Would you run these in your engine?

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Originally Posted by dlotz

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Are you serious? A bumper falling off has nothing to do with an oil chage and is a pretty bad example. At least here valves, guides, seats and heads ar all in the same family!

And as far as not accepting a refund, would you pay $2000 for a set of heads, additional $300 for additional work from the same seller to fix the heads, another $135 in shipping for a total of close to $2500 and then be happy with a $2000 refund and then pay an additional $70 to ship the parts back for your refund?

Hopefully you're one of the engineers at Ford that knew the correct end of the screwdriver. I would hate for you to say that about yourself being an engineer for Ford and all.

Dlotz – Although my analogy seems farfetched it is not too far from what happened to my father. My father ran a repair and state inspection station in the State of Pennsylvania. He did a brake job on a car for one of his good customers. 6 months later the customer sold the car. Then the lawsuit came for a bumper that supposedly “fell off the car” from the new customer. This new customer showed up at my dad’s shop with a picture of the bumper that had been unbolted from the car (old GM car, I think a Chevelle that has bumper bolts through the bumper). This guy didn’t even show up with the car, just pictures and was demanding my dad pay him some outrageous amount of money or he was going to turn him into the state police. My dad told him he wasn’t going to pay, it was obvious fraud and to get out of the shop.

This wacko then sued my dad and the previous owner which was eventually thrown out of court. Even the judge who looked at the pictures recognized it as fraud. Problem is that my dad endured this BS for 6+ months of phone harassment and the previous owner of the car had a heart attack and died the night before the trial. Turns out this guy had a long standing history of this kind of stuff and worked his way through many repair shops in the Pittsburgh area pulling this crap. I was about 10 years old at the time and remember this vividly.

My dad ran an old fashion repair shop, no advertising, all word of mouth, and was one of the best and most trusted mechanics in the Pittsburgh area. Unfortunately that didn’t stop people from complaining that their brakes were squeaking after you did an oil change or a host of other things. It was one of the reasons that my dad didn’t want to expand his business and worked off word of mouth to keep his customers to people who he had known personally. Ultimately as society changed through the 80’s and 90’s and everyone had a lawyer on speed dial he decided it just wasn’t worth it anymore. Until you are in the business yourself, it is your livelihood, your reputation, and everything you live and breathe for it is hard to imagine what the small business owner like Keith Craft has to endure on a day-to-day basis. This is probably why after 30 years for him he is seriously thinking of giving up the job that most likely started as a hobby and progressed into a thriving business, one that has supported his family over the years but also at the sacrifice of missing his kids baseball games from time to time so he could finish an engine for a guy 1500 miles away.

So yea……..I grew up knowing the business end of a screw driver, changing tires when I was 5 years old, engine swaps by the time I was 12, and had a father that told me he would kick my ass if I ended up being a mechanic like him and pushed me to make more of my life and get my engineering degree. Unfortunately I worked with too many engineers (a good many of them foreign) who had Masters and PHD’s in engineering and they couldn’t change a tire or their sparkplugs if their life depended on it.

As for the heads and what you paid for in your mind vs. what you got is a matter of perception. Had Keith advertised them as “New Old Stock”, perfect condition, just as they left the factory then you might have a 100% solid argument. Instead I believe that he advertised them (per somewhere in your post) that they were “In great condition”. The difference in perception of you believing you were getting NOS factory parts for “In Great Condition” vs. Keith’s opinion that these 40+ year old heads were in “Great Condition” is where the problem lies.

This is probably one of the reasons that Keith said **** it, just send me the heads and I’ll send you your $2K back. And I’m sure he wasn’t going to eat the extra $300 plus shipping out of pure principle since you should have had a more reasonable expectation of what you were buying for $2000, knowing that you were not buying brand new in the box parts that have been just gathering dust for 40+ years.

Stay at work until 9:00pm tonight, miss your kids baseball game and tucking them in bed for the night all for the love of your company and maybe it will make sense. But until you walk a mile in his shoes you’ll never understand why.

[Frank Messina]

The problem I see here is that the parties came to an amicable settlement arrangement that was mutually agreeable to both parties, and then vendor changed his mind and reneged on the deal. If he had stuck to what he said he was going to do there wouldn't be a thread here.
Frank

[DAVID GAGNARD]

As for the heads and what you paid for in your mind vs. what you got is a matter of perception. Had Keith advertised them as “New Old Stock”, perfect condition, just as they left the factory then you might have a 100% solid argument. Instead I believe that he advertised them (per somewhere in your post) that they were “In great condition”. The difference in perception of you believing you were getting NOS factory parts for “In Great Condition” vs. Keith’s opinion that these 40+ year old heads were in “Great Condition” is where the problem lies.

This is probably one of the reasons that Keith said **** it, just send me the heads and I’ll send you your $2K back. And I’m sure he wasn’t going to eat the extra $300 plus shipping out of pure principle since you should have had a more reasonable expectation of what you were buying for $2000, knowing that you were not buying brand new in the box parts that have been just gathering dust for 40+ years.

Stay at work until 9:00pm tonight, miss your kids baseball game and tucking them in bed for the night all for the love of your company and maybe it will make sense. But until you walk a mile in his shoes you’ll never understand why.

Zacctley what I was thinking........Sitting on the sidelines reading everything, it's obvouis the heads you bought were not up to your expectation. Nothing wrong with that, but at that point, you should have requested a refund and sent the heads back if they were in that bad of shape, after all, you bought a 40 year old set of used cylinder heads, not a NOS set......I think Keith did more than enough to "make it right" and my guess is he saw he was in a no-win situation with you and just decided to call it quits with you. Nothing wrong with that either.......

I was once in the outboard motor/small engine repair business for myself in my younger days... I had inherited a rather large inventory of new and used parts from my grandfathers outboard repair business and can assure you, when I sold a used part,(and I sold a lot of used parts) there was NO warranty, NO nothing, once you paid me, it was yours.....I made that clear upfront and have had a few "encounters" similar to yours........they would bring the part/parts to another mechanic for installation and were told the parts were junk and to return them, and guess what, the other shop always just happen to have the very same part, but in pristine condition to sell to them.............I was cussed a few times, it bothered me at first, but I learned to let it go and the amazing thing, it never hurt my business...

Until you've been in business for yourself and your livelyhood depends on your own work and reputation, you'll never know what it's like.........trust me, I know, I've been in varouis businesses for myself for the last 25 years.......My friends can't understand why I work 70 hours a week and many weekends. For one thing, I love the work I do and love being my own boss and take pride in what I do... They all have state jobs with all the great benefits/vacation and so forth and so on that I don't.......I have to work hard when the work in there and work harder when it's not.......

David

[jhv48]

"No, I would not use any of those in an engine. Are you kidding? Asking for trouble with those cracks, plus valve angles and back-cuts all over the place. Disturbing."

"Good to avoid fragments of metal in the combustion chamber. It does not lead to a happy ending. This is not a theory. Ask me how I know."


"Those would have been junk if FEs hadn't gained so much popularity. I wouldn't trust anything that guy says, he apparently knows nothing about heat expansion...everytime the rockers hit those hot valves they'd split a little more. I would be surprised if they weren't cracked enough already to grab that sweet little bronze liner and stuff it into the port.....just enough to cause the valve to hang open some...maybe enough to touch a piston. What a butt wipe."

"Looks like they ground the valves with a Dremel!"

"The valvesaren't bad for used heads---they are not up to my standards for high performance/racing, but niether are your choice of stock ancient heads."


"are you kidding ?
Those are perfect.....
.....for weight stack pins
good riddance !!!!!!"

"dlotz, unless there are some extenuating circumstances, you got sold crap and then had sunshine blown up your booty. If this person is treating a forum member like this then I say; out him. Let us know so we don't fall down the same open well."

dlotz, it seems everyone agreed with you until Keith outed himself.

Then they regrouped and surrounded "their guy".

Come on guys, the facts speak for themselves. Buyer thought he was buying something "better" than he actually got. Seller was completely confident his merchandise would perform to the buyer's expectations. Miscommunication!
Seller tried to "make it right" but, in his defense, there was nothing "wrong" with the heads as delivered. They just weren't up to the buyer's expectations.

At that point it probably should have ended in a return/refund, but it didn't. Now it's being aired on several forums so no one is happy. Upon reading 2 of the forums, I have no negative feelings towards Keith. I also have none for dlotz. Both are right.

Time to end the pissing match.

Anyone know if a throwout bearing should have constant force applied to it by a hydraulic slave cylinder?

Shiny object!

[Jamo]

I think Jim has pretty well summarized the situation, and there really is nothing else that needs to be added about this particular dispute.

I will say this...several years ago there was a discussion about having some mediation/arbitration services available in our community. Bob Marsh (for you newbies...he used to run Shelby and was the salt of the earth) sought me out and we started talking about how it would run. Unfortunately, not many mfgs/suppliers or their customers were interested. I knew it would work...I was a AAA arbitrator on several pro-pick hot rod builds that usually started with a verbal contract like:

"Hey...build me something that will win Oakland [note: yup...awhile ago]." "Ok...you got any specs?" "Nope...you're the expert."

Just sayin...

[Jamo]

...and no, I'm not looking for business. After doing several of them, I have come to hate the pro-pick crowd.

I always thought a three-member panel would work: Two non-neutrals selected by the parties, and they choose the neutral. All three would render a decision. Confidentiality would be the quid pro quo. For mediations...a single moron (for taking it on) with nothing better to do would be fine.

[olddog]

Dlotz - First thank you for your service.

What a loose loose situation.

One man trying to justify to himself that he was right or at least had a good point. I suspect now regretting where this all ended up. I been there and done that myself.

Another man with 30 years building a buisness and a reputation to consider. The losses at stake seem to be quite lopsided.

I never baught a single part from Keith, but he has helped me with free advise on more than one occasion. Many more have enjoyed the same. I have also seen him go out of his way to raise money for a friends loss of a child, so I know he is a man with a good heart. I have no doubt he is a trustworthy man.

I wish I knew how to undo all of this, but I'm powerless to do so. I really think the thread should be closed before any more damage is done, and even that act may cause more damage. A sad thing.

[dlotz]

Originally Posted by olddog

Dlotz - First thank you for your service.

What a loose loose situation.

One man trying to justify to himself that he was right or at least had a good point. I suspect now regretting where this all ended up. I been there and done that myself.

Another man with 30 years building a buisness and a reputation to consider. The losses at stake seem to be quite lopsided.

I never baught a single part from Keith, but he has helped me with free advise on more than one occasion. Many more have enjoyed the same. I have also seen him go out of his way to raise money for a friends loss of a child, so I know he is a man with a good heart. I have no doubt he is a trustworthy man.

I wish I knew how to undo all of this, but I'm powerless to do so. I really think the thread should be closed before any more damage is done, and even that act may cause more damage. A sad thing.

Olddog

I agree. You know everyone thinks that I started a witch hunt for keith but I never ONCE mentioned his name. If people here actually went back and read the thread they would see that I held back his name numerous times. I used the forum to check myself and see if I indeed was asking/expecting too much from Keith. My thread was titled "would you run these in your engine" not "Look what Keith did to me blah blah." When Everyone chimed in that I had a viable complaint and wanted to know the name, I still didn't mentioned Keiths name in this even then.

It wasn't until after Keith, not me, went on the forum and outed himself. Most of what is here that was stirred up and got ugly was me defending my side of the story for doing EXACTLY what this forum asked me to by informing fellow member as to who did the work on the heads that they saw the pictures of.

I agree that the thread should be closed, I'm not looking for anything from Keith, nor have I been. Not once since this thread rebirthed did I say that I wanted ANYTHING from Keith. I moved on months ago when I had the heads finished up (to my liking) and put them on the engine.

[Jamo]

Done.