6/21/10
I’ve left several messages for Joe with no answer.
I sent him the following message:
We have now nearly passed the 3.5 year mark, 1247 days to be exact since we completed OUR portion of the “trade”.
This is BEYOND ridiculous.
This represents about 7125 hours of available time during 5-day a week work hours. And that would be a single person working, not the 4-8 people I was promised would swarm the car. So the promised amount of work time available using 4 people approaches 30,000 AVAILABLE hours. To come and see a day or two of work done every three months is just insulting.
I just lost a photo shoot for the car, have probably lost the $30K sound system from Al&Ed’s at this point, and I just turned 66. I just found out yesterday yet another friend of mine has died.
Just what is it that must happen for you to man up and finish this NOW or just give me my money and the truck back and be done with this torture?
6/29/10
I went up to Joe’s yesterday with a new friend, Bob Ridgway. Bob had several things to say about Joe on the trip home:
1-He feels Joe is NEVER going to finish the truck
2-He found it odd that Joe would suggest change orders if he is over-budget already as he claims
3-Joe is not as good as Joe thinks, nor as good as I think
4-Joe is learning as he goes on this project and is over his head
5-Bob thinks Joe has little other work, based on how Caesar acted when we were there.
I found that Joe had done some work, and is THE ONLY person doing any skilled work on the truck, aside from whatever little his father may do now and then. Joe flatly stated he was squeezing it in as time permitted, that he was $50K over-budget, and that it would take until the END OF THE YEAR (that makes it FOUR years) to complete this phase of the work.
Joe further noted the junk work Jay had done on the door hinges. No argument there.
What Joe HAS done shows little room for fault-finding, although it is not done, and certainly not perfect. But his overall approach has been to do it well, if at a comatose snail’s pace. Nick at Hamrick’s would do better work, 20 times faster, and with plenty of creativity.
Joe has nearly completed the jambs on both sides, and dramatically strengthened them.
What is done at this point is most of the bed. He has put panels under the rear framing of the bed, done a little work on the fenders, STILL has not fixed the not-straight left bed rail (INCREDIBLE), and has created the front panel and cutout for the front of the bed. It is not a finished opening, and needs, in my opinion, a piece of round stock around the opening.
Joe did do the bellhousing opening in the back of the cab, and carried the body details around it nicely.
He had put “seam sealer” on the underside of the cab, perhaps an hour before I got there. I looked and felt exactly kike white late caulking, and it was WAY sloppy. I think Caesar did it, and it looked like a bad bracero-done bathroom caulking job at some Mexican restaurant. It is clear that Joe sets up the presentation just before I get there to make it appear work is being done.
The underside of the cab is nearly complete including some safety bands above the upper driveshaft on the underside of the tunnel
and some welding around the periphery of the cab.
The front end is STILL with its inside stiffening pieces, has a line of mig-welded stitches along the hood to fender junction, but otherwise has not changed much.
Joe claimed he and his dad did some work on the grille, and made some recommendations as to how to finish it off. I agree with his suggestions.
Joe suggested painting the grille is a shiny silver, with some air-brushing to make it appear plated. No argument there, either. He said he will do some detailing along the top of the “knuckles” at the top of the grille to blend them into the body.
We talked about turn signals and headlights. Joe claims he is still looking for some VW bug fenders to get the headlight parts he wants. I’ll look tomorrow and I bet I can find them in two days. He has been screwing around for SIX MONTHS looking for these. He could make what he needs in a day or two.
My idea is the take the last two or four verticals on the grille at each side and put yellow lenses behind them for turn indicators. I want a high third rear brake light mounted on the roof above the rear window. We don’t have a plan as yet for the taillights or license plate recess. I’m inclined to go with some LED units in the rear fenders, and some adaptation of a Studebaker trim piece I have from the original car:
Otherwise, the truck has not changed a whole lot.
Granted, he HAS made some progress. But holy cow, how about being done in my lifetime?
I’ll be hounding him on a more regular basis now.
7/9/10
All he did was some door work, cutting out Jay’s junkyard fab,
Joe also discovered that Jay had boogered the window tracks, and these would have been IMPOSSIBLE to use:
and a small amount of bondo work on the rear of the cab:
Joe also had Cesar grind the welds on the hood to fender junction:
No news that this is hardly two weeks of work. Regardless, I’m scheduled to go back on July 30th, and I’ll just keep up the pressure.
At one point Joe slapped me on the back and laughed, saying, “I was just kidding about the end of the year last time. It will be ready WAY before that.”
Right.
8/19/10
OK, so it’s been just about 6 weeks since my last visit. Joe has slacked off, again. He has done MAYBE a good week’s worth of work, and that’s again being kind about it. He showed me the two doors, hung, supposedly final-gapped (NOT), demonstrated the electric “poppers”, and had the running board outside tube mocked up for decisions.
I didn’t like it so far out, but we eventually ended up with it there, anyway. We discussed how to mount it, how to design brackets to leave room for exhaust, and Joe gave me a list of things to buy.
I asked when he was going to straighten the bed rails, and he claimed he had. Here are pix of what he claims are done rails:
First, note the curve in the front 24” of the bed.
Now, from the rear:
This is NOWHERE near straight.
The right is also bad:
So I’ll just have to have Hamrick’s redo this crappy stuff once I get the truck back.
I will have the air brake valve to go on the pedal bracket tomorrow, courtesy of Power Brake Bob.
I’ve got to find some turn signals, or make up some to go behind the right two verticals in the grille, find tail lights, an up-high third brake light, make the lift adapter for the rams, and get some questions answered on the rack and pinion mounting:
I don’t remember cutting the bottoms of the mounting tabs. So a call to Scott’s HotRods is in order there.
The right door looks like this:
The front and top gaps in the cab area need to be reduced. Joe begged off saying he had to leave room for weatherstripping. That’s crap. I took Jerry Lee over to Hamrick’s on the way home to show him some REAL door gapping. Jerry now understands my frustration.
I promised to come back next week with the lift adapters and maybe some other stuff.
I am TOTALLY broke, and ALL surplus monies have gone into the #4 rental unit. We’re close to done with that unit, and getting it rented is THE uppermost priority now. Once that is done, I MIGHT have a small amount of spare cash every month.
Here is a kind of cool shot through the bed to the front grille:
