I was reading though this thread wondering wether this guy should stay with the car. I've seen plenty of not really car guys buy an old ride and ultimately regret it. I know he's your buddy, and I'm not dissing (everyone fucks up at some point), but given how hard he checked out this car, is he really up for the long slog? I'd be doubting everything about the car.
The further back in the barn the more of this stuff we find. A Corvette chassis will not work. To wide. But a Progressive and several other pro chassis builders can make one that uses Corvette suspension front and rear and fit. Not cheap. But money well spent if that is what he wants. http://www.progressiveautomotive.com/40F.htm
That's insane to think of. On one hand you have a jack leg who is passing off a haggeled up pile of shit, but on the other hand you have a guy who is in too much of a hurry to really look at the car before laying down that much cash for a haggeled up pile of shit.
Thats nothing, could have been worse. I had a customer take a then brand new $45,000.00 1999 Chevy dually to another "pro" shop in 99, cause I couldn't get to it for about 6 months, and he just had to have it done, and couldn't wait . Two years, and $30,000.00 later, he brought the truck back to me by renting a U-Haul moving van to put all the pieces in. I told him to save what few parts we could then scrap the truck, and start over, but because he still owed $15,000.00 on it he could't bring himself to do it. Needless to say I threw most of it away and redid everything they did, including "unbody dropping" it. I nicknamed it "The Puzzle Truck" on my websight. If you want to see more - www.insanedesigns.com Now he has over $150.000.00 in a 10 year old truck, that is about 2/3 of the way done.
Did he get a free bowl of soup with that car?? They seem to be turning up on eBay more often now that the hobby has become so big. These guys prey on people that are new with little or no car knowledge that have some cash and want a cool car to bring to the car shows. They charge a showcar price for hacked up work and make a living off of it. It may resemble and share the same title as the showcar that just sold for $40K, making the buyer think hes getting a deal, but in reality its apples and oranges. Good luck fixing it.
Asthetics don't measure tensile strength of a weld. Looks like that bolt fills the gap quite nicely. Angle of the rod end looks like a fine-tune to the ride, or the scrub, makin' up for some twist somewhere's else.
All can say is 'unbelievable'. I was never a person wanting mandatory state inspections, but this could change my mind. At least he used cotter pins.... go figure ! Doug
Well I did some measuring today and this thing is unbelievable, the wheel base on the right side of the car is 111 inches and on the left side it is 113 inches. Well needles to say this frame is useless. Bad news is I was hoping to get this car in and out of my shop in two or three weeks while a '37 La Salle that I am building is at the paint shop, but it is going to take a lot longer than that to fix this mess. So I'll have to finish the La Salle first, I hope to have it done end of Febuary beginning of March '09. Then I'll get to the '36 Ford. If you guys are interested in seeing what I do with it I'll post pic's when I get to it. If not I'll have pictures posted on My Space, I usually post pic's of what I'm working on. My Myspace is: www.myspace.com/koolcatkustoms
Wow what a shame, I see bad deals like this all the time and 9 out of 10 times the buyer gets so discouraged they never try again, thank god your friend has not lost his dream over this one bad decision.
Sorry to see such a mess. Glad it is in good hands now. I second the comments on the pick-up truck (johnnykck) Hope there is a happy ending to all this. This is why I built my own.
I don't think it needs a new frame. least from what I can see...looks like just the "X" member has been cut up some for muffler clearance, PM me, I might still have enough of an old "X" member left you can use to patch it up with. I'm about 1.5 hours East of you.
Wow....scary stuff, thanks for sharing. Lessons learned... 1: Any vehicle you buy try your best to get it on a lift and look hard before you buy (hint hint garages you could make some easy coin offering this service, I would gladly pay $50 hr to do this).... 2: Bring an objective friend who either knows more about cars than you do or find a local enthusiast, club member or collector who knows that model of car really well to look at it...once it's on the lift of course. I had a good friend who wanted a '64 Galaxie real bad...had the cash, had plans and lot's of ambition. Fortunately he also took along a friend of a friend to look at each car he wanted to buy who restored three '63-'64 Galaxies already and knew those cars inside and out...they looked at three cars...nice cars too from 100ft....before finally purchasing the fourth one he looked at. Once he blew it apart he could see that even that one had some damage to one rear quarter but otherwise the car was pretty good and very original. Today, it's a beaut but if he hadn't had his objective friend of a friend come along who knew those cars so well, he might have well wound up like the featured owner of this thread. 3: Caveat emptor !!
It's a wonder that cobbled up rear end installation didn't come apart going down the road and cause a bad wreck.
You are kidding. I looked at your website . How can anyone be so stupid to put $150K in a "new" truck??? the way I see it he took a new truck to a shop and they kept it for 2 years. then he brought it to you. he has 150K in this thing??? you are shittin me See Tmans comments earlier about bus passes.
That really sucks! I would drive that car all the way back Wyoming and punch that professional car builder in the face and the guy who sold it!!!!
Maybe the car was a drag racer in its former life ...... that might answer the question on the wheelbase offset - an old pro stock trick to trip the lights first ........ or not. But on a real note ....... I was stunned & saddned to see that someone would actually purchase a car like that - that wasn't blind & the fact that that car is just down right not real safe ........ all for $20,000.00 I'm sure your "intervention" will be a life saver in the end - despite the unforseen cost to your bud. Good luck & keep us posted. Paco
No updates, the car is in storage right now while I finish two other projects first. I will be on this project again some time around May. The plan is to build a custom frame, chop it and do all the other good stuff to it. I'm looking forward to building this one and I'll post some pic's when I get to it.
That's a NSRA membership sticker, the safety inspection ones were put on the windshield and were dated.
I seen that too. Those frame with out the X member are really weak. The frames are only 11 Gauge metal. I would really try to get some kind of X member under it.
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