Sundowner

I'm going to post my rant, because I got my car painted at the pinebrook, nj maaco last year and I am still wildly pissed about it. I went to the shop and thought I did everything right. I looked at other cars in the lot, they looked good, I thought they could handle the work. I'm guessing he steered my cars that he knew were good or were thier own project cars. I forget what package I got but it cost me $700 here's my gripes: I forget the name of the color, but I picked a silver blue from a peterbuilt feet list. the guy SWEARS to me its the same color but by all that's holy it has a purple tinge to it that's just not right. I have never seen a coat of paint so thin. I understand wanting to control overhead, but a second coat of cheap-crap Sherwin Williams paint wouldn't have put Maaco in poor house, would it? they painted the left door handle but not the right one they painted the mirrors when explicitly told not to. they DID NOT EVEN CLEAN the car before painting it. didnt' even wipe it down. there are fish eyes and finger print marks on the driver side fender wheel well, and dirt in the paint there is a drip in the paint on the driver side rear quarter panel. there is a 'touch' on the passenger side door where its pretty obvious the painter hit the wet paint with the hose from the gun. and my personal favorite: I guess they unbolted the hood and lifted it up a bit to get all the tight spots between the hood and fedners. I don't know if this is Maaco S.O.P. but forgetting to BOLT THE HOOD BACK DOWN probably isn't. It was real nice to drive home and have my hood flop all over the place until I find only one (1) hand tight bolt in one of the hinges. I took the car back with my complaints and the guy is like "well what do you expect from a Maaco paint job?" nice. good attitude, jerk. any time anyone asks me what I think of Maaco, or I see a post on line, I make sure to share my experience. I would have been better off leaving the truck in primer and burning my money. the world would have been better off if I had thrown that burning money into the solvents cabinet at Maaco and blocked off the street with my primered truck to keep the firetrucks away. far and away the WORST quality of work I have EVER seen, and I'm speaking from the unique perspective of a structural bridge engineer who does failure forensics. if there's haphazard or shoddy work out there, I've seen it. jackboxxx, you seem like stand-up shop owner, and I'm sorry if I offended you, but i have a very low opinion any franchise that can't control it's quality from one shop to the next.

compression on a new muscle car is as high if not higher than that old 351 Cleveland I had in my Mach 1. the starters wear out becuase they're sucky starters. Ever see one of those fancy gear driven starters for high-zoot race motors? it's a $75 off-the-shelf Denso starter with a machined adapter on it. I have the exact same starter in my 84 4runner, stock

balancing is an essential part of an engine rebuild if you plan on revving the hell out of the motor, since rotational imbalance increases with the cube of the rpm, IIRC. I just built a toyota 22rte and I did not rebalance it. that motor has a pitiful 5000 rpm redline, and I'll never hit that in my truck, anyway. balancing in a very old motor makes all the difference in the world. they did not have the balancing technology in the 70's that they do today. remember the old muscle car shaker hoods? why do you think they shook? look at a 69 Mach 1 mustang next to a 2004 Mach 1 mustang. they have the same shaker hood, but the 04 is dead still while the 69 bops around in the hood. blueprinting is a little different. when the factory assembles a motor, they allow for certain tolerances due to cost reasons. for instance, oil clearance for the main journals on the aforementioned toyota crank are about .020" from the factory. the min oil clcearance is .015 and the max (fresh assembly) is 0.25. when the builder blueprints that crank and bearigs, every tolerance is dead-nuts 0.020. what does this mean for you? maybe 15-20 hp that will last about 20k miles until the tolerances wear-in and even out to whatever odd number they're happy at. what does this mean to a stock-class SCCA race driver? it's the difference between winning and losing on an engine that will get torn down again after the racing season is over.

I kinda figured the rust was worse than it looked. I've been down that road with too many Jeeps and Toyota trucks. I could probably handle the rust repair. I'm pretty good with that kinda work. but for the $$$ the car is getting for itself, I'm getting the impression I should be either shopping for a cleaner example, or find an un-gussied basketcase at a basketcase price. thanks for the help, all.

I saw this car on ebay. looks sweet, but the rust at the frame rails looks kinda serious. got some body rust around the hood, smokes on start up and the brakes are spongy. is this typical rust for the breed? the car looks redemmable, but not having built one of these before, what's the consensus? what's the relative real world value outside of ebay crazyperson land? http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1,1&item=4592192072&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWA%3AIT

the seller told me the car is in London, and he's selling it beucase it was his brother's car, who recently died. sounds kinda bogus

:stupid: uh, did I mention old steel kitchen cabinets make great shop cabinets? here's the right link: http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1,1&item=4593943508&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWA%3AIT

ok, it's on ebay for a BIN of $5600, the plates say Arkansas, ebay says its in NY, and the seller says it's in London, UK. there's no vin listed, and over email he seems kinda jumpy to move the car. something seems fishy anyone know this car or who it belongs to? http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=6015580885&rd=1&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWA%3AIT&rd=1

this is verytrue. I took two semesters at night at the local community vo-tech school. I can welds arc and MIG better than most, and Iv'e been known to show-up a few welders at the job site (I'm a bridge engineer) jw goodliffe is a great online vendor for welders. www.cyberweld.com I leaned on a Linde machine, which has since become part oif ESAB

an arc welder is inapproriate for sheet metal work. I'd rather see you with one of those $100 clark migs, which flat-out suck arse, but are better than an arc welder for sheet metal work. you'd really want to invest in a good Mig like an ESAB, which I flat-out love, but a Miller or Lincoln wouldnt' be a bad second choice. even if you were doing heavy structural welding, working with an ARC is 50% experience and 50% artistic talent. whereas you could train a rhesus monkey to run a bead from a MIG.

well alt east my first post inspired some humour, albeit unintentional no spending sprees for me just yet. I'm still collecting info. I learned that lesson the hard way over the years with other vehicles I've restored. i.e. do you need any Jeep parts?

wow. pricey but they are OEM. I'm gonna have to check the budget on this one

man, I gotta learn to read japaneese.. I dont' see anything on that site but misc. lights and interior bits. can anyone reccomend a magazine I can send him to get?

hi, I've kinda been lurking for a while, since I've been waiting for a good 240z to come along sooner or later to put in my garage and restore. Between HLS-30H''s spectactuar picture gallery and a really nice green 240z I saw on ebay, I've kinda developed an eye to do something retro, something with JDM touches. from what Iv'e read here, JDM parts seem to be hard to come by, like the fender mirrors, accurate G-noses, and the chrome rimmed headlight covers. as luck would have it, I know a guy who's stationed in Nippon. He's already looked in the scrapyards, but they keep a rolling stock, so nothing as old as a 240z can be found, which is pretty sad. Is there a known source I send him to that still produces the fender mirrors, overfender flares, headlight covers, and maybe even a G-nose? thanks in advance for any help with this.