So I'm a stupid kid..

Pretty soon, there'll be an all out internet brawl, then someone beating a deadhorse, and maybe even a bunny with a pancake on it's head.....Welcome to the HAMB....

 

BTW, somewhere between my first post on this thread and this one, I've painted an engine, prepped and cleaned a transmission, and basically gotten everything ready to install into my car tomorrow evening....no art work though, unless you count my literary genius.

The horse .gif is truley dead, and it didn't take long for the bunny.....

 

awesome work guys. I think we really helped this kid out...

 

Well, now you'll know to keep the stars out of your eyes. See things for what they are.

Who would rip off a kid? Someone who wanted your money. They'll still be there when you're an old man.

Even the most beautiful woman has someone who is sick of her crap.

To have good Judgment you need to make bad Judgments.

Who's to blame? Did you look it over? Test drive it? Get an inspection?

You may be able to lay a complaint for fraud or something. Check it out.

 

Nope, nope, and nope. Who's to blame? Me. I got it, I wish I had known better but wishing ain't gonna change nothing. I don't know about claiming fraud though, I have nothing in writing so I guess I don't have much of a leg to stand on

 

Urinals, Picasso, bunnys n pancakes, 4 doors n skulls, dead horses...."hole E chit, I gotta get in on this one mang!!"

 

haha yep! you're a fng and already understand the hamb. Here's the hamb broken down. Alot of bullshit, complaining, wining, keyboard badasses, and know it all's who have more hamb posts than garage hours, but keep in mind: above that there's some real hot rods, priceless knowledge and history, all the best metal fabricators and rod builders on the planet post here, and the best classifieds section for rods out there. Its a love/hate relationship.

 

this thread is pretty good dude...

 

People down my end of the planet would pay way more than 6 grand for any try five chevy, in similar condition.
You got a cool car that will only increase in value. Plug away at it, fix it up, and your'll have something to be proud of.

 

Most used car sales are "as is and final" with no recourse, UNLESS the seller witheld some material fact about problems he knew about. OR, if he misrepresented something (ie. it being a 383 and is really not). How was the car advertised (Craigslist, newspaper, ??????) If it was, what did the ad read, and do you have a copy of the ad? How long ago did this whole transaction take place?

I would take the car to a knowledgeable mechanic and have him go through it with a fine tooth comb and DOCUMENT all of the issues with the car. Then have him determine the exact cubic inch displacement of the engine and if you find it is NOT a 383 and if the ad said it was, you have a very good case for fraud. Find a mechanic who will testify in small claims court that he found this and that wrong and misrepresented. He will be your expert.

On the other hand, if there was no ad spelling out the features of the car, and all of your dealings were verbal, you are dead in the water.


Don

 

yeah screw the car.

pay a mechanic $95/hour so you can spend your time in small claims court over 6k on a car that the judge can't tell if its coming or going.

HAMB por vida...

 

Fine tooth? Ok here goes: The electric fan can't keep the car cool at a standstill. The engine leaked oil (fixed). There's an exhaust leak at the manifolds (PITA). The valve cover gaskets are leaking. Windshield wiper motor pulled out, horns pulled out. Transmission is leaking fluid (Getting to it). Steering box is sloppy. ALL bushings are shot. Broken window in driver's door. All weatherstripping is bad (expected). Rear floors have rotted through. Trunk metal has rotted allowing the rear shock to come up through. Trunk sheet metal has seperated from it's frame. Oh, and the brakes are kinda spongey.

The ad was on craigslist, which has since expired.

 

Well that fucking tears it!

5 stars.

I was debating 4, but the bunny pushed it over the edge for me.

Carry on!

 

Sometimes you just have to stand up for yourself and things like principle come into play. It all hinges on if there was a written ad and the content of that ad. Until we know about that aspect we are only guessing.

And judges hear cases on a variety of subjects they know zilch about. It is their job to listen to testimony and review facts. If he has those to present he has a good shot at prevailing IMO.

Don


Fine tooth? Ok here goes: The electric fan can't keep the car cool at a standstill. The engine leaked oil (fixed). There's an exhaust leak at the manifolds (PITA). The valve cover gaskets are leaking. Windshield wiper motor pulled out, horns pulled out. Transmission is leaking fluid (Getting to it). Steering box is sloppy. ALL bushings are shot. Broken window in driver's door. All weatherstripping is bad (expected). Rear floors have rotted through. Trunk metal has rotted allowing the rear shock to come up through. Trunk sheet metal has seperated from it's frame. Oh, and the brakes are kinda spongey.

The ad was on craigslist, which has since expired.


Second thought, the car isn't all that bad for the money. Learn to work on them and do it yourself.

 

Well if you plan on keeping it, which I assume you are. Is it a daily driver?

Your list to fix in, well, my order.

Trunk metal has rotted allowing the rear shock to come up through. Trunk sheet metal has seperated from it's frame. Oh, and the brakes are kinda spongey.

Steering box is sloppy. ALL bushings are shot.

Transmission is leaking fluid (Getting to it). The electric fan can't keep the car cool at a standstill. The engine leaked oil (fixed). There's an exhaust leak at the manifolds (PITA). The valve cover gaskets are leaking.

Windshield wiper motor pulled out, horns pulled out. Broken window in driver's door. All weatherstripping is bad (expected). Rear floors have rotted through.

Consider yourself christened by the hamb.

 

The electric fan was a bandage, hiding some other problem with the car. Most likely an obstructed radiator, and/or lack of fan shroud. The car didn't come with an electric fan, it was there to mask some other issue.

Look past the oil leak, almost all old cars leak some oil, glad you got it fixed up though. (aside from the valve cover gaskets)

The trans leak, is it from the front area, or the pan? If it's a pan leak, not a problem.

The steering being sloppy and the bushings being shot are probably one and the same.

Driver's door glass is cheap.

Weatherstripping being bad, as you said, is expected, but it is relatively cheap and is easy to replace.

Rear floor (and all floor, including truck and the rest of the pan) should have been expected. Unless the seller made a point to say that they had been replaced, you should have known there would be rot. Luckily, they are fairly inexpensive, and floor pans are a great introduction to the world of patch panel welding, as they are not seen naked and you can learn on them.

The brakes being spongy could be one of a lot of things. Start by doing a complete inspection of the entire system. Pull all the drums off and look for leaking wheel cylinders, lines, etc and bleed the brakes. Then go from there.

In the end, it's been a nice introduction to the world of buying and the reality of owning classic cars. You MUST inspect them thoroughly before purchasing. You also have to always expect that they will need SOMETHING, no matter how nice they are when you get them.

That's the breaks holmes, welcome to the madness.

Good luck.

 

I don't drive it to work everyday, but I do drive it alot though. Although i'd be willing to stop driving it for a while to make it safer to drive

 

smart thinking! you'll get there!!!

 

Hell yeah. At least you aren't retarded. If you have half a brain enough to make good decisions like that, you can fix this car.

 

Principles are nice, but when you can't afford 'em because you dropped all your money on the car already, well, that "principle" money would be better spent making the car into what he wants it to be.

He could spend a bunch of money trying to live by principles and still lose, then he'd be out that money too (I sadly watched this happen to someone over something more priceless than a car.)

 

I get what you're saying, but I think the engine has a long shaft water pump that inhibits a traditional fan so they wired up some b.s. fan in there.

 

OH SNAP. Didn't realize that. That's actually good news if it's just a matter of replacing the pump to short shaft style. A proper fan with a shroud will kick the crap out of an electric fan any day.

 

Is it that simple? I read somewhere that all the pulleys need to be changed with it, but that wouldn't be too bad for me because I only have the water pump and alternator on there

 

Before you buy anything do a compression check. Make sure you don't have water in the oil. Stuff like that.

Know what the engine is, 383?

tired, got to sleep for work tomorrow, good luck!!!... seacreast out

 

You're already wiser than you were.

Relax- you're not the first, you won't be the last.

And, while it may need a lot of stuff you didn't bargain for, you DO have a 56 Chevy- the prettiest of the tri-five Chevys, IMHO

 

You didn't do so bad, look at the piece of shit I drug home when I was 15. No motor, trans, front seat, rear window, etc. etc........

 

bad luck...but you're lucky: well, $6000 is a lot of money but there are people out there who spend 10times that much and more for shit!! it won't kill you and if it saves you from doing bigger mistakes - hey, you won!!

I bought some cars over the internet (all from the USA and I'm from Switzerland...) and always got what I expected - ok, more or less. But it always worked out till now. Some of my buddies bought shit here in Europe for more than your 6000.

Make the best out of it, fix as much as you can yourself and at the end you got a story to tell...

hope for you, that the engine is a good stroker!!

 

$6K is not bad for a solid, workable education. Hell, I've lost so much money on old cars over the years, $6K is just a drop in the bucket. I specialize in buying high and selling low.

I saved up for a few summers of ass busting work to buy my first car (it was the early 80's so OT muscle car of course) when I was 16. Runs well, all that BS, and motor blows in less than a month, after my father "tuned it up". Not sure what happened, but the motor was toast and sat in the driveway for my senior year at school. Had to ride the bus instead. No working car and no money to fix it. The next summer my uncle came across a "possibly rebuilt" motor at a going out of business auction. $55 later for the motor and another $125 for a friend of my dads to help swap it out and the car was good to go trouble free for 3 years until I back out of a driveway with a peaked curb cut that ripped the exhaust out from under the car. Car was DOA again while I got a more reliable ride to get me through college. Sold the car later for scrap $ basically.

Good luck on it. Stick with it and you'll be happy with yourself as you get things fixed back up. A lot of that stuff you mentioned is easy weekend, minimal skills and tools type of work. Do the easy stuff first and tackle the harder things as you progress with it. Or just sell it for what you can when the right time comes and move on to a different project.