agents and whatnot. Every single step of the process has to be profitable, for someone, so expect to have to jump through a lot of hoops with a lot of people and spend a little or a lot at each step. In my case, we're also talking about a 550lb. hunk of metal that's more than 14 feet long. You can't exactly put it in the trunk of your Benz.

Sourcing

There are several ways to go about buying a new chassis. You can: 

1. Order directly from the OEM

2. Buy from an importer like Rovers North

3. Find one floating around your local area

The most preferable option is the third. In my case, there were no frames kicking around within shouting distance unfortunately. There were a few people who were rumoured to bring in a container or two full of chassis at once, to save on shipping and import fees, but no one seems to be in that game any more. Concerns seemed to be centered around storage space. That's option three out.

The second option would be to work with a well-known parts dealer to add a chassis to their order. I contacted both Three Brothers (in Ontario) and Rovers North (in Vermont) to ask about getting a chassis sent my way from their stocks. For various reasons Three Brothers wasn't an option: they can't / won't do one-off orders, they only do one order per year, and the costs to ship across Canada are pretty high. Like, you could probably drive to Ontario in a uhaul and back for the same cost. Same with Rovers North, plus you also have to import the chassis since they can only arrange to send it to e.g. Blaine.

Which left me with the option of dealing directly with Richards. The advantage was that I could get exactly what I wanted! And they'd send it to me as soon as it was ready. 

Ordering

When you order from Richards, you have to do it via email. You can tell them exactly what you want and they'll confirm the order with you. This part is pretty easy.

If you want something a bit weird, they may offer a quick phone consult with one of their technical guys. This was what I ended up needing because I wanted to buy a military 2A chassis and put many of the Series 2 bits on it. Richards wanted to verify that what I was ordering would work. I'm glad they did, I appreciate that attention to detail. It went pretty smoothly. Richards makes it easy. 

They will want to work with you to figure out shipping. When they do this, they need a full destination address: in my case, this was my home address! It's a bit weird: they're not quoting you on shipping directly to your house (or workshop, or whatever), but they act as though they are. What will end up happening is they will send the bid out to freight carriers who will get the crate, which your chassis will come on, to a bonded warehouse mostly near where you live. More on that below.

In any case, many readers will be curious to know how much it all costs to do this. 

I paid list price for the chassis I bought with the options I selected. I also added a new front bumper -- mine was a bit bent. (I mean, whose isn't? Mom told me that was normal)

To get the chassis here, Richards' freight agent quoted me £1,725 pound sterling. Added to that is a £235 crate fee. 

When you get confirmation that your order is placed, you then have to wait. In my case, it took Richards six months to get through their order backlog (or thereabouts) and get my chassis made. 

Payment

You don't pay them anything -- no deposit necessary -- until it's made. Once you get the email from Richards that your chassis is ready, the "hurry up and wait" phase begins. They will expect prompt payment for the item of course, and there is some pressure on you, the buyer, to move quickly because shipping rates fluctuate and your quote is only good for a certain time frame. I would not personally advise delaying. Shipping costs, at the time of writing, are absolutely bananas. 

Anyway, they will send you an invoice with a bunch of international bank transfer information on the bottom. You'll have to take your invoice in to your bank and set up an international money transfer which takes about 15 minutes. My bank needed *all three* honkin' big numbers to send the transfer over. 

At the time of payment, the total came out to $8050 or so in Canadian dollars including my bank's international money transfer fee. 

Once you've done this, you'll have to email Richards to let them know you've paid them. They'll confirm usually 24-48h later and that's it, you're off to the races!

Shipping

Well, kind of. Again in the form of 'hurry up and wait' once you pay you kind of go into limbo while the shipping process begins. In my case, I wasn't told when, where, or how the crate would be sent to me. I followed up with Richards who told me that the LTL (less than load i.e. just a crate and not a whole container) would leave Liverpool on the MV Toronto Express. 

Richards will ask you about your broker information, so you will need to source a customs agent. This is the entity that will fill in the paperwork that is needed so that the crate you've paid for can leave the bonded warehouse where it will end up. I received a referral to King Brothers (one of my in-laws brings in a bunch of boat parts from Europe) who were pretty easy to deal with. You'll need to get Richards your broker information so that they can provide it to their shipping agent. Your broker will wait until the shipper notifies them that the crate is ready to be processed. 

Then, once your crate gets closer, you'll get an email or a call from a local shipping company who are acting as a local agent. They'll have your container number, shipping info, and so on and they will contact you to work with you on the fees that you'll need to pay to the various entities that process your crate along the way. Unfortunately, LTL shipping is not like Amazon: many people need to 'touch' your shipment bureaucratically, if not physically, and they all need to be paid. 

The local (Canada-based) shipping agent used was, in my case, Double M freight. They contacted me to organize final details like the date the crate would be available, where it will be available, and collect payment for the following:

• Pier fee: $102 USD

• Terminal charges: $160.65 USD

• Documentation and handling: $45 USD

• Carrier Import Fees: CAD$415.33

• Dock Fees Paid to Terminal: CAD$50.00

• Outlay fees: CAD$30.00

• Handling Fees:  CAD$95.00

... plus taxes, of course. These fees are in some cases shared by everyone who has a piece of the container you're occupying. They break it down by volume so your fee portion is whatever the total costs are for the sea can divided by the fraction of space you occupy.

Customs

Your broker will work with the shipping agent to clear your crate through customs. They will charge you a fee to do this. In my case, King Bros invoiced me for two line items: GST on the shipment, at $579.88 and their brokerage fee of $220 -- plus GST on that, of course. 

Picking Up the Damn Thing

By now, I was tiring of all the people whose hands were in my pocket. However, I had one more rather large problem to solve -- how was I going to get a 4.5 cubic metre crate from a warehouse floor on Annacis Island to my driveway? 

My original plan was to rent a uhaul moving van and have the warehouse use a forklift to load the crate. That would be easy enough for the loading side I reckoned... right? 

Apparently that's a no-no. You need a commercial-height vehicle deck to have the warehouse load a crate. 52" I think it is? Anyway, most trucks available to you and I will not work. 

Then comes the matter of manipulating the thing. I suppose I could enlist the help of four weightlifters, but I don't have many friends and I only know one weightlifter. This is a bit of a problem. I looked at location delivery options but what kind of rental truck has a ramp that will easily offload a 14' long crate? Most local freight carriers can't handle the size of the crate easily with a standard cube truck & loading ramp.

It's made more difficult of course because your crate must leave the facility on the day they tell you it's going to be available. The warehouse your crate is in will not store it for you. Therefore you have to be available to get your crate, no matter what, on the one day they tell you. If not, you probably have to pay them many kopecs for the privilege of taking up some of their floor space. Important meeting at work on the Tuesday you need to be at the warehouse? Too bad!

After much thinking on the topic, mostly centering around "how the hell do I get a crate off of a truck and onto my driveway by myself" I asked Double M for options. Their service was great. The lady found me a local guy with a flatbed and a HIAB crane to pick up the crate and just drop it in my driveway. Of course (haha!) this service was not cheap. I mean, why would it be? Six hundred bucks to get a guy with a crane to pick up a crate from Annacis Island and deliver it to me. 

In the end, I have ended up paying Double M $1150 Canadian dollars in total to get the LTL crate off of a boat and into a warehouse in Richmond, and from there to my door in Surrey.

The Bottom Line

So it's expensive to buy a frame from the UK. Quite expensive. How expensive?

$10,123.29