Technical Botched dangerous suspension 34 ford axle/coilovers

I thought I did my due diligence before I went to this shop

I went and looked at the shop before bringing the car there Additionally I did look at their google reviews and I saw five stars

The owner Bob is a smooth talker,

That saying hindsight is twenty twenty

So now when I look back and do a deeper dive the shop has only been open 2 years

The owner relocated his shop from Illinois to Wisconsin 3 years ago

do a google search of his name, you immediately see why!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

People people don't plead guilty and serve prison time for things they didn't do

When you do a comprehensive look at their feedback specifically facebook They have horrible reviews

Initially I did not research him on Facebook. Just because i'm not a facebook person, something I now clearly regret

I accept my responsibility that I should have vetted the shop more and done a deeper dive into the owner

At the end of the day unfortunately you just cannot trust people

 

Seems you got taken by a scam artist.
We hear about shops being a few years here, changing names, few years there, repeat and rinse. Out to make a quick buck, then start over and do it again.
Hang on there and get it sorted.

 

Look, what's done is done. The shop and people that did this work should be ashamed of themselves, but we all know that. It's obviously wrong. We can dwell on what happened, but ultimately what happens in the future is what matters most.

So what is the next step here? (I'll preface my next commentary with the disclaimer that I don't have much experience with pre-war Fords).

@4211papas34 what is your desired result with this car? If you just want a nice, reliable, safe driver to kick around occasionally and take some family for rides in, you can absolutely do that with a functional factory-style chassis setup. I don't see the benefit to the coilovers in that regard. Or am I missing something?

These cars came with a rear buggy spring correct? It looks like most of the crossmember is still there. Couldn't the crossmember be repaired and the buggy spring be reinstalled? As for the front, are there dropped axles available for the 33-34? It seems like a fairly common front end.

I just feel like if the car winds up in the right hands, it wouldn't be the biggest project in the world to just make it safe and functional.

Thoughts from those more familiar than I are welcome.

 

I am a home builder that over engineers everything ( seems common sense to me ), for a so called professional shop to under engineer a customer car is hard to comprehend, here in OZ we need engineer approval for everything modified. I thought the insurance policy's pro shops / registration authority's need, would and should outlaw this type of unsafe crap. Looks like in this case strict registration / engineering guidelines are worth it, even if they seen over the top sometimes. ( although if car already registered, shit like this can slip through - these lowlifes who perform this type of dangerous amateur engineering need to be called out, as you have in this case). Thanks in advance for anyone that would have or about to use these so called pros. Glen

 

It appears they didn’t even grind to provide a clean surface to weld to if you call that welding.

 

Words of wisdom, well stated!

 

Oh, there will be. Shoddy work will scare off the good customers, those that know what they’re doing or have a friend that does. But that’ll open up more time to take advantage of the people that want something g done and don’t have the protective knowledge to spot a hack job.

A friend runs a shop. He has lots of stories of having to fix other shop’s work. That’s one of the reasons that he’s always busy.

 

Starting from where you are now, with this hacked up suspension, what were you trying to accomplish, and what do you want the car to be now?

 

The car and owner have suffered. I hope this can be resolved by the owner made whole and the shop closed and punished. I'm scared that assholes like this will cause us here in the USA to knee-jerk into laws where the careful, conscientious rodder will be subject to Australia-style review of each and every bit of work. Looking at the pictures, it's hard to argue against it, but I don't want to live in that world.

 

The most frustrating part is that the vehicle drove into the shop and now it's not drivable

I want to be able to drive the car occasionally on weekends and holidays

Also I want to make it to back to the 50's in Minnesota about a 400 mile drive from here

So mabe drive the car 2,000 miles per year total

The set up when it got there was the buggy spring with 36 bones

Maybe someone with the proper credentials could restore that?

The ride was a little choppy But at least the car ran and drove

I truly regret Not seeking the advice here ahead of time

 

@bobbleed has a shop in WI in Delafield I believe. I would reach out to him and see if he can help. He does good work and is a real hot rodder.
https://www.midwest-fabrication.com/

 

Absolutelt. Bob and his crew are first rate. Give him a shout (414)455-6164

 

Oh man! I can feel your disappointment. That’s just horrific work.
Surely there is someone on here who can help you. I can only make suggestions from pictures.
Can someone look at this mess in person and give him some first hand advice?

Since your first priority seems to be getting it back running asap, is the rear coil over mess the biggest issue?
Can the rear crossmember be repaired and it converted back to stock spring with the 36 ‘bones? Can you recover the missing parts?
The front axle mess is pretty straight forward to diagnose and rectify, even it means swapping out the axle.
Keep us advised of your progress.

FWIW, that shop needs to be closed down. It’s bad enough that you got screwed over financially.
Someone being injured or killed because of it is criminal, imho. Time for some accountability.

 

36 bones and a buggy spring.
Sounds like it was almost perfect before.

 

This point hits home for me.

More often than not, you really do get what you pay for. And while a substandard price may not necessarily equate to substandard work, I think it at least creates a rebuttable presumption that there are issues.

I know NJ and the Northeast generally is expensive relative to other locations, but I can't think of a single real shop that charges less than $100 an hour shop rate. And in reality, getting quality work done the first time is less expensive since you're not paying one shop to screw it up, only to then pay the good shop again to fix the mistakes. It's hard to see the value at the time though.

 

Nope they did not send back the original parts

I asked them multiple times I actually had the spacer kit that adapted the fifty six f one hundred brakes To the original spindle

I purchase them years back from a gentleman in california name richard

A plus quality parts that conveniently came up missing

 

An awful experience but it can be fixed and a real catastrophe has been avoided. You'll get to pay again, which can be hard to swallow, but hopefully the hack shop didn't get you too badly with their unfeasibly low hourly rate, or did they make up for it in volume?

Chris

 

Why was it removed or changed out?

 

Of all the lowlife crap they did, and to steal your parts on top of it. Damn a sleazeball to hell.

 

That must be a shop that builds rat rods. I see crap like that on some of them. Appalling.

 

Yes, it can be fixed. You could have the rear crossmember replaced, I believe there are repop crossmembers out there, but you should be able to find an original 34 crossmember you could swap in there. And rear springs are available, you could rather easily go back to the original buggy spring suspension. I would probably clean up the existing crossmember, add some bracing and re-weld everything and stick with the coilovers. That would be the easiest, quickest and cheapest way to get it back on the road. As Marty pointed out, the panhard bar needs to be completely redone, it's too short and not level. There may be more that we haven't even seen that needs to be addressed, but the bottom line is, it's fixable, and the car is well worth fixing. I would press forward pursuing damages from the shop, but I wouldn't count on getting anything, guys like that have a way of avoiding ever having to pay up. the money is likely long gone at this point.

 

Got a few ?s. Just playing devils advocate. Might sound like being an A-hole but not.
What was wrong with the car before a “shop” attempted the “improvements”
Sounds like it has had mods done to it earlier in its life.
What had been changed on the car before the “improvements”
What was the shop told to fix?
How much $$$$$ was charged?

 

the very idea of fitting 35/6 rear radius bars is to utilise the
transverse spring hanger forgeings
i have no idea how you are supposed to run them in a 33/34
do you need to swap out the 33/34 curved spring and crossmember for a 35-40 version that is straight across

how were the shock absorbers fitted before being swapped out

 

..."some"...
At the end of the day, unfortunately, you just cannot trust some people.

I asked for pics of the invoice for the work back in post #8. Still waiting............

 

If the work was free, it’s still garbage.
But sounds like they (both owner and shop) were trying to fix something that wasn’t broke. But that depends on what the customer wanted and what the shop said they’d do.

If you gave me a build sheet to create a pre war car, that list would include 36 bones, transverse springs, stretched factory front axle and f100 juice brakes.
A perfect set up to cruise as much as you liked.

some before pics would be cool.
What if the spring perches were set up wrong and the shackles were binding?
Could explain harsh riding.

 

The starting point when it went to the shop was

The car was running and driving and stopping !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Front
100% stock, steering, suspension and axle only non stock thing was 1956 f100 brakes bolted on stock spindles

Rear
8 inch from a 70's ford maverick mounted via the 36 Ford bones and buggy spring

I thought I was cool almost everything was ford stuff

The main request was

I wanted to make the car drive and handle better and have a hot rod stance/lower front

Also I wanted steering improved I felt cross steering was the way to go from all the research I did

I specifically requested he'd not purchase the cheap speedway vega box

I'll give you one guess which one he purchased

The rear had no shocks installed just the buggy spring I requested to install shocks 1st then if that didn't smooth it out we could try a different suspension He was so insistent on doing coilovers He told me that was the only way to smooth the ride out

And he actually jumped the gun, I told him I would think about it over the weekend When I stopped by the shop a week later, he had already started installing coil overs

I gave him $1000 deposit for parts
The labor came to $3200

 

Dig deep into your wallet, that care is definitely worth saving. One, cheap is not good, two, good is not cheap. Do as much of the work yourself, Farm out what you can’t.

 

The last conversation I had when him was he said everything was installed to spec

I filed a complaint with the state regulatory agency. And they will be mediating the conversation moving forward