Fairway
Project

   My ongoing Fairway Projects
    * Sherwood
    * the Beast

Story of Sherwood

Sherwood is my 3rd black cab, a 1996 Fairway Driver, bought on 10th February 2013 via ebay.co.uk. In fact I almost never had it because at the very last second of the auction, while I was a winner at £500.11 someone outbid me with an extra £11! The disappointment was terrible!

And then, surprise! I received an email from the seller on February 5, with a second chance offer for £500 since the winner of the auction never showed up: "Hey buddy the guy that outbid you was a numpty and wouldn't reply to phone messages so if you want to give me £500 it's yours. Jimmy".

I accepted Jimmy's proposal the next day. Why did I bid on this cab? Well, first of all it was so cheap and despite some flaws reported by the seller, I noticed in the pictures that the bodywork was superb, the front wings were fibreglass and it had a wooden wheel worth £100.

Therefore I took the train to Saint-Malo on Saturday February 9, 2013 (actually three successive trains: La Roche-sur-Yon/Nantes, Nantes/Rennes, Rennes/Saint-Malo) then the Condor ferry to Poole with a change of Ferry at Jersey and a one hour call at Guernsey. I finally arrived at my hotel, the Holiday Inn Express in the evening and was pleasantly surprised by the comfort and luxury offered for just £ 50, with a hearty breakfast buffet in the morning!

I spent Sunday morning visiting the old quarter of Poole but it was raining cats and dogs and I could not take a single picture! My seller (Jimmy G. - a former football star turned taxi driver, according to Google) picked me up at my hotel at 10:30 and we went to his home.

The taxi was in front of his house as we arrived: it was even more beautiful than in the pictures, a magnificent Sherwood green cab with matching vinyl roof, shining bright like a diamond under the rain. I decided there and then to call it "Sherwood".

After processing the documents and payment of the taxi, we went for a trial run, that's when I felt somewhat disappointed: the transmission was sluggish, although my seller seemed to think that everything was fine, he just said I needed to accelerate! Except that on hard acceleration the box tended to slip, and I had to accurately measure acceleration to avoid it. A shame considering that the purpose of an auto transmission is to discharge you from such worries! The transmission lever was also imprecise since I had to pull it to '2' to return back to 'D'!

Finally, after coffee and final goodbyes with Jimmy's charming family, he took me in tow to the right exit road at the roundabout and there I was on my own, at the wheel of my new cab, heading towards Portsmouth! Once launched, the taxi behaved not too badly considering the rain that was pouring down and I reached the ferry port early afternoon without incident ... I had lunch at Cascades and visited Portsmouth under the rain to pass the afternoon. Boarding was at 22H00 on LDLines towards Le Havre. The next morning, I went through Caen before heading back to La Roche-sur-Yon ... again under the rain!

Sherwood's positive and negative points

Let's start with the positive:
Flawless body, resprayed 4 years ago, new wind shield rubber, green vinyl roof, beautiful hubcaps, taxi sign in good condition, 2 sets of keys that open all the door locks, all major electrical systems work, including the fuel gauge (a first!) The battery is good, the inside is clean, floor mat in the rear. The brakes, suspension and steering are all strong and good.

Now to the bad points:
In addition to the slipping automatic transmission and the transmission lever already mentioned, the thermostat to be replaced (indicated by the seller), two corrosion holes in the sheet metal of the engine compartment. Further I discovered a leak of coolant fluid at the top of the water pump, a fuel leak on the injection pump, and 3 out of 4 tires needed to be changed.

After further investigation I discovered that the rubber pipe connecting the air filter to the vacuum modulator was cut! I fixed a 6mm piece of plastic pipe to connect the air filter box to the vacuum modulator, and found the next day that a new life was breathing into my asthmatic auto box: speeds normally passed on acceleration without slipping and the overdrive worked fine!

A dive under the car allowed me to find that the bolt on the axis linking the transmission lever to the box was largely unscrewed - it could have dropped off on the way: it was a breeze to tighten it up! But how could my seller have missed this point?

Among other little nagging problems that were an easy fix: both front indicators, rear plate light, passenger compartment lights, driver compartment lights, speedometer cluster lights, brake warning light, rear heated screen timer.

I also replaced the offside front quarter light window, put new gutter chrome strips, bought a stainless steel fuel cap and fixed inside weather strips that were missing on all four windows! I also fitted a taximeter on the roof console for authenticity, and found a way to switch on/off the taxi sign with a little toggle switch.

What the cab cost me:

Cab purchase: £ 500 or 600 €
Trip to fetch cab in UK (including train, ferries, hotel, food, diesel, etc..): 350 €
4 remould tires: 240 €
Tires fitting and wheel balancing: 72 €
Second hand LHD Austin Mini headlamps, including new bowls and circles: 50 €
Revision of the fuel injection pump, comprising disassembly / reassembly, new seals, bench test and road test: a staggering 740 €
Cygnus taximeter: 100 €
All sundry spares (front quarter light windows, front indicators, thermostat, radiator hoses, registration plates, etc..): 418 €
MOT certificate valid for 2 years: 65 €
Certificate of conformity delivered by Octobus: 1000 €
French certificate of registration: 200 €
Historic vehicle insurance: 65 €

Total cost of the cab, including the trip to England, repairs and French registration: 3800 € or £ 3,200 - well, quite a far cry from the initial £ 500 purchasing price, but not too expensive for a cab in perfect good nick, bodily and mechanically. Even the MOT guy congratulated me on my cab, asking me if I was selling it!

Further test on the road:
After all the repairs I had carried out, I finally tested the cab on the dual carriage way, and found the cab's behaviour tremendously improved: instead of dragging along and toiling uphill behind the trucks, it cruised effortlessly at 120 KPH (110 KPH according to my sat nav) and inserted itself easily in the traffic.

Further improvements:
I put a new front grille which I had bought on eBay. Luckily it was green !
I also replaced the 2 bonnet hinges;
I found two opening quarter light windows from an FX4 and fixed them on Sherwood;
I also acquired nice second hand velour seats and put them on Sherwood, to replace the worn vinyl ones;
I added two pretty Union Jack cushions;
I put a good Pioneer radio taken from another taxi;
I found two used FX4 chrome bumpers and was lucky to acquire 4 chrome bumper overriders on ebay;
I purchased a Wolf steering wheel (NOS) at discount price from a seller in the USA;
I renovated my roof taxi sign, with the front part taken from my other taxi, and sprayed with primer and a green coat of paint;
I tore away the sagging vinyl of the front roof liner, took out the cardboard, pasted a new vinyl on it and screwed everything back in place.