HOWDY...BRUCE HERE,this most likely has been done before but because I'm ***ociated with a restoration shop here in oregon we get cars & trucks in from time to time with some really sad stories attached to them.like "MIA" 4 yrs!!..shop closes...where's my project?? it was all there when I sent it to "them" stuff like that....what cha got!!! BRUCE....
I bought a 56 wagon 2dr from a guy who bought it at a storage sale. I had a car that came from a body shop with fresh nice paint and new headliner and no gl*** eng trans trim etc all missing. i ran an ad looking for a donor car or someone with trim. A man from el paso, I am in okla city, called and had everything i needed and I mean everything. he asked about the car and in talking found that he had let his brother take it to a body shop to get done and then didnt pay for it and the guy went out of busines and it got sold to a storage lot . that is where i got it. anyway after a bit of visiting and sending pics and he even had ***le with numbers on it in his name i agreed to selll for what i paid for it and he was super happy, said hadnt seen or heard from brother since giving him the money to get it out and i guess the shop guy didnt know who really owned the car. fortunately the car got back h9ome and finished many don't...............
A Buddy has a 65 Chevelle Z16 his brother bought new. 28,000 original miles. He took it to a shop near here for a top shelf repaint. The last he saw it, it had been striped to bare metal, and the shop then closed, no farwaeding address ect. Two years later he tracked the guy down in Tennesee, and found his car setting behind a barn still in bare metal, except for the thick coat of rust. He got it back, but it cost him $25,000 to get it back to looking good. It had to be dipped and completely redone inside and out.
I bought a 1973 Z 28 Camaro from a self storage place about 10 years ago. The manager of the storage building was going around to shops in the area and asking if anybody was interested in buying the car. The kid had torn the car apart at his dads house and then the dad said get rid of it so he put just the body and sheet metal in the storage building. He kept all the trim, gl***, lites. engine, trans, ect, at the dads house in the ba*****t. Seems the young kid couldn't pay the storage bill and gave the car to the place, ***le and all. When I got the car I called the guys who's name was on the ***le and HE HAD ALL THE PARTS! still, and agreed to sell me everything for a very reasonable price. Now mind you this was the original numbers matching engine, trans, and all the parts that came off the car originally. Can you say bonus day I pieced the car back togeather and got it running and driving, and then sold it to a friend of mine, who is actually a HAMB member and if he reads this he can tell part two of the story.
A fellow I know paid a guy 7 grand up front to get his car done many years ago......custom stuff......it never got done......the car sits outside now and the owner has been dead.........for at least 5 years.....the car owner, not the shop owner. The car owner died oweing me a few dollars....SAD story goes with the whole episode.... .
i heard the story on this .....and the car is a sweety .....i'm sure chuck will chime in ...hahah .......brandon
We visited a resto place here who had been asked to finish a car started by another mob (who were highly recomended) the car was an older Mercedes like the gullwing but a convert from memory...... Any way shop 2 says well if we are going to do it we want to dip the body and start from scratch, owner says no problem, the body comes back from the dipping and was so badly carved up by shop 1 ( I saw the body and it was a nightmare, how do you fix rust in the firewall ? well you cut a hole in the inner and outer guard to get to the spot then whack a chunk of sheet metal in the holes you cut out with a mig weld on each corner, knock the patch in and fill with bog !!!!) shop 2 basically told the owner best bet was to get another body, which he did (and lost off the trailer on the way down to the shop) it was a sad story and the worst bodge job I ever saw. Lesson in that seems to be keep an eye on the work being done, see and pay before they paint/seal the repaired areas.
I used to work in a dealer's body shop. We had a used car body spe******t...if a car had a crunched 1/4 panel....he's lay a coating of bondo on paper, stick it on the car over the damage, let it dry, then lay a skim coat of plastic over the top of the paper. Sand it, squirt it and he was done. We called him "Bondolini"!
I have a sure fire cure for s***bag painters: insert one oily rag into 40oz Schlitz bottle full of gasoline and throw through gl*** window at 3AM...
That's a typo surely, 16+ years now I've had it .. Probably the best car deal I've ever made. (thanks) Part 2 (short version) Rudy prepped the body & shot an awesome laquer job with the stripes burried under the clear which still looks great today.. typical drivetrain ..cammed .060 over 350/ TH 400 combo/ 4:11 posi. I stripped, primed & painted every piece that unbolted before re***embly and then dropped it about 3" all around with the mandatory headers, intake big-n-littles, etc.. . It's still a #s matching car that most of the 'restorers' hate as it's not "correct" .. but to me it truely represents what the early muscle cars were about.... it's not a traditional hot rod, just a hot rod from a different era. CC
Pics please, I'm still pic handicaped here remember. And thanks for the compliments. And has it really been that long since we did that car
i usually do my own paint / bod work but i sent an elcamino to a young dude that had just went on his own. he needed work, my camino was clean, he was resonable so i sent it over. i dropped it off & told him id stop back periodically & there better not be holes burnt in the cement from my rear tires! there wasnt & the car turned really straight, jambs done as nice as the bod was, id stop by & he was usually pretty fried or 1/2 drunk most of the time. he got alot done & does great work! always had 1/2 dressed *****s hangin out, one time i stopped over late & 2 early 20s *****s were hangin & asked if there was anymore of this green masking tape? sure there is, good we're gonna make some bikinis out of it!!! YEAH!!! worst stories are the finished product being "test driven" w/out the owner around. how about the guy that had his 34 ford 3 window painted / finished on a friday night, beer drinkin, hangin with the shop doors open on a nice summer night lets take this dudes car down the street & blow the dust out of it. sure enough down the street one guy went & the car gat loose on the way back, he lost it, tipped it over & slid past the bod shop ON THE the roof!!! ground the drip rail right off it, MANGLED THE WHOLE CAR!!!!!!! the owner never even got to see it done sittin on all 4 wheels!! there compe***ion (another bod shop) bought it & used many pieces from it!
oh i know another one. crazy biker ******* had a bod shop on a farm, lots-a-partyin. he usually p***es out, out in the DARK lawn somewhere during his w/end parties, nobody knows where he is but its dark & hes layin out someplace in the lawn. 3 times >>>THREE TIMES he has been run over or backed over in his own lawn!!! HAHAHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAA i laugh everytime i see him somewhere! hes never gotten hurt & this friend of mine was in a car that backed over him the last time. he said they were just leaving & 'KA-WHOOOMP' --- what was that? the driver stopped, this friend of mine opened his door to see what they hit or ran over & there he was layin between the front & rear tires. he got up MAD AS HELL "AGAIN" i laugh so hard everytime i see him, i cant stop laughing picturing him gettin up mad as hell!!! another time that friend of mine was at a party out there at the farm, the shop just finished a nice GTO. the GTO owner was out there drinkin away, lookin at his car, drinkin more, lookin at his car, pretty soon its gettin real late & they are gettin it out. this friend of mine said he remembers thinkin why am i in this goat (ridin p***enger side front) & they were tearin *** all over hell he said he remembers pulling his arm in real fast as they slid in the ditch, hit a telephone pole with the right front tire & rubbed the pole all the way to the taillight! THEN he said someone ran back & got a tractor to pull it out of the ditch & thats another story all in itself! --------- UNAUTHORIZED TEST DRIVES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
BOD SHOPS, UPHOLSTREY SHOPS, ETC... NOWAY am i leaving keys to a high powered car!!!!!!! youll get my keys alright but there wont be any distributer etc... in my car. infact my engine is blown up so dont even think of trying to put it together to test drive it to see if the paint job made it faster or the new interior made it lay rubber farther. -------- this is my worst nightmare! maybe the shop owner is alright - its the low lifes that are hanging around looking at this nice car with the keys in it & the car owner is NO WHERE AROUND! you want to move it around the shop? PUSH IT AROUND! NO STARTING IT! i paint my own good stuff, my interior guy is safe! its his kids & there friends, etc...... im worried about!
I paid a guy who was supposed to be a veteran bodyman to replace the quarter panels on my '59 El Camino. The guy has been doing custom work since the 50's. Well, I think he didn't learn any new skills SINCE the 50's, because the panels were just lapped over the old cut-off panels... no flanging or ****-welding was done, and he even got one side on crooked ! There was a baseball size dent in one side about 1/2" deep, he bent the new quarter panel to conform to the dent (since he cut throught the middle of it)! It is a huge mess that now has to be cut-off and re-done.
YEAH: and ***holes like these make big bucks & live high on the hog while people like me - artists like me - can barely pay the ****in' bills 'cause nobody wants to pay anything for quality work!!! ~ Paul aka "Tha Driver" Headline: APATHY RUNS RAMPANT - Nobody cares.
Heres a ripe story for everyone: I took my 74 blazer to a place out of business now (go figure) called A-1 ******. My transfer case was making a bunch of noise and I didnt want to deal with it. I came back later that day and he said, "oh yea, theres a bunch of metal flake in the pan, youll need some work.." I said, "The PAN?!?! Did you look at the ******?! Im here for the tranfer case." "Oh sorry, Ill get right on it..." I come back in a few days after asking why it wasnt done yet. It was fixed, I paid, drove away. A few blocks later and Im getting all kinds of ****ed up sounds like its gonna explode. I look underneith it. Theres one nut tight, the rest are either just threaded on the tip of the bolt or missing. I limp it back after the weekend (not able to drive it) and ask to speak with the tech who worked on it. "Well, we had to fire him cause we caught him smoking reefer on the job." Fine, tighten it up right and finish the job. Down the road shortly after, vibrations like you wouldnt believe. back again. "Well, I cant tell if its the transfer case or not... your drive line isnt balanced. Get the driveline balanced and then well see." Fine. After it is all balanced, still shaking, take it back. "Oh, the bearing in the transfer case are installed wrong, and now theyre bad. Ill replace them myself, and ill replace your bearing at the front and rear pinions for free." whatever, lets just get this over with. Shortly after, I grenade my rear end. Turns out he didnt use a new crush sleeve on my pinion, and instead re-crushed my crush sleeve. I returned with my brother and two freinds and told him he had to eat my rearend rebuild. he laughed and said I couldnt prove anything. For the next week or two, I scooped up dog **** into thin grocery store plastic bags, untill i had about 8 or so and a bunch of eggs I left out. I **** bagged his shop late one night to where you couldnt read the name or open the door. We mashed **** on a pair of whitey tighties clipped to his flag pole, pissed on it, and raised the colors. I still get bent outta shape thinking of that.
they dont want to pay!!! or give you the time to do a quality job!!!! the butcher down the road can do it in 1 day so they excpect you to !!!!!!!!!! but they want quality cuz the guy ( butcher )down the road did such a bad job last time ???
An old American ex USAF friend of mine has a car shop in the Philippines, uses local guys to strip sheetmetal bare for painting. Them guys use sandpaper and paint stripper, the whole car, all over, takes weeks, but at $3 wages a day it ain't expensive. Anyways, one time it looked like the rains were coming, so a guy who'd just been hired on decided that the bare metal Chevy 11 in the yard was gonna rust to hell when it rained, so he got their equivalent of WD40 (probably an engine oil/kerosene mix) and laid a fat coat all over the bare metal car with a soaked rag. Took them friggin' weeks to get that **** off the car, outta the seams and body lines, out of the rust pockets and rain channel Needless to say, the new guy didn't last long.
good one- we went from Pa. to Ohio to pick up a '56 Vette- not just any Vette, but an all-original convertible with retracting roof and optional snap-on hardtop. Also original 2-4 barrel car, and red/white paint. Still had whitewalls on it. Anyway we load the car onto the trailer, get it back home (8 hour ride)- on the way home I tell my friend, he should be it running, clean it up, and drive it first. He insists on a body-off resto, and the NEXT DAY drops it off at a "resto" shop. The shop takes a big deposit, completely dis***embles the car, starts sandblasting the frame, and just STOPS WORKING on it. For 3 years. My friend ends up having to go down to the place, threaten the guy, physically BOUNCE HIM AROUND a bit, but still gets no money back, just his car back- and takes it to yet another shop to be finished. The second shop finishes it, rather nicely too. The shop I worked at, we rebuilt the engine. Total investment including purchase of car, $45K So he gets it appraised- it appraises at $35K This was about 20 years ago- by now of course the car has appreciated to at least its invested value or over. But it was a harsh lesson.
A local guy took his 56 nomad to a shop, all they did was diss***emble it and leave it set for two years, he took it to another and they said he needed a parts car, bought one they reccommended, two years later he got both cars and went to another shop. This shop built him a blown big block and t-400,but after about a year he found out the owners son was using the motor and trans in his street car. The fourth shop finally finished it and he said he had almost twice what it was worth in it.
I had a kid work for me that could tell some GOOD stories.... Once, he said he worked in a BIG shop in GA where they'd taken in a GHP Mustang GT. Friday nights, drinkin and cuttin up were the norm, so it didn't take long for them to suc***b to temptation and do burnouts and donuts IN the shop in the Georgia Highway Patrol Mustang, lights and siren blasting....Too bad the in-car camera comes on with the lights and siren The Police dudes weren't real happy about a week after they picked up the car---and watched the film Same kid told about working with a burnout-type who just finished replacing a pair of quarters on a Cadillac. The guy sprayed about 4 cans of undercoating in the trunk on the quarters and trunk floor, then shut the lid, proceeding to hang and align the rear bumper. One of the frame rails was tweaked, so he broke out the torch and rosebud tip to heat and align it.......BOOOM! Undercoat fumes in the trunk ignited and swelled the quarters out like a pregnant elephant Another one happened to a guy I knew(his former employer told it on him) This fellow got ***igned a quarter replacement job on an early 70s Imperial. Some of the other guys in the shop had been raggin' him about being slow, so he decided he was gonna show them a thing or two. Jacked up the Imperial rear axle, opened the door and went at it! Cut off the old one, hung and worked the new one and had it painted before dark that night! Too bad though...the next morning when he let it off the jack and shut the door, the door lapped over the quarter panel by about 1/4 inch Same guy hit me up for a job once. I had a BMW rollover that needed done, so...... He never showed up for work. Lucky me.
Not such a horror story, more funny then anything else.... I had the owner of the body shop I had my car in, do the nasty with a girl on my front seat. Don't asked me how I found out. and no the girl wasn't me
That's it! The last time I left the keys at a shop I didn't sleep till it was home. The 37 going in for an alignment soon, I think I'll wait for it in the shop!
I heard that story too. Gotta be careful WHO you let do your car...uh, do who in your ...uhhh, whatever
my dad had this neighbor way back before i was born and he still had his mothers original 396 ss 4 speed 66 chevelle. it had a 4 barrel and everything. well when his son turned 17 he got it and beat the piss out of it. he ended up spinning it into a light pole racing it. they sent it away and put a couple thousand into getting the whole back quarter replaced or so they thought. it turned out the body shop wasnt so good at body work. they filled a completely smashed left quarter panel with a couple gallons of bondo. well they got the car back and somehow couldnt see the bodywork. when the winter came all the bondo cracked and fell out. last time i heard of the car they had sent it to goodmark to get the whole left side redone. wow, it turns out there is a thing as too much bondo.
OK, but if I get flamed for posting these I'm going to copy everything and send it to your mailbox Pretty close on the timing (CRS), I was in the old shop in '88 - '89 when you got it running & were working on your 31...but then I've been wrong before CC
The Jalopy Journal
