Why People Don't Trust Mechanics, Etc.

Unscrupulous people are everywhere, I’m in the light commercial HVAC industry, around here the field technician gets a % of parts that he can sell to the customer and from listing to them brag at the supply stores there are a lot of people buying stuff they don’t need, especially residential,the procedure is a license to be dishonest, all the big operations do it, it’s sickening .

I can definitely sympathize with the bodywork pain… my struggle is well documented. The trusted individual / serious hobbyist (like Don and others have mentioned, found by word of mouth) is the way to go, as far as I can tell.

Lessons learned. It’s great that you have the skills, space and equipment to work on it yourself. There’s a ton of value in that. The less you have to rely on strangers, the better, unfortunately. One day I hope to learn some of those skills on a less important project.

What really bothered me about this is that the body shop I chose ISN’T a stranger. Far from it. I’ve been doing business with them for 20+ years, and referred them a TON of business.

The owner is a hobbyist too, a GTO guy.

Anyhow, water under the bridge - focused on moving forward instead1

My example involves a Veterinary Clinic. I learned that the owner of the clinic gave the veterinarians 10% of all the tests and other items that they are able to sell to a customer for their pet. When I heard this, I was upset. I have since tried to avoid this clinic but sometimes I go because of how close they are to my home. When I hear the vet recommend a blood test or a _____ test I always ask is it absolutely necessary. Sometimes they say yes, or they give you, "I just want to rule out the possibility of _____. When it seems to be a minor issue with my pet, I just ask them to give me the medicine or shot my pet needs and if that doesn’t work, I’ll come back for additional tests. I use this strategy with all the vet clinics that I use but if my pet is really sick I just pay up because I don’t want to risk losing my pet.

It was a ton of work, but the trunk pan is installed, plug welded, primed, and seam-sealed.

Nobody will be jealous of this at Pebble Beach, but it’s solid and reasonably accurate to the casual observer.

I’d been dreading this task, but now it’s done and I learned a lot

Onward!

Good Job! I am forever encouraging folks to tackle it themselves as handing it to the kid at the local shop can be expensive and disappointing. Much better for your soul than televised sports on the weekend. We just got a new welder and I have been having fun fixing all my cracked 71-73 bucket seat frames. Next up TIG welding the golf ball sized holes in the shock towers of me 67.

I did enjoy the welding

The Groton Submarine base won’t be hiring me anytime soon for my welding skills though. :laughing:

Good morning,

Can someone please post a picture of a 71-73 convertible trunk showing the location of the spare tire mounting bracket?

I think convertible location is different than coupe.

Need to know where in the trunk it’s positioned so I can weld it back on.

Thanks in advance!

Plus you can be saving time.

In 45 minutes. I swapped the summer tires to snow tires that are on rims. Changed the oil on my wife’s Subaru.

Easily 2 - 3 hours running around to do all that elsewhere.

A neighbor keeps asking me why. Then he complains about having to blah blah blah.

We bought a '71 XR-7 convertible in June; I haven’t really done much with it yet. It’s had some prior repair done in the floors and rockers but to me that area of the trunk looks original. However, I’m as far from an expert as you can get so please look at the photos and decide for yourself if this looks right.
Hope it helps and keep up the good work!


Thank you very much! Interesting that your bracket is bolted down, my original was welded to the trunk floor

These pictures are a big help…much appreciated

Tom

Glad to help. I’ve had my own share of frustrating experiences with body shops. So much so that I hate the thought of re-doing another car.

Now that my anger at the bodyshop has faded and been replaced by motivation to see the car ressurected, time to create a project thread in the right forum location.

Tom

I feel your pain. When I was building my '69. My sister’s then bf had just opened a shop, and quoted me 4500 and a month and a half to strip and paint a very solid AZ car. The biggest patch on it was 2x2". He told me he was cutting me a deal since he was just getting started, and that job would hopefully bring him more work by word of mouth…and it could have. Well he had the car for over 6 months (the car sat more than he worked on it), and when he was done, he hands me an invoice for $10k. There were some extras that we had agreed to along the way, but not $5500 worth.
He wouldn’t release the car, and attorneys got involved, and it got ugly. In the end, he got paid $7500 - which is still more than initial price plus the extras, but I got the car back and attorney fees stopped.
Some members here lived that time period with me. It was referred to as “Hostage Cat”.

Did your sister marry the guy anyway? :laughing:

Sorry - haven’t logged in here for a while - but “no”…she eventually dumped him - but not over the car. She didn’t see what my issue was with what was going on.