Technical HOTRODWORKS.com out of business?

Hey everyone,

Is Hotrodworks.com out of business? I ordered a banjo rear end open drive conversion from them a week and a half ago, order is still pending fulfillment, and it's impossible to get anyone on the phone. Furthermore, their mailbox is full and they aren't returning my calls. Is anyone else having issues with them like I am?

-Superlite

 

It has come up a couple of times on here. His communication is***** but everyone seems to get their parts.

 

A week and a half, really. And it's not done yet ?
My parts took 8 months.
My Model A order took a lot of specialty work.
Quick change for closed driveshaft, 40 Ford bells, ford nine-inch axles, hangars for spring and setup for Lincoln brakes.

 

He was running his roadster at Bonneville this month. I knew his dad Ken back when I was in a car club in Waco with him and Bass's parents in the 70's.
From there I don't know if it a case of not attending to business, Supplier issues or treating it a round to it sideline or just getting in over their heads as far as the machining side goes. From the experience of others on here and my own experience of dealing with job shop machine shops in the past small production jobs of CNC machined pieces often get sluffed for large orders for pallet loads at a time. Your order of 50 or 100 of an item that is a big order and big investment for you is a drop in the bucket to the machine shop that has a run of 10,000 parts that they can knock out on the same machine before they get ot yours.

 

He ripped me off and others when he was making Speed Demon Quick Changes, made a post about it years ago . I wouldn't buy anything from him. Good Luck and I hope he's changed his ways,

 

From my experience when he bought the company he had no idea of the volume of orders that would be placed or the amount of work involved in making an 85 year old rear end look and operate like new. Many successful business are sold yearly and the new owners are unable make them work. Hopefully he'll either get his act together or find a new owner that can put things back together? Hot Rod Works was the best in the country when it was in Idaho and the brothers were dedicated to their company.

 

Talked to Ryan from HRW a couple of weeks ago. He's super busy and said he was trying to hire some help to get caught up.

 

Over the years, I've seen more shops fail because of the inability to handle increased volume than poor cash flow.

 

krylon32 hit the nail on the head. Would sure be nice if others with the skills and equipment would get
into this business as the demand is out there. I have a Halibrand V8 QC, '36 axle housings etc. that needs the whole works plus****embly. I have to consider the cost of shipping both ways, Las Vegas to
Waco and back and how long it will be before it's returned. Best thing for me is to just wait and see how
this all shakes out. Hope he can hire some compotent help to get things running smoothly as right now
he's my only option.

 

Wish I'd known you needed one. I posted 2 pickup open drive banjo rear ends in the "Pay It Forward" ads a couple of months ago. Nobody wanted them, so off to the scrap yard they went. I would have pulled off whatever you needed and for the price of postage, you could have had your parts.

 

Pickup open drives are not the same as passenger open drive conversions. This guy looks like he needed a passenger rear end open drive conversion.