Recently restored big American car from the 1960s. Customer wanted us to look it over. Purchased with no PPI. I won’t even get in to the other stuff but one thing we were tasked with was fixing was the emergency brake. I found this.
Ya I am getting a warm fuzzy feeling about the quality of this restoration.
In that last photo, is that an open end of some sort of a c-section rail? With the two shiny bolts sticking through. And something important-looking bolted to it. I don't know what that is but it doesn't look very strong.
We will not get in to how the seats are bolted in or how they replaced the floors. There is so much bad about this car. The owner is going to be really upset as he really loves this car and is excited to use it in the summer with the family. It is a great looking car. Black on black with a black convertible top. One of the biggest issues I have is how the floors were replaced as they play a much bigger roll in the structure of the car. On the lift the door latches are off by almost two inches. I know that these will move some due to the lack of a roof but this one I think has been structurally compromised.
On the 88 Rx7 I bought, there was a section of rubber hose spliced into the smog pump hose. it ran to a toilet water shutoff valve. yes you read that correctly. from the shutoff valve it ran to my secondary exhaust port actuator.
the purpose was that you could turn the valve by hand to change the point in the rpm range that the SEP opened.
weird thing is the setup worked like a charm.
We went to Tulsa and stayed at a hotel last weekend. They had this thing called "Kay-Bell Tee Vee." There was a channel that was nothing but car shows. Who knew? Anyway, one of the shows had this shop that fixed other people's berkeley ups and abandoned projects. Guy brings in a late 40's or early 50's pickup. Looks real clean and he loves the truck, but... the doors don't close and the hood doesn't latch. During the "restoration," they cut out the rust from the floor and welded in new floor pieces patchwork style. In the process, they shrunk the cab section like 2 inches or so. Eight large later, he has his truck back with a new floor section and doors that close and latch. Same show had a guy with an Avanti he was resto-moding. Trailered in the car "80% done..." along with sixty large worth of parts. Fifty something large later, he gets his Avanti back better than new.
In reply to Dr. Hess :
That sounds like Fantom Works Avanti and Chevy 3100 episode
In reply to Daeldalus :
Seems more GRM than scary repair. 
In reply to fasted58 :
I enjoyed watching that show since it was literally 10-15 blocks from my apartment
Well, that might explain the parking brake issue. Why a 9mm socket for a spacer? Didn't he know that's what the infamous always lost 10mm socket is used for. 
Years ago, I bought a Jeep J10 pickup that had a 327 Chevy swapped in. One day the clutch linkage broke and I had to do some rev matched shifting to get it home. I got up under the dash and found all the clutch linkages were made from 1/4-20 allthread...
In reply to Dr. Hess :
Same show (title) and a ‘53 Cadillac restoration included refrigerant for the Frigidaire AC that the proprietor claimed cost like $7,000 per pound. 
ebonyandivory said:In reply to Dr. Hess :
Same show (title) and a ‘53 Cadillac restoration included refrigerant for the Frigidaire AC that the proprietor claimed cost like $7,000 per pound.
There was a time when I think R12 was unobtainable and it was hugely expensive to charge an old system.
In reply to fasted58 :
Yeah, that was the show. Their shop rate must be like fidy-bucks an hour, which I think is pretty reasonable today.
Man, that Kay-Bell Tee-Vee is a massive time sink. You don't realize it until you do without it for a decade or so.
wlkelley3 said:Well, that might explain the parking brake issue. Why a 9mm socket for a spacer? Didn't he know that's what the infamous always lost 10mm socket is used for.
I'm guessing they couldn't find the 10mm...
Isn't that parking brake cable splitter missing some parts and bolted down where its supposed to move?
I always come into one of these threads with a bit of anxiety that its about one of my previous vehicles.
dean1484 said:ebonyandivory said:In reply to Dr. Hess :
Same show (title) and a ‘53 Cadillac restoration included refrigerant for the Frigidaire AC that the proprietor claimed cost like $7,000 per pound.
There was a time when I think R12 was unobtainable and it was hugely expensive to charge an old system.
I haven't seen R12 run more than $150 per pound. When it got over $80/lb in the late 90s we were converting everything to R-134A as a matter of course, it was cheaper and, in defiance of the naysayers, really did work just as well, according to real world themometer testing.
Now, on the other hand, I used to have an old (OLD) refrigerator that used sulfur dioxide (?) as the refrigerant. Point is, what kind of refrigerant did those first-generation A/C systems use? Not necessarily R-12.
MrJoshua said:Isn't that parking brake cable splitter missing some parts and bolted down where its supposed to move?
I was waiting for someone to figure it out. I can only assume that the restoration people thought it was suppose to pivot. The obviously did not understand that it is suppose to move and at the same time balance the braking force to compensate for the manual adjustment of the two rear drum brakes.
You would think that some one would understand that if you bolt down the brake cable that it would have a hard time moving.
Like I said the restoration of this car looks to have been done by someone that knew how to put lipstick on a pig and push it out the door to an unsuspecting purchaser.
When will people learn. And I am putting the blame on both the people that are willing to purchase cars with out a proper inspection as well as the ones that actually do this stuff.
So so this brings us to brake lines. Instead of replacing the obviously rusted and pitted lines what do you do? Why paint them of course. This stuff is down right dangerous and yet even if it kills someone when the line fails it is an as is purchase.
I present to you painted brake lines.
I actually think it took more time to paint all the lines than just replace them.
dean1484 said:ebonyandivory said:In reply to Dr. Hess :
Same show (title) and a ‘53 Cadillac restoration included refrigerant for the Frigidaire AC that the proprietor claimed cost like $7,000 per pound.
There was a time when I think R12 was unobtainable and it was hugely expensive to charge an old system.
Can’t you add redtek or propane to an r-12 system?
Not car related but i once tore down a "addition"(term used very kindly) put on an old house because they wanted something bigger and because the floor was "really squishy"
Entire addition was being held up in the middle by a large rock with a blue fuzzy slipper for the center pier.
Has the curved cross member been cut where the two bolts are? And the floors just don't look right from below; are they just flat sheet-metal?
I noticed that the thing that's supposed to slide looked bolted down right off. I figured that they did that so that the parking brake cable had "plenty of solid feel" when you stepped on it.
Totally over-engineered. Why use a socket when a drywall screw would work just as well? Less lbs too.
Actually, if your goal is to disable the parking brake, just lop any one of those cables and boom: done.
My question is, where do these shops get their people? That work indicates a complete and utter lack of any automotive, mechanical or technical knowledge, with zero concern for safety or the lives of others. If I hired a homeless person off the streets, they would be able to do better work, while drunk, and insane. So it must take effort to be so bad, the question is why? Less effort would result in better work and more clients. I am baffled.
In reply to pinchvalve :
You're assuming they are after quality work, not simply churning out saleable cars that people who don't know better will buy.
You'll need to log in to post.
