Let me get this straight. He bought a 5 window coupe for $20,000. He is going to ditch the motor, driveline, frame, and front suspension for a "corvette frame". He is also going to have it chopped. I am guessing that those fiberglass fenders will be replaced, car repainted and new interior. If I read alittle between the lines, this sounds like a textbook definition of a "gold chainer". When the car is finished, he will be bragging about how much he has spent on the car as he is either sitting in his lawn chair or loading the car on the trailer. The upside to the whole thing, you have a few months of work lined up. Neal
Maybe the previous owner was as "inept" as the poor guy who bought this. After all, it was a driver (of the unsafe sort) when he bought it. He might have unknowingly sold it down the road. Or, after buying it and realizing what he had, he decided to peddle it off as fast as he could. Reminds me of a car years ago one of my auto shop students had: a very scary LeMans, so bad that I felt obligated to call his parents and say, "this car is dangerous, your kid could be hurt, it belongs off the road until its fixed right, etc". So they sold it- to another of my students. Made the call again to the new parents and this time announced to my classes: "don't buy so-and-so's car". Damned if that car didn't go through 2 more of my students before it quit running. Thankfully, nobody got hurt, except the last guy on the financial end.
Ebay can really suck for buying cars. Many times you take the word of the seller, and trust the pictures you have to look at. Both may be angled with bullshit that can be hard to detect. I've been screwed once buying a car on ebay about 10 years ago. It was a "rust free" '62 Cadillac CDV. Soon after it made it to me (after already paid in full,) it had the nickname "Tetanus." This was more like a $2000 lesson instead of a $20,000 lesson-- but a lesson none the less. Through the years, i've gotten screwed before-- and i've gotten lucky even more. Things equal out unless your consistently stupid. Since my one negative experience, I will not buy a car sight unseen off Ebay. Impressive to see how many people on the HAMB have never made a mistake or gotten ripped off before. Seems like all HAMB'rs get better finds, better quality and better pricing than the next guy. The perfection is amazing to me. As far as this car goes--- All is not lost. Johnny can fix it. Im sure one of hist first steps will be to throw that butched frame in the gutter and go get another. -scott noteboom
Wow that is some crazy scary farmerized engineering....Sucks that he had to learn this leasson the hard way but like stated earlier we've all F'd up on some deal or another...maybe not $20K worth of an F'up but a F'up none the less. Glad he has a good friend like you to help him through this...
I agree it is a real bad hack....but look at the grease on the motor. i'd bet that car has seen a bunch of road miles. Sometimes you see a messy build and then find out it's been driven for decades with no problems
Just pitiful. My first impluse is to think it's old work, to put the best face possible on it. I saw stuff like this in the 60s. The problem with that is since then I've seen enough smooth bondo and slick paint over wads of cardboard, bondo over cancerous rust, and shit that couldn't be hidden, wiring that looks like a string ball. It's worth mentoning that people sometimes ask for advice and then ignore it. Guy I know asked me about a '57 Ford for sale at a local lot. From 50 feet you could see the bondo and under the hood was not just a joke, but a whole stand-up routine. The throtte linkage was a coathanger. Not that it mattered, the POS barely ran. The pipes were draggin, the motor swap was horrible, the tires were bald. In his cash sitauation, bald tires should be a deal breaker. I showed him some of the problems. He bought the damn thing anyway, then wanted me to listen to his weeping about how it wouldn't run and nobody would buy it. The thing about a bondo job and good paint is that often, if they put that much work into real repairs, the car would be worthwhile. Or closer to it. still it sucks to see this kinda shit.
No kidding, as of right now that truck is at the place that is getting it ready for final body work, and paint I'm sure its getting closer to $175.000.00 by now. I don't know what he is spending at the other place, but it won't be cheap. The truck wasn't worth $45,000 when it was new to me. I'll never understand why some people spend the money they do on a car, I don't care what type of car it is, and that is what I do for a living. Some people don't know when to cut their losses, and some just have the money and have it in their head they want to build something, no matter how much you try and tell them; "It's not worth it.". My guy was the latter. You will never get the sense of just how fucked up the truck really was by this picture, cause it really does look better here than it was. But you know its bad when an almost new 4 year old truck shows up like this.
i like how they can use cotter pins to lock the nuts in, but they can only tack the tab on. SAFETY FIRST right!?
Your friend dosent know much about cars does he? He should had you look it over before he paid for that P.O.S. BUYER BEWARE!!!
I somehow missed this thread when it was started. Absolute trash;I really like the plywood toe boards, and trans/driveline tunnel. The firewall looks to be some kind of fiberglass overlay, the chassis and suspension are made from whatever could be found in the scrap pile. I let a very good friend of mine use 1/2 of my garage to store his 39' Plymouth Coupe in for about a year. It was put together very similarly. He tried to sell it to me, but no way; the only thing good about the whole car was the Painless wiring, and it was'nt shortened to fit, all the wires were curled up and zip tied. He managed to sell the car through an auto consignment dealer (don't know how though). But, this car, the builder had NO TALENT at ANYTHING! The buyer should have challenged the sale, he would have gotten his money back, well, most of it. Butch/56sedandelivery.
Damn shame.. Your friend isnt a "car guy" i take it.. Fix it right.. Make it safe.. Throw in a bunch of "kool" and send him down the road with a smile and a lesson learned.. All the bullshit aside.. I like the car..
that freaking makes me sick to my stomach to see shit like that. If you can't build a fucking car just dont build one and fuck things up for the rest of us who are proud of our work and dedicate our time into puting nice craftsmanship work into our cars. Those welds look like bird shit. I hope the fucker who built this thing reeds this. I feel sorry for your friend though
Over here i've seen hack jobs like that one bought for 10-20Grand then built into respectable rides. Over here that car would've been flatout passing an inspection for a th smash up derby and there is no way on earth it would've gained full rego cept maybe had it been built in th 60's. Reworked engine mounts, gearbox mounts, late model chassis swaps, chops, etc all warrant a mandatory vehicle inspection report from an authorised automotive engineer before a rego inspection is granted and then ya car has to pass a yearly inspection just ta keep em on the road.
No he won't, he'll be driving the wheels off it.....VERY hard...I know the owner as well. And till you do, keep your opinions to yourself.
Further comment here. I can visualize, had the builder cut off that extraneous bolt head on the rod end, ground down the welds, hammered everything a bit straighter, and had everything including the frame sandblasted and powder coated there would be a lot of "ooos" and "awess", proclaiming that to be a wonderful build. Get a grip guys, don’t mix apples and oranges, like asserting that “CLEAN” and “SAFE” always go hand in hand. Nobody can judge the extent of the penetration, or any impending failure, of any of those welds by eyeballing a photograph. The cross-section of the welds on the wishbone mount appear to exceed the cross-section of the rod end bolt, making any more welding cosmetic. Looks like a circle track machine with the nerf-bars cut off, a windshield and new paint thrown on. Certainly not 20k, even by the picture and we all know pictures are usually complimentary. I’d love to have that car, and all I’d do with it would be to downgrade the paint and put some black-pipe nerf-bars on it, along with some adjustable rod-ends to tweak the handling. What's it worth? If the drive-train works, motor apparently made a long trip with no complaints, I'd say about 8K........... As far as recommending to the guy that he needs a complete re-do, I thinks that's off the mark, might be good for your bottom line, but what does he want? Leading him down a path to spend a lot more money isn't necessary, just clean it up. Wood floorboards? Why not? Rag Joint? Why not? Suspension issues? Key would be HOW DOES IT RIDE/HANDLE?
Man, I've seen enough of those nitemares. A local shop got a chopped '50 Ford shoebox in a few years back for a repaint. The owners had bought the car at an auction (not B-J) in Los Angeles and after having it a while, they wanted to get it repainted. Since it had some cracks in the paint near the rear window, suggesting filler coming loose, the decision was made to media blast the thing. The shop got a call from the blaster saying they'd found "something" and the shop owner better get down there before they went any farther. Turns out whe the top was chopped, the body guy didn't know or care much for all that pesky welding and shaping, so he litterally shaped some wire mesh in the general shape and laid on the filler. The entire rear of the top, including the window area was made totally of filler and mesh, as was all the custom work, fins, rounded hood corners, grille area, all of it. The bad thing is the new owners paid out $30K for the car and could barely afford to get it repainted, so they had to part it out. Don't some people selling a POS have a conscience?
Wow, what a nightmare. I'm surprised the whole thing didn't collapse the first time he hit a pot hole or speed bump.
175 posts restating what was said in the first 10. Don't any of you guys read more than the opening statement before pushing the reply button? It's obvious the guy got screwed but it can be saved. Looks like that is going to happen. Probably take another 200 posts to tell the owner how good it looks when it's finished. Frank
The center and front of the top was welded, but the rear window had that nice slope, like a chopped Merc should have. The rear of the top from above the window to about the trunk was never anything but filler. The owner actually drove the car for several months before winter set in and he got the itch to personalize it with new paint. Kinda makes those "spot rot" gauges look pretty cheap, tho...
Is he a car guy?...it is rather hacked up....Is that frame the same as a 41..I think it is I have the exact same front axle...it looks as if the spring has been moved forward of the motor cross member of where it once sat....I hope the steel beam it sit on is at least angle iron.....the second thing i noticed was the tie rod ends welded on the split wishbones...if the hole is not tapered the tie rod will just keep squeezing in and when the rubber goes you know what happen next....best of luck getting her fixed up...i hate to say it but i have run plywood on floors too ...buy that was a 300 dollar car...
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