Ron L'Herault asks:
> Has anyone ever given over their car to a vocational
> technical school as a body shop project? Seems like it would be a
> relatively inexpensive way to get the body done over.
My dad restored a '63 Saab with a two-cycle, three cylinder engine in the
mid-70's, and he sent it to a vocational school to have the body work done.
He'd just had the engine rebuilt and transmission replaced before he sent
it to the body shop, and he was really looking forward to a like-new car.
When it came time to pick the car up, it looked great, but they had a hell
of a time getting it started. Finally, after a great deal of sputtering and
backfiring, they got it started, but sounded awful. When Dad put it in 1st
and let out the clutch, the car took off... backwards. With a four-cycle
engine, this could never happen; but on a two cycle, by mis-connecting the
sparkplug wires, they'd gotten the engine to run backwards.
At any rate, the quality of the body work was OK. They used too much bondo
and hadn't sufficiently patched rust, so after a few years the door skins
started flapping loose. This was on Long Island, and we lived less than a
mile from the sound, so salt was just hell on all our cars. I suggest that
if you have a vocational school do work for you, be very particular about
what you ask them to do to the car--don't assume that they'll just do what's
right--and be prepared for indifferent work. You may be surprised with some
great work. But I don't think you ought to expect it. I think dad paid
several hundred dollars to cover materials, and all the labor was free,
though, so he had no room to complain.
Kevin Riggs
rkriggs@ingr.com
Huntsville, AL
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