At the end of last season it was decided that the funhouse had had its best days. The lorry , a 6 wheel c series ERF although mechanically sound, was a VOSA wet dream. No doubt someone with new enthusiasm could have restored it to previous glory , but that wasn't me. The attraction had served a good few years but on the same run year after year the novelty was gone and this meant earnings dropped too. So while the scrap price was high it was time to get shot. I took it down to a showmens yard and began to strip it out ready for going over the scales. r and r gave me a hand and to be honest it only took two afternoons to get the wood out and away to the coup. I had removed the large inflatable top, similar to a bouncy castle and had cut it into several sections to make it lighter to manoeuvre . Although looking at it on the ground it was bulky and still heavy, also being PVC it wouldn't be easy to get rid of. Then just at that I heard the bin lorry pull into the yard, they were emptying the yards bins. Quickly I ran down and spoke to one of the men. "hey pal, how much to take away an old bouncy castle? " I asked. The bin man looked over and I should him the pile of PVC. He stroked his chin and muttered "hmm, that'll hae tae be a tenner son". Result, I thought and within a minute the lorries muncher had devoured it.Though the old show lorry would drive over the scales, the scrappy wouldn't take it like that. It had to have all the fluids drained off, engine oil, radiator water, gearbox & back end oil and of course the fuel tank. That all taken care of we decided to loosen the tyres off and remove the outer rear tyres, these were also not wanted in the scrappy and to save time on the day it would be better to prepare them before hand. Now, this lorry had only ever had one puncture in all it's years so it goes without saying that they were hard to remove. in fact if it had been on the side of the road I would have been in trouble. Sixty nuts had to be removed by hand using a 3m pole on the wheel key to get enough torque. it took me another two afternoons to do this and that wasn't the only thing, two of the four outer tyres had to have the discs cut to get them off the hub!So the oxygen burners were employed on them and to remove the rear winch. Now I had to arrange a tow for the 1/4 mile to the scrappy, but all my other vehicles were away. My bros dodgem unit was handy but had no rear coupling so I simply put a hole through his chassis with the burner and shoved a shackle through it. It was secure enough but a bit sloppy on the straight bar, but that wouldn't stop us.Just before taking the vehicle down we had a look in the pickup, sure enough VOSA was sitting right outside their gates so we waited until they left at half three. We towed the lorry over the scales and then into the yard. A big grabber lifted the vehicle off the deck while we removed the remaining tyres. Then with a couple of crunches the old lady was gone, even a bit sad if I'm honest.We loaded up the tyres onto the pickup and weighed them out to get the correct payout. It was the things best gaff day. Back at the yard however I had a slight problem , all my tools collected over the years and spares were now homeless and the winch was too heavy to lift onto the pickup. The latter was easily fixed as the yard neighbour had a forklift and he kindly lifted it on and i bunged him the price of a couple of pints. Most of my good spare junk sadly went into the coup has I had nowhere to store it and since most of it hadn't seen daylight for years I had to really ask if I needed any of it. So a couple of months later and I have built a tool store across the back of the ec12 and also fitted the winch to this lorry too. it'll never be as good as the old 6 wheeler nor as heavy but if we anchor it to something I'm sure the winch will work out fine, though in this glorious weather it might be a while before the theory is tested.
