Folks Of Interest "Buy one done!" Share your horror stories

No secret, I'm in the resto and collector service realm. It makes sense to buy finished cars sometimes, but unless it was done by a known quality as in shop or individual we should apply "buyer beware" in spades. Some of the shit I've seen "builders" do, especially in the last 15+ years, I have something akin to pity for the individual that wants a car. The worst is fasteners left loose as I've said before, but even here we've seen some "What in every possible fuck is this!" scenarios play out. Trust me, my beloved heavy American Classics are not immune. I recently did a wake up on a very important Speedster, but not so important that a painted cardboard filler panel duct taped around the steering column couldn't be used. No, not kidding. There were other things but that one was what in all the...

Spill it, let's start 2023 with tales of caution yet hope for happy endings.

No, no. CAR happy endings, I see you giggling in the back!

 

Like "theHIGHLANDER " pointed out allready. Not all that may shiny outside has a good underside.
Can be good,or bad,if someone is getting a hotrod,that dosen't know how to do one! Have it looked over by a known good* builder.< Just cuz its a big shop,dose not make it one,that knows engineering. vs building a cartoon from a photo of old and badly done copy.* Some things should never be copyed,just cuz it was in a liked photo<< many old photos are not really old photos.
Before I closed my shop an retired,even 25 years back,seemed more poor an bad engineered cars were coming in then before. Some that had been built by so called,pro shops. Badly done an needed redo,to be good drivers. Some redo's needed a lot of hours to fix. I can list a few screw ups,but many times,for the buyer,it seem to drive OK,tell after a week or more,the probs became more noticeable.
The most messed up stuff,is front ends,then driver fit,but really can be anywere on a car.
Maybe the biggest mess,was a rod that came in after a placed that"Fixed it ?????"The owner was fed up! Had given them 3 times to make it drive well. 3 fails!
From a ways off,it was a nice looking 31 sedan,350/350/SBC with Ford 9in.
It was got as is,an shipped to new owner cross the USA.
After driving it,new owner found death wobble an darty braking,along with not a comfortible drive fit.
He took into a so call big shop in town. Who talked him into removing the 3 in. dropped straight axle{was told ,those can't ever drive well}added a Mustang 2 clip.

Telling the owner,he'ed been BS'd,was EZ,but not so much EZ when I said,the frame now is very messed up with that crooked an badly welded M2 IFS could hold down the trash pile..
I had too, let him drive my own old 28A hotrod,to get the point across,about putting a straigh axle back in ,set up right!.
That guy,after was like a walking advertisement for my little speedshop .

That was his first time driving well behaved hotrod.
Others had always told him,they all act up and feel funny because designs were not good in the 1920 an 30s!
He'd though it was ture,up tell he drove my old hotrod.
Had to put a new frame under his 31,it had a few other odd things as well,so had to do a little more!
With some guys,that what it takes.

 

@ELpolacko had a great thread some years ago about a “ rodent rod” that came into his shop that someone dropped significant money in only to have a pipe wrench and rebar in the steering system , dimes and quarters used to patch holes in the floor and pretty much every system designed for complete failure.

@31Vicky with a hemi thread about his truck into a coupe shows a car that looked fantastic and again , bondo , black pipe and butchery abounded .


Lucky for me my budget precludes buying big dollar cars but I’ve bought my fair share of bondo buckets and cobbled junk .


What always gets me is it never seems like a la k of knowledge on knowing how to do it correctly. But a sence that the builder is either happy at pulling the wool over someone’s eyes or thinking they are doing the job cheap. But in the long run costing them a bunch more in time money and effort .

 

My dad`s last car he bought done. It got hit in the rear. 20 mph. The radiator hoses popped off. ? Spewing antifreeze.

 

Interesting discussion. Between wiring, brakes, suspension, I'm not sure which one has left me shaking my head in disbelief.

 

An OT rod project, 33 Ford. The place had welded up all the holes in the splash pans, running boards and several front fender holes...to push them back...to also push back the front of the rear fenders...to make the rear of the fender flare out about 1½" at the opening. "Why did you do that?" "Don't you think that looks cool?" "Uh, no and it's not right. Now look at the gap between the fender and grille." I could run my thumb thru it. "Can't you just bondo that in?"

Scary part was they were serious. They also bolted the body rigid to the frame. Made a ⅜ gap at the front door edge. "Bondo that too?" I asked. "Well?" in a cocky tone. "I'm probably not the guy for you but thanks." "You just dont know this stuff, this ain't no resto bro." "You're right, I definately DO NOT know THIS stuff. See ya..."
True story. The owner brought it to me and it was an obstacle course but we made a nice car out of it, and most of it is pretty damn nice now. Not my style at all, but not bad.

 

You mean like these things? These were all on the same AD Chevy pickup that from a distance looked like a pretty nice truck. Just one of many I’ve seen cobbled together.

 

When I was building the Studebaker I spent lots of time on the Studebakers Drivers Club web site and one of the members told me of his experience buying what looked like a nice car was really not much different under the bondo and shiny paint than my rust bucket. Buying a finished car doesn't give me a reason to get up in the morning and go do "something"

 

Nylocks are not the enemy!

 

The time My Wife decided we should have a '57 210 .
Knowing better I just dove onto one that was a twin to the one I had in H S.
Too late, discovered the TH350 tail end sat on universal trans cross member.
The 283 mounted on stock mounts. Not Cool. And c-member frame holes were created with an unsteady shakey blue flame, the same one they decided would work to R&R a rear axle stud

Holy Shit Batman
You make me feel Lucky.

 

https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/buyer-customer-beware.1266261/

from a pro shop.

 

Just remember....the one you build yourself is never done....what makes you think one built by someone else is?

 

The only potential bad thing I found on the 56 I brought home in a trailer from Arizona was no cotter pins in either front spindle nut. It was a complete frame off restored car. Not a 100 pointer but really nice. Never called the guy back on them either.
For some reason I took off the wheel covers and hub cover to look at them before putting any miles on the car.

 

With all the tools available to buyers nowdays there is no reason to get fucked in an automotive purchase. If you're not sure what you're looking at find somebody you trust who is and take their advice. Oh. and don't get dazzeled by that 'big name' builder/shop/dealer either. Auction sites prove how the second buyer really feels about that 'big name' when the gavel comes down (as in "Built by _______, cost 500k to build, and it's just crossed the block at 70k with a sold sticker a year later).

 

My friend had his out of topic Mopar painted by a "professional" shop. They molded the rear pan in with bondo so it could not be removed. To drop the gas tank you have to be able to remove the rear pan!

 

I seen a guy grin after his 80Ok+ build brought 450k at auction.
Never intended to break even and making $$$ wasn’t a thought.

One reason I buy cheap beaters is no high expectations are lost. I prefer as found crusty over cheaply painted.

 

I’ve always bought projects cars with a low expectation on quality. I’d never be really happy with a turn key I didn’t build. Even if it had historical significance.

 

I think electrical is the area where the most hacking tends to be done on hot rods. I've never bought a car where there wasn't something kind of or fully messed up with the electrical system. Another area is welding on thicker areas like frames, suspension mounting, engine or trans mounts, etc. Lot of pigeon shit looking welds with no penetration.

 

We had a very rich guy bring a 56 Chev convert into the shop to see if we could get the trunk lid to fit correctly. The more we looked at the car the more that was wrong with it. It was a very high dollar car bought sight unseen from one of the auction houses. It did look good from 30 feet away. After looking the car over we figured out that it was a rust bucket field car that had all new reproduction panels put on it. There was no way in hell that you could get the trunk lid to fit the rear quarters without cutting it in half to shorten it. The reproduction quarters were put on wrong and nothing was lined up correctly, nothing had correct gaps.

 

electrical has to be the one I see the most and the most brutally butchered .


The 40 merc I have now really makes me scratch my head as whoever did the restoration / modifications did a very neat , thought out and tidy job on all the mechanicals .


The wiring on the other hand was a Mirade of butt connectors , original cloth wiring , some butchered harness out of a mustang along with junk , wing nuts , scotch locks , masking tape and simply a fire waiting to happen .


I cleaned it up , replaced and repaired all of it .

im going to put a wiring harness kit into it at some point .

wiring is fairly easy and cheap to get right . But oh so easy to mess up and become a huge problem / safety issue .

 

here's a 40 Ford pickup built in the 80's with an interesting steering set up where the previous owner used swivel sockets to link the column to the rack. it seemed to steer fairly well but the booger welds on the mount and the cracked weld on the boxing plate were a bit scary. note the collapsible column in the first picture. also note the thin wall tubing in the first half of the steering set up.

a friend inherited it from his father inlaw.

felt much more solid after a call to Borgeson.

 

also the entire X member was removed and the only thing connecting the frame rails to one another in the center was the bolted on trans mount. I added the drive shaft hoop part, though it probably could have used a little more. it was boxed in that area. he just putts around town in it.



the spring pads on the rear end were only like 1.5" long. I don't remember now if I did anything about that. I did mention he probably wouldn't want to do a lot of hole shots or brake stands with that set up.

 

Me being a Cheapshit, I only buy them hopelessly shot, and build them from there. It’s not just on car builds do you see shitty work, we see it on things at work as well. People seem to think that buying something from one of the major auctions, they are getting a new car, NOT!!

 

This is my roadster. The previous owner was the second owner. He bought it when he came home from WWII. According to his son, it was restored in 1989 by his father who was a "master mechanic" and was such a famous mechanic that he was called upon to go to Florida and work on the space shuttle. This was the picture on eBay. I drove across country to get it. Looked like a perfect start for a hot rod. It had a Pennsylvania inspection sticker from 6 months after it was "restored". Pennsylvania must like copper brake lines.
Hydraulic brakes are an improvement if done right. The Penn safety people must have thought this was an improvement. You need a good emergency brake to go along with the improved brake system. If you dont have cotter pins to secure the rod nuts you can use pal nuts. Actually any old nut will work as long as it has at least two threads to catch. This might have been how the "Master Mechanics" would balance engines back in the day.
I could go on but I think this might be in the top ten for nice looking cars that are a POS. Oh well, the body really was pretty decent and the 1989 Impron paint (there was a tag under the kick panel) is still pretty damn good after 33 years. How it looks today 10K miles later:

 

I bought this 49 from a guy who was a mechanic at a dealership. he installed a 350 and turbo 350 along with a Camaro 10 bolt rear. he told me after the V8 install the brakes stopped working right. these cars have the master cylinder under the floor, the car had rear dump exhaust manifolds and when you pushed the brake pedal down the brake arm hit the manifold before the brakes were fully applied... after driving past my driveway once when the car did not stop I fixed that with Sanderson headers made for 49 - 54's and disc brakes and a 2 pot master cylinder.

as we move to the rear under the car the center of the transmisson crossmember was cut out of the car for the turbo 350 and replaced with a piece of 1 x 1 angle iron from Orchard Supply Hardware and 2 nuts and bolts. it still had the bar code on it from the store. fixed that with my handy dandy welder, some tubing and a little bit ot thinking.

the transmisson was 3 degrees down and the pinion angle was 7 degrees down. I drove this car from Fremont to Paso Robles before I got to that part of the screwups. it didn't vibrate or anything, the only reason I noticed it was I later re-did the lowering blocks to eliminate the scrub line issues.

it was rewired using nothing but red wire.

the worst part is this car has doubled in value since I sold it I sold it to buy a piece of property, then the lady raised the price by 30K. I could have punched her in the hoo ha when she told me that.
it might just be a dumb 4 door to regular people but I really liked it with all the accessories. some Bomb friends even made me an honorary Mexican.

damn I miss that car.

 

My Model A came with 40's ford wheels. This is what i found when i took the caps off. Only 4 wheel nuts, the ones that were on only had about 2-3 pitches of engagement. The 5th stud did not have enough good thread to even get a nut on.

 

Nope , its the idiots who don't use them properly .

 

Things like this. Dammit man...

 

Did someone mention wiring? This was a nice rats nest I encountered in another car.

 

My buddy who owns a nice shop had a customer bring in a '64 Impala SS ragtop that he bought on a TV auction, he called in his "winning" bid by phone.

I mean it LOOKS nice, the paint itself was good. It was on the lift when I saw it. The entire chassis was plated with steel and painted... wonder what was under that mess. The body lines were awful and it had a good amount of bondo on it. It eventually needed a valve job, after that it ran well.