Collateral Damage- My 70 Chevelle site build

[Blown353]

Since I'm closer now, I'll pick up the car from Jim's when he finishes with it.

Then I can stick it in the shop right next to my car and they can both sit together unfinished for a few more years. Maybe I'll post pics occasionally.

[camcojb]

Originally Posted by Blown353

Since I'm closer now, I'll pick up the car from Jim's when he finishes with it.

Then I can stick it in the shop right next to my car and they can both sit together unfinished for a few more years. Maybe I'll post pics occasionally.

Will yours ever be finished?

[Blown353]

Originally Posted by camcojb

Will yours ever be finished?

...maybe?

Believe it or not, earlier this year I actually did work on my car… modified the frame for eye mount upper and lower coilovers up front, swapped lower control arms for eye mount coilover versions, repaired my ATS spindles that I messed up the upper balljoint tapers in several years ago (had to build a fixture to hold them in the mill so I could bore out the old inserts, then machine new inserts, then use liquid nitrogen to shrink fit them into the spindles-- couldn’t send them to Speedtech for the repairs because they don’t make them like that anymore and no longer have the parts or fixtures to deal with the ball joint inserts), and modified a set of C6 ZR1 SKF X-tracker hubs with the later yellow wire active ABS sensors to fit on the ATS spindles to work with the Continental/Teves MK60 ABS that I’m going to be using.

And of course, right when I’m making progress and finish the front suspension and am ready to pull the frame to box it and build the torque arm for the rear I start getting “those” phone calls… can you put an overdrive transmission and build a new rear end and put rear discs on my El Camino? Can you look at my Corvette that I took somewhere else for an EFI swap and it’s never ran right since and the shop that installed it says nothing is wrong? Can you look at my GTO that has an electrical drain and the Vintage Air doesn’t work anymore since the body shop had the car completely disassembled? Now that I don’t want it to be a race car anymore, can you cut the roll cage out, install a Ridetech coilover setup, install Dakota Digital RTX gauges, and Vintage Air in my Biscayne? So much for having a spot in the shop free to work on the frame.

Between the cars that come to my house and the phone calls and visits to about 4 or 5 local shops that get stuck on difficult wiring or EFI issues they can’t figure out is why my car keeps sitting unfinished. It’s not because I don’t have the parts, because a good portion of the game room in the house is FILLED with parts to finish the car… I just spend all my time working on other people’s cars while my car sits neglected.

I keep telling myself after the El Camino and Biscayne are done no more jobs for other people at my shop until my car is running again, but I’ve been saying that for 12 years now because the other cars keep showing up because I can’t say no… and lately I’ve been getting the panic phone calls and texts from people who want last minute stuff done before hot august nights… argh. I can’t win.

I definitely need to get the frame off, modded, and primed/painted before winter rolls around. I don’t want to be doing frame mods in the winter when condensation is an issue, then I have to constantly clean off flash rust before welding, plus priming/painting in the winter when the humidity is up is asking for fisheyes and other paint issues to happen.

Looking forward, debating if I should get a hold of Kurt Urban and have him prep another crankshaft for the LS2 I had him machine for me about 12 years ago and is still unassembled in boxes. The block/heads/rods/pistons/valvetrain are still just fine, but years ago when I was still planning on doing the twin turbos Kurt said stick with a stock LS2 cast crank as it won’t be a problem even up to 1500hp. Now that I switched to the 3 liter Whipple I need to machine a keyway into the crank for the blower drive, and I’m wondering if I should have Kurt machine up a forged crank instead or if the stock cast LS2 crank with a keyway added will be OK. I’m really only worried about the crank snout with the Whipple, everything behind it will be OK as I won’t be making enough power where Kurt said the stock crank becomes an issue. I need to call him and ask. Maybe I should make more progress on the car first, because at this point assembling the engine is WAY down my to do list, LOL

Hoping to be back on my car after all the last minute panic hot august prep issues go away… we’ll see.

[camcojb]

Had no idea you were doing that much work for other people. I don't have your skills but I've always turned down work for money. But being retired now the extra money would help lol.

[clill]

Doesn't sound like "Retired" if you are thinking about doing work for money. Sounds like "Unemployed"

[camcojb]

Originally Posted by clill

Doesn't sound like "Retired" if you are thinking about doing work for money. Sounds like "Unemployed"

Very true. We can't all retire like you...

[Ummgawa]

Really enjoying seeing this one come together Boss.

[Blown353]

Originally Posted by camcojb

Had no idea you were doing that much work for other people. I don't have your skills but I've always turned down work for money. But being retired now the extra money would help lol.

Oh no… don’t go short changing yourself in the skills department. I’ll be the first to admit my own limitations (or try something anyways and then throw it away because I’m not happy with the results)-- I can't do it all even if I try to. Your builds have always been super cool, and I may have borrowed an idea or two (or three) from you along the way.

As far as doing the side jobs, I’m not really going out and soliciting these jobs… they’re usually friends or acquaintances who want help with something. I tell them I don’t have time, then they say “I’ll pay you”, I say I still don’t have time and I need to work on my car, and finally after a few back and forth haggling sessions they say “I’ll pay you this much” and the number finally exceeds some sort of magic threshold and I give in and say “OK, bring it over.”

Even I have my breaking point, LOL

I have learned though to immediately turn away anyone who constantly changes their mind or wants to cut corners, because when their cheap parts they provided or half assed fab ideas that they wanted me to build fails (even when I did it exactly how they wanted it over my objections) they always try to blame you for it. After a couple of those disasters, nowadays if they don’t want to do it the right way with the right parts the first time, I tell them take it somewhere else so they can blame them when it fails. I've got a pretty good feel now who might turn out to be a problem customer, and I politely refer them somewhere else. That's what's nice about doing it on the side, it's not like I have to keep taking customers in to keep the lights on. This just turns into extra fun money (unfortunately it also turns into less time to work on my car.)

The local shops that call me in for help with the problems do have to pay, either money or free parts. I’m not giving those guys free labor while they’re billing the customer for my time too, LOL. Just yesterday I had to go see a local shop with EFI issues after an install, turns out they can't read the instructions for how to wire it up properly and did everything the instructions said NOT to do... no wonder it didn't run right.

The other problem is that once you fix a couple cars that other shops couldn't fix, somehow your number starts getting passed around, and you get calls about all the jobs nobody else wants to touch or wants to put the time in to really find out what’s wrong with it.

Had a friend of a friend with an issue with his wife’s older Bronco last year, at light throttle it was running poorly, smelled super rich, and was constantly fouling spark plugs and popping out the exhaust, but at heavier throttle it was running OK. He took it to two local hot rod shops, who both blamed the EFI tune and charged him for dyno sessions and retuning, and it still had the issue, so they blamed the Holley EFI and told him to send it back to Holley… which also didn’t fix the issues. Turns out the intake manifold was loose and was sucking enough air past the intake gaskets on the bank with the O2 sensor to have lean misfires, so the EFI thought the engine was running super lean and it kept dumping more fuel in it as both of the shops left the Holley closed loop limits at the default +/- 50% max learn values. A little squirt of ether where the intake met the head found the problem immediately and checking the spark waveforms on the oscilloscope confirmed misfires on 3 cylinders, and new intake gaskets fixed the issue, and then I had to fix the tune because both shops added more fuel to try and get the O2 corrections back close to 0%. Never heard if the owner went back to the previous 2 shops to try and recoup some money, they charged him dearly for not fixing a damn thing or properly diagnosing the issue.

A couple years back I had to go through a car with a fine tooth comb that a semi-local shop had for 2 years for a front subframe swap, LS swap, and vintage air install, charged $55k for their work, and gave it back to the owner with a ton of things wrong with it on it both on the fab/assembly side and the EFI tune… the owner sued and got a good chunk of his money back, and I got to fix all the mistakes… so, so many mistakes. I learned a lot about what not to do fixing that car. Did you know that if you don’t safety wire the bolts that hold the rotors to the hats on a Wilwood brake kit like the instructions say that the bolts will back out until they hit the spindle and lock up a front wheel going down the freeway at 70mph? Also, if the car dies every time you step on the brakes or turn the steering wheel while stopped the correct answer is not to tell the customer “it’s just the EFI self learning, it will figure it out and stop dying by the time you get it home.” Uh… no. That “self learning” excuse was even funnier when about 30 minutes prior the shop owner was talking up his EFI guy by saying “he gets flown all over the country to tune for race teams.” Well, maybe the DNF race teams, or more likely the DNQ teams after I've had to fix about a dozen of his tunes over the last couple years because of major driveability issues. Furthermore, the engine and transmission in question was a crate LS3 525 and 4L70, and rather than use the GMPP ECU and TCM that was made for that combo and warrantied by GM they used a Holley HP so they could bill him more money for the Holley, install time, dyno time, and tuning time rather than just using the GMPP ECU and TCM and having it bolt in and go.

On the note of “quality” work from various local hot rod shops (and here's some more tips for your build!) did you know if you leave a large enough hand bent coil of hard brake line between the frame and rear axle it will flex enough that you don’t need a rubber brake hose running between the frame and rear end? The coil of hardline flexes and works just fine! That’s really safe on a tubbed Impala with a blown 468 that you’re planning to drive in hot august nights traffic. Another car built by that same shop had the front suspension fail on the freeway during the very first 10 miles of driving putting it into the center divider, and yet another car from that shop died in the middle of highway 395 during hot august nights a couple years ago because of poor wiring that smoked while driving.

I’ve seen lots of scary stuff on other people’s cars over the last several years. I also wonder how some of these shop owners sleep at night after billing for some of the work I've seen them turn out, not to mention how they stay in business, have a 6 month backlog for more of their "quality" work, and keep getting more customers, LOL



Also, in honor of the new Barbie movie that just came out I took Jim the paint code for "Barbie Corvette Pink" for your car. He agreed it would look much cooler than some flavor of metallic rootbeer brown. He should start spraying next week... you're welcome.

[camcojb]

Originally Posted by Blown353

Also, in honor of the new Barbie movie that just came out I took Jim the paint code for "Barbie Corvette Pink" for your car. He agreed it would look much cooler than some flavor of metallic rootbeer brown. He should start spraying next week... you're welcome.

[Ketzer]

Originally Posted by Blown353

I have learned though to immediately turn away anyone who constantly changes their mind or wants to cut corners, because when their cheap parts they provided or half assed fab ideas that they wanted me to build fails (even when I did it exactly how they wanted it over my objections) they always try to blame you for it. After a couple of those disasters, nowadays if they don’t want to do it the right way with the right parts the first time, I tell them take it somewhere else so they can blame them when it fails. I've got a pretty good feel now who might turn out to be a problem customer, and I politely refer them somewhere else. That's what's nice about doing it on the side, it's not like I have to keep taking customers in to keep the lights on. This just turns into extra fun money (unfortunately it also turns into less time to work on my car.)

This is exactly why I don't work on other peoples projects...

Jeff-