Here's my Jim Carter story:
Not all their fault, but...
On my 59 3200 TF pickup, the "original" 235 cylinder block was so worn
that the rebuilder told me sleeving it would be difficult. I just got
a new job and suddenly had to travel all the time. I found myself
tracking down a rebuildable block long distance from hotel rooms in
foreign countries at odd times of day or night and it was not working
out! So the expeditious thing to do was order a short block from Jim
Carter (ka-ching).
The block arrived soon on a pallet while I was in some god-forsaken
place and I got a message from the rebuilders that the plastic had
torn off and the block had sat in the rain and was covered with dirt.
This rebuilder has one of those shops where you would be lucky if they
let you eat off the floor. They wouldn't want to risk the possibility
of one bread crumb sneaking into an engine job! The rebuilder told me
if it was his engine he would go through the short block and re-
assemble it, cleaning it thoroughly (ka-ching-kaching).
I was on the road and was not perspicacious enough to ask the
rebuilder to check the casting numbers before starting the job. He
finished it and when the mechanic was dropping the engine into the
truck he realized that the original bird-leg mounts did not line up
with any threaded bosses on the engine block.
To make a long story longer, neither Jim Carter's people, nor my
rebuilder, nor the mechanic nor myself ever thought to double check
that we had the right engine block. They had sent me a 1962 block,
which mounts on the front center instead of the side front bird-legs
provided on the 1959.
Finally I returned to the Good Old US of A and visited my truck in the
Bud from Costco, my mechanic created a beautiful steel and rubber
engine mount for the front center and now I have a 1962 235 in my TF.
It runs beautifully but I will never win a truck show if the judges
notice no bird-legs! It's not really a show truck anyway and I
consider the whole thing water under the bridge.
The Jim Carter people win praise for being nice and willing to talk,
and for fast shipping, but they get a "D" for lack of inventory
accuracy and for failing to properly cross reference engine block
numbers to year of manufacturer. That should have been covered in
classic auto parts 101 as far as I am concerned.
Everybody else involved gets a "D" too, for general lameness,
including me, but I learned a lesson (ka-ching). I still do
business happily with Jim Carter, but I will be very careful with ALL
vendors on big ticket items in the future.
jt
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