Technical UPDATED AGAIN! Bondo on New Brookville Body?

I love a happy ending.

 

Good news for sure Blake. All my dealings with BV have been great, and I'm happy to hear yours mare headed in the same direction.
I ordered areplacement floor pan for my BV bodied '31"A" roadster today as I'm making some changes in shifter location, etc. that to me will be less expensive, if I consider my time, than reworking the old one to close up old shifter location, then cutting for a new one.. They are shipping tomorrow.

 

Damn, that's some good news right there. Way to go Brookville!

 

Not too many, now that they've got it all fixed!
But Kenny's decision that there was excessive filler on that body and warranted the replacement? Excellent.
Don Oroscoe and I looked over a Deuce roadster body at Pleasanton in '89, there were some upper quarters/catwalk that were just off enough to warrant some torchwork. We also examined a 'Rod Bod', 6 feet away.
The Brookville was superior, but I would have bought the 'Rod Bod' as a close second.
We agreed what a wonderful world we live in, to be able to buy a new '32 Roadster body... Just thank, silently. (thank Kenny, too)

 

I've gotta say, I was very surprised to read the second update. I'm very glad that in the end, they stepped up and at least tried their best to make things right on an 8 year old body. Kudos to them , and congrats to you, Blake. Can't wait to see it done !!

 

I was impressed that they called back on that old of a product most places would not have gone that far now a days there responce shocks and truly impresses me!!!

 

I would say this was a customer relations deal, not considered a warranty deal. Either way, it was most certainly good of them.

 

Agree completely! This was not something that Brookville owed me... aka, 'warranty'. This was Brookville going above and beyond... aka, 'customer relations'. It reflects nothing but positive on them, in my opinion. These guys genuinely care about what we think of what they do.

 

sounds good, looking forward to seeing more of your excellent work.

 

good on you Blake, excellent outcome (even without the Brookville T-shirt )

 

This is great. This will be popping into my head all day long. Wasn't prepared for an "Art of war" quote on the H.A.M.B.

 

That's more like it.

 

Kenny and Brookville are a great example of how a business reflects the owner's philosophy and desire to accomodate a customer. I'm sure Roy would be proud of him. "Well done, son".

 

Well? Did you get at T-shirt! LOL.

Kudos to Brookville!

 

I'll be looking for the "update update" thread tech article "repairing new steel body" instead of the rusty stuff the other body work threads deal with.
Happy to see how this worked out, hope it doesn't delay your completion too much. Seeing it in that state must be making you eager for that first drive


Posted using the Full Custom H.A.M.B. App!

 

I'm glad to see Brookville stood tall and acknowledged that the produce at that time was not up to there standards of today,great company to deal with. HRP

 

canceling plans to let air out of left rear tires of trailer at hershey.

 

Soooooo .... just wonderin' ... did they give ya' the t-shirt after all ?

 

I am amazed at all these "attaboy" responses. You all seem to accept the fact that the cab was full of bondo in the first place. I find this action by Brookville highly unethical. They advertised Bodies of Steel and took business away from fibergl*** manufacturers yet their product we now know is all part plastic. Imagine you built a car with one of those bodies and sold it. Imagine the new owner gets t-boned in an accident and there is a 8 lbs chunk of bondo laying in the street. How would you explain that? To the new owner it would look like the car had a previous accident.
Brookville knowingly did this and now because there is a negative thread on the internet they send a new body panel to the lawyer of one of the more influential people in Street Rodding. A nice gesture or stopping bad press.
For me Brookville advertising worked. Would I have needed a new steel body I would surely have ordered one sight unseen. Now that reality has chimed in they joined the mul***ude of companies that need full inspection of their product before purchase. Sad really.

 

Not to be the downer here but... I bet the outcome would not have been as good if not for all the posts on the Hamb about how BV should have stepped up and done something. I am glad BV did what they finally did, and I think the Hamb helps hold all of the hobbies vendors accountable. Viva la Hamb!

 

I agree that the pressure of a thread on HAMB didn't hurt, but I think it's a bit of ******** to say "8 pounds of Bondo"!
My roadster is built from a 30/31"A" body from BV and there was no bondo in it.
I think BV was just trying to do the right thing. All my dealings with them have been first rate customer service.

 

A lot of you are missing the fact that the bodies coming out of Brookville today are MUCH BETTER than they were in 2007. Scan this thread for the word "retool".

Props to BV for making one customer with an 8 year old product happy.

 

Blake, I am really happy for you that BV has offered you some help on getting this done. You seem like a nice guy and I think BV did the best they could for you, considering the amount of time that has p***ed. Also, please understand that what I am about to say is not me being negative or anything but an attempt to suggest you may not want to go the route of installing that center section.

Here is my reasoning: It is one thing to install that panel for the very first time, there are flanges stamped into the metal to allow the 3 back sections to slide together. There is also a similar flange setup on the very top of the body to allow the top rail to align. BUT, when you go back and cut out the old panel, you will lose those flanges and have to **** weld the center section in place, and **** weld it the entire length of the seam.

My Son Dan and I ***embled his BV body from pieces, we bought it that way because it was going to be channeled and it made more sense to do that than cut up an ***embled body. Tonight I told Dan about what BV is sending you and he feels that you are going to create more work for yourself than if you just repaired what you have now. Since Dan did the majority of the work on his, he has a good feel for what it takes to get this done.

He also feels that you will end up with needing more bondo to correct what you are doing than what is in that bottom section now............it will be almost impossible to cut away the existing panel and not have a large gap to fill. His comment was, if he owned your body he would grind out all the bondo you don't like, minimize the deformity, and then use a very high quality body filler to perfect the panel.

Here are some pictures of what we went through, this is going to be picture heavy, but I want to give you as much info as possible. This first picture is the way the rear panel arrived. The truck line damaged one corner, but Dan metal worked it back into shape:





If you are going to do this, I suggest you build a platform, like we did, and screw the entire body down to the platform to keep it's shape. There were nights we left the shop, feeling we would never get this thing to line up, and without the platform it would have been impossible to do.











What I suggest you do is grind out all the filler and see what it really looks like under there. Then, compare it to the new panel, when it comes, to see if you think repairing the existing one would be easier or if replacing would be easier.

Don't be afraid of some body filler, today's fillers are really good and, if done right, should never give you a problem, especially in a non stressed area like that bottom piece.

Good luck, just wanted you to have a second opinion.

Don

 

Just called the old friend from whom I purchased the "A" roadster referred to in my post above. He bought it from BV and I later bought what he had mocked up, finished the mockup, and then tore down for stripping primer from BV, metal finish, paint, re***embly and completion to a driver.
He says he bought that roadster body from BV in either 2000 or 2001, and there was no bondo in it when I had the body blasted clean of the old red oxide primer.
The bad panels and bondo must have been peculiar to the roadster pickup bodies.

 

Ummmmmm, damnnn.

 

Seems like some of you guys have never really worked on anything ever....even brand new 32 ford bodies weren't as nice as you seem to expect...jeez

 

Am I the only one bothered by the line "no one else has complained." Which is just a cop out answer especially bad when confronted with actual proof of not just ****py workmanship but improperly applied ****py workmanship its my understanding body filler should never be thicker than 1/4" which most body men would probably never try to do 1/4"

But its all over and a happy ending so I am happy too. Good luck on the rest of the build cant wait to see it done.

 

DON - Thanks for the comprehensive, supportive response. While my goal is to replace the back section based upon Kenny's insistence that it should be a straightforward exercise with less filler as a result, prudence and caution dictate that this is exactly what I am going to do... wait until the new section arrives and then check it all out beforehand. Your story and the supporting pics are extremely helpful, so thanks for taking the time to write it all up!

 

I wanna respond here, but I want to be careful about what I say... so I'll start by declaring (again) that, as the customer, I'm totally happy with what Brookville offered me. I told Kenny and the readers here that I consider their offer to be above-and-beyond generous.

With that said, I tend to agree with you... and I agree that this is one powerful benefit of social media. It's a great way to get people lined up to support the little guy if it's a clear case of the customer being wronged. It's leverage and it's a good thing. HOWEVER, like any power, it can be used irresponsibly. Someone could, for example, attempt to use this power to slander the name of a company just because they are dissatisfied with an otherwise-reasonable product from an otherwise customer-friendly seller... spiteful... vengeful... greedy. I ain't like that, and Brookville didn't 'wrong' me.

My intent was to stand up here and ask a question and then, like it or not, be bound by how you guys responded. If you guys had told me, "Yep - that level of filler in them old bodies is perfectly normal", I would have said, "OK... got it" and continued on my way. A few did say that, but many more shared my surprise... so I felt it was worth pursuing. Kenny's generous response may or may not have been motivated by this highly-visible discussion, but I think that's fine. I think that's an indication of how this is all supposed to work. I also think it's an exercise in futile frustration to speculate on what any company might have done if the customer had not taken the discussion online and made it visible to others. We'll not only never know, we shouldn't even care.

What's important is Brookville certainly did the right thing in this case.

 

yes we do at the metal surgeon ,i like to think we're not old!