Procuring Bonded Titles for Vehicles

Been a while since I've blogged (ok two years) but I had a buddy ask about how to go about getting a bonded title for a vehicle and thought I would share the story of how I did it for this scooter.
Step One: Make sure the title-less vehicle is not stolen. I just called Brenham PD and found out the last owner's name and made sure the scooter had never been reported stolen.
Step Two: Go down to your local vehicle registration tax office and request a bonded title form (VTR 130 or 270). If the vehicle is operational and you want to drive it in the mean time you can acquire a 30 day registration sticker which I recommend over getting a ticket. This maybe cost $20.
Step Three: Mail the forms to Austin and wait for paperwork revealing the bonded value of the vehicle (in my case the scooter was valued at $300) and showing the proper information to show the bonding agent.
Step Four: Find the closest bonding agent to you. The auto tax office will have this info on file so just as them. As for Brenham, the guy to see is the Allstate rep on Blue Bell Road. I went there with all my paperwork and left them a check for $100 and they turned the paperwork into the bond company: CNA Surety.
What you want to note here is that for vehicles valued at less than $6,000 you are only responsible to pay $100 for a bonded title. Not bad unless your vehicle is only valued at $300 then it would be nicer if it were considerably less.
Step Five: Take the purchased surety bond back to the county registration office and submit the request for a legit title, and pick up license plates and registration sticker.
Step Six: Within a few weeks you should receive your bonded title in the mail. The title will remain "bonded" for three years which means that the vehicle is susceptible to a title holder on the vehicle claiming it was stolen. Once the three years is complete the title will be listed as a regular one. You can still sell a vehicle with a bonded title but it may cause uneasiness in a buyer from the unknown history of the vehicle.

Good fences...

This project took about about 100 hours to complete but was a lot of fun. This is my parents' house in the 1st Ward in downtown Houston. It's probably a little under 300' of fence total in length and the privacy fence part of it was pretty standard but the front part with the metal grid turned out really pretty and I think it frames the great vegetation in the yard and even the house itself pretty well. Copper Canyon Daisies are awesome. My biggest concern about the project was the incredible slope of the landscape and building three gates; one to drive through and the other two are walk-through gates. They all seemed to go up well and hopefully they won't sag too much. It was tough to be away from my family over those 8 days but my folks blessed us in many ways through it and I ate like a king! (PS: without the new dewalt set I'd still be there working!)

The Stage

I got a chance to help build some staging for Christ Church Brenham. It was a good chance to hang out with guys like John Dirba and Justin and the thing turned out pretty good. The three pieces are basically skate boxes in disguise. 4'x 8' and 14" tall. We puttied the screw holes and painted the whole thing flat black.

The Jalopy

It's been about four months since I purchased the Jalopy and I'd like to say she's running great but after a water pump replacement last week there is currently a belt alignment issue that needs to be looked at by somebody who knows what they're doing! Of course, at least we're remaining consistent by needing everything to be done at least twice before it's done right. But over all she's looking pretty good these days. Recently replaced: water pump (grr), Edelbrock carb, shocks all around, rear differential cover, just about every hose imaginable, and 3" chrome rings for the wheels. For fun I have replaced the stock front spindles with lowered ones and replaced the stock rear shackles with lowered ones as well. The rear is now just about 2 inches higher than I'd prefer so I'll try to remove a leaf spring and see what that does. We also sound-deadened the interior, cleaned up the guage cluster, and re-upholstered the bench seat. Just about completely done with the interior! Smells much better now and is a bit quieter.

Dewalt.

Recently I've been blessed with the addition of some much needed tools to my arsenal. I woke up one morning and realized that the vicious cycle of tool replacement due to purchasing cheap Black and Decker stuff needed to end. I contacted a family member to ask about the possibility of bumming some potentially unused and older pieces of equipment but found out that they were still getting plenty of use. She then contributed to my cause and that allowed me to buy the Cadillac of all cordless combos: the 6 piece Dewalt XRP! Needless to say life is pretty good these days. These suckers are expensive but definitely worth every penny. I was also able to get a pretty stout belt sander and a router.
Besides that equipment I was able to build some staging for a friend's church and in return got a Dewalt 10" compound miter saw. I was also able to take advantage of a sale at Sutherland's recently and pick up an $85 table saw.
So the shed is getting stocked and I've been able to do a couple of projects recently. The next couple of things on the agenda are a deck for a friend's house, front porch repair and some decking at 107 Jeffries.

get to work!

I got to spend a couple of hours last week at Christ Church Brenham taking down an old carport and some other stuff. It's good to have the truck do more than just look pretty! (8 foot beds rule.)

leaks and legality

It's been a couple of weeks but in that time the truck is now roadworthy. It began with a new starter from AutoZone. I found out in getting it that the engine in this truck is not the original but instead a 1975 350 v8. Anyway I replaced the starter myself and was stoked at how easy and cheap it was until I left the starter-to-battery cable touching a header and it shorted out and melted the negative battery cable clear off. I had my friend Alex pull me to Allan's Automotive where I had them replace the wires and take care of a transmission fluid leak. Once they got it running again I took the truck to Mill Creek Glass here in town where those guys put in a new windshield.
So it passed inspection and I've been driving it almost daily.
Next on the list of leaks to fix is a lower radiator hose. Besides that one the rear differential needs a new gasket and the oil pan looks like it could use one too. (I'm really having to fight myself to not replace all these parts with chrome plated ones. What can I say? I like shiny stuff.)