Would you run these in your engine?

[Keithc8]

I will tell you who did the heads. I did, Keith Craft, does that make evryone happy. I just love all of these know it all people. No one has been able to make this guy happy and I have talked with several that have tried to work with him. He wants me to do something for him after he gets on these sites and post all of this crap. Real classy for sure.
I have no problem standing behind those heads for two years or 24,000 miles. I have done a few heads and engines in my time. I wish electricians, plumbers and other people in business had to put up with all of these know it all people like you have to in the engine business.
There I have been outed, big deal. I offered to buy the heads back from this guy already. This **** has gotten just stupid on these sites. Think you are going to get something out of me now, good luck. And you wonder why anyone would want to be in the engine business with all of the Genius's we have out there.

Later, Keith Craft

[Keithc8]

Oh by the way it is ok when Keith gets screwed on stuff that he trades for from customers and it has happened plenty.

[dlotz]

Originally Posted by Keithc8

Oh by the way it is ok when Keith gets screwed on stuff that he trades for from customers and it has happened plenty.

Keith

First of all I did not mention you or slam your name on the forum. You can clearly see that despite numerous requests to out you I did not and gave you ample time to come to a reasonable agreement. YOU said that you would refund me $300 and send me a new set of valves. We agreed that was acceptable, but yet you did not send the refund or parts.

I posted these pictures/topic on the forum to determine weather or not I was indeed expecting too much from you and these heads. I wanted to get a non-biased opinion. And second, if these were indeed a set of heads that you received on a trade from someone else then it is YOUR RESPONSIBILITY to make sure they are a good product if you are going to turn around and sell them!

Why in gods name would ANYONE put a set of questionable heads on a rare and vintage engine? Warranty or not, if the heads did fail.....would your warranty cover all the other damage that could have occurred? Plus the time to pull fix and rebuild the engine afterward?

Bottom line is that you got caught trying to make a buck on a set of, as you claim, traded in heads. When we called you out on the fact the heads were not as advertised you did a half ass job to repair them hoping that I wouldn't know what I was looking at or talking about. You even tried to bad mouth my engine builder and said that "he was trying to get money out of me and didn't know what he was talking about."

You were more interested in making a dollar off me than actually providing me with a quality product. Now if these heads were cheap then maybe I would understand “you get what you pay for,” but at $2000 I would have expected these to be in the condition you originally advertised them in.

The proof of your questionable work is in this thread through the multiple comments from these members, the ones you slam as being experts that should go into business for them selves. These forum members have provided me with better service and answers to my questions than you certainly have and I haven’t paid them for their business! I cannot believe that you have the audacity to tell off these forum members who I am sure at one time or another were, or were considering, to be one of your customers.

You own a business, people PAY YOU to do what they cannot or do not want to do them selves. When you fail to deliver a quality product it is not the customers fault for complaining/questioning it is his right. Weather or not he is correct is the question, and from the looks of these pictures and comments on all the other threads from other "PAYING CUSTOMERS" I was right to question your work.

[dlotz]

Ok

Many of you have asked for me to reveal this vendor so that you do not have the same experience.

***************WARNING WARNING WARNING****************
The following post may be seen by some as DRAMA, but I am going to post THE ENTIRE story with emails just to avoid the “well that’s just your side of the story” excuses. If you are not interested in this info then please just pass it by and do not comment, but I now feel that I have to defend my side of the story. The emails show how this vendor treated me as a customer and how he tried to discredit me, my engine builder, other forum members who posted comments and everyone else who agreed that his work was not acceptable. Again, if you don't want to read or hear it then please just pass it by without comment. Others may be interested on the vendors comments.
************************************************** ******

I bought these heads from Keith Craft back in October of 2006 for right around $2000 after seeing them listed on ebay.
I contacted Keith over the phone for the sale because the heads did not sell on ebay. We discussed my intended use for a very rare STD Bore side-oiler and many other vintage std/std parts. He assured me that these were in great shape and ideal for my build, and that I would not have any issues running these heads.

After receiving the heads I media blasted the paint off of them to make sure there were not any issues that could be hidden by the paint. I found a small crack on the #2 exhaust ear and sent the following email chain:

From: Me
Sent: Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Keith
We cleaned off the black spray paint this afternoon and discovered a crack in one of the exhaust port runners by one of the spark plug
holes(I have attached a few pictures). Not sure if it needs to be fixed
but it did raise a concern. Any thoughts?

From: Keith Craft
Date: Tuesday, October 31, 2006
This is nothing to worry about and will not cause a problem. You can drill a little hole at each end and grind a little small groove along
the crack and then fill in with JB weld. When dried just flat file and sand it and it will look like new. Thanks, Keith Craft

From: Me
Sent: Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Keith
I don't like the idea of JB weld. Weld yes but I don't like JB
stuff. I am going to have a shop here look at it and determine a cost for repair. Maybe see if it might be a good candidate for a spray weld. However I will look at getting this repaired professionally and with that
there will be a cost. Are you willing to cover the cost for repair to a
reasonable extent? Let me know your thoughts.

From: Keith Craft
Date: Thursday, November 2, 2006
I am sorry but I forgot that I did see the pictures that you sent
over. If you will send the head back I can stitch the crack up with
a cast iron plug system that we use all of the time on cracks like this. I
can do it in one day and get it back to you the next. Thanks, Keith

From: Me
Sent: Tuesday, November 8, 2006
Keith
Head is on it’s way to you today

From: Keith
Date: Thursday, November 9, 2006
Not a problem, we will get it fixed as soon as we get it back. Sorry for
the problem and delay.
Thanks, Keith

After receiving the head back the crack was repaired. Now you might say 2006! Holy crap that was 4 years ago, anything could have been done to those heads? Well, shortly after (approx 3 months) getting the head back for the crack/weld repair I was deployed to Iraq for six months between February and July 2007. After returning home I continued collecting more parts for the build until 5 months later when I was AGAIN deployed back to Iraq from December 2007 to November 2008. After returning from my second deployment I again continued to purchase/budget the remaining parts for the next year and we finally began building the motor in October 2009. I went to a well known and very accomplished FE engine builder here locally in the Detroit area. Without dragging his name into all of this I will just say that he has been featured in numerous magazines, engine masters challenges and noted as one of the top builders when it comes to FE’s.

There were a few months there that were taken up by block machining, crank inspection, ordering the custom pistons/rods etc etc. So when he came to the heads I asked my Engine Builder to tear the heads down and give them a good cleaning and inspection because I did sand blast them and wanted to make sure there wasn’t any media in the heads. When my builder looked over the heads he was concerned that all the valve stems were at different heights which would cause ordering all different push rods and would just not really be an ideal set up for a high performance engine. After informing me of the issue I called Keith on the phone. I knew it had been a few years since I purchased the heads, but I explained that I had been deployed to Iraq twice since that and they we were just now starting to get under way with the build. He was cool on the phone and didn’t want to take another builders word on his craftsmanship as he believed that the heads were still useable (this was prior to the margin being cut down when the only problem was unleveled valve seats), but he agreed to look at the heads himself. And started this email chain:

From: Me
To: Keith Craft
Sent: Thursday, November 05, 2009
Keith
Thanks for calling me back so promptly and taking my call. I
appreciate your understanding that I am not an expert in this realm which is why I try and make sure to do my business with shops that have high reputations and credibility such as yourself.
Please understand that I am not discrediting your work by any means,
nor is my Engine Builder for that fact. I completely understand you wanting to see the heads and not take someone else’s word for it as I would expect the same if it were me. I think the confusion may be in how I understood the heads as described on ebay when I purchased them. Yes you did advertise them as being in “great condition,” and “will make a great addition to restoration project, bid with confidence", which I am sure they are useable in most applications.
However, since I am using them in a high performance build with some pretty valuable original components I want to make sure that there are absolutely no issues of concern, which is why I bothered you with so many questions where we discussed my build in detail before purchasing the heads to begin with.
After talking with you I had the confidence in your word that I would
not have any issues with these heads for my build. When I reiterated those build plans to my Engine Builder, I told him my goal was for him
to build a solid/bullet proof motor built for longevity. Below are the
items which my Engine Builder was concerned with.
1- The seat heights relative to the decks are all at different heights.
2- Some of the exhausts are really sunken into the head, while other intakes have had seats replaced and are pretty "high".
3- The relative tip heights are all at different heights – geometry and/or pushrod length would be a mess.
4- We can re-use the valves themselves, the guides appear to be OK,
and we can likely re-use the springs and hardware.
5- Recommend we should at least get new valve seats for all of the exhausts and at least one of the intakes just to get them into a consistent workable condition.
Again, my Engine Builder had my specific build in mind and made these recommendations in regard to my specific build intentions. So I would like to send the heads back to you, unassembled as we discussed, for you to take a look at them. When you receive them, please take a look at them and let me know your thoughts/opinion on how well they can/will fit my application and/or what we should do to them to make them the best fit. Thanks again for looking at these and I apologize for the long delay, but those multiple deployments prevented me from starting the build sooner.

From: Keith Craft
Date: Thursday, November 5,
Not a problem, I will check them out when they get here and let
you know what I find. I will check the valve heights and go from there.

The next week, when I didn’t hear anything back from Keith, I called him on the phone to inquire about the status. He had already started the work to fix them and said that he had already put just about 6 hours in to the job and was almost finished. I was worried that he started the work without a quote and approval from me. He said that he would only charge me for his labor at $300 to install all new seats and swirl the bowls. He then said that he wasn’t sure if these were a set of heads that he received in as a trade that they didn’t inspect very well or what, but he would have them out to me in the mail that week. I thanked him for understanding that I am not a heads expert and ensured him that I or my engine builder, were insulting his craftsmanship, but more that I was holding him to the original item condition as described and advertised when I bought the heads from him. I understand that things happen, but glad that he was willing to help and fix the heads.

When we got the heads back my Engine Builder called me to look at the heads as they came back from the shop and we found new problems that were not there before:
1-The guides were all cracked, possibly from resetting the thin wall guide depth to adjust for the new valve job and pressed them in with too large of a punch, or too far?
2-The valve margins were cut down on the exhaust valves to correspond to the valve seats.

[dlotz]

It appeared almost as if they new we wanted the valve stems to be in line and just did the shortest amount of work to get them there, this causing other problems. Here is the last email chain:

From: Me
To: "Keith Craft"
Sent: Monday, March 22
Keith
I am not sure what is going on here, but I am at the point of complete
disappointment with these heads. Where the valve stems did look pretty level we discovered a nightmare when we went to assemble the heads. The exhaust seats were still all out of wack and the adjustment made to get the valve stems at equal lengths was achieved by cutting down the valve margin on the exhaust valves! Some of them to
the point where there is absolutely NO margin left in them at all. I just don’t understand why anyone would cut down the valve margin on a valve. It’s the kind of stuff you would expect from an Autozone or NAPA machine shop, but not a high performance shop that has been building high performance engines.
In addition to the exhaust valves being destroyed and completely useless, every last one of the valve guides were cracked! And not just slightly cracked, some of them were split so bad that the crack propagated past the seat area where it could easily be seen at a distance.
To date I have endured the added cost of sending one head back to you to weld a crack in the exhaust runner ($45 shipping), Another $70 in shipping plus $300 for the second repair for you to fix the valve seats, and now I need to replace all of the exhaust seats, exhaust valves, valve guides and do another complete valve job. I am looking at another $750 just to get these heads in the “Great” condition you advertised them being in the first place.
I believe you know me as a pretty fair and easy going person form our
previous discussions and I am not trying to be a Jerk here, but this is
just unacceptable and has been a very very disappointing and costly expense. I have attached a few pictures to show you what we received and what we had to deal with.
I do not want to ship these back and forth across the country again and delay my build any longer, not to mention, run the risk of them getting damaged or lost in transit. I am going to have the work done here locally by a third party shop and I would appreciate you standing by your reputation that is talked about on all the forums and reimburse me for a majority, if not all, of these added costs that I have had to endure in order to get these heads into the great condition you advertised them to be in. Let me know what you want to do.


From: Keith Craft
Sent: Monday, March 22
Just let me buy the heads back. Everybody has an opinion and I am not going to get into a deal with this guy on the heads. He has his opinion and I have mine. I do not know if you have even seen the heads and I know that the valves have not been cut down beyond being used. I am just as sick as you are about this deal and do not need the hasle. I will buy the heads back for the original price and that is more than most people would do in this business world for sure. I am sure that the guy wants to sell you some heads.
I did those heads myself and know that there is nothing there that will
cause a problem. I have been doing NHRA Super Stock and Stocker heads that have set national records and still have national records. I am tired of this guy you are working with so just send them back. I am tired of him bashing my stuff that he does not know what he is talking about. Opinions are like ass holes, everybody has one but that does not make them all right. I think this guy has filled you full of crap.
Thanks, Keith Craft

From: Keith Craft
Sent: Monday, March 22
Looked at the pictures and I see nothing that would have caused a problem. I bronze guide liner is what the guide is riding against and the crack would look the same 20,000 miles down the road. [b]I see nothing wrong with the valves that I can see. I will not pay to have anyone else work on the heads. I will only buy them back at what I sold them to you for. That is the deal so put all of the parts in a box and send them back to me and I will re-fund your money but I will not pay any other shop any money to work on the heads. This is their opinion against mine. If you want your money back just send the heads back.
Thanks, Keith Craft

From: Keith Craft
Sent: Monday, March 22
After thinking about this I think someone is trying to make some money of you. I would have given you a 2 year, 24,000 mile warranty on these heads to work fine and give no problems. Why in the world would someone need to put new seats in the heads, that is just stupid. I just did that on the exhaust side. I do not think they know what they are looking at or just need to make some money of you. Like I said there is no problem with the exhaust valves and this is what they are telling you because you do not know about cylinder heads You just
need to buy some from them and then they will be happy.
Thanks, Keith

To: Keith Craft
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Keith
Yes, I have seen the heads and I do not appreciate you insulting my
intelligence in saying that I do not know what I am talking about. I am not just some guy in the Army that opens his wallet for a turn key car, I do have a Masters degree in Mechanical Engineering and have been working on cars for quite a few years. Yeah, I don't do head work like you may do with NHRA titles in all, but then again, I'm not running in the NHRA with this car!
It doesn't take a seasoned veteran head shop to see that the valve margin is too shallow on some of those valves and that they would fail shortly after being run. And just to let you know, I went to three different shops (that's what third party means) and they all said the same thing. The first person I asked for a non-biased opinion was my cousin that heads up GM's Performance Group Testing and Engineering Division, so he wasn't looking to make money from me.
It is apparent that this is just going to start a he said she said battle
and won't go anywhere. I'm not going to send the heads back to you to buy back at the original sales price, I am already $400 past the "original price" as it is!
I contacted you professionally as one of your customers and you failed to respond in the same manner. Lets just part our ways, call it over and know that I, nor anyone else I talk to, will be bringing any future business your way.

From: Keith Craft <shellyc@iocc.com>
Date: Monday, March 22, 2010
That sounds good to me.
Good luck, Keith

After that response, I posted the pictures on the forum, just to see if I was indeed expecting too much. After the run on the forums I sent Keith this email:

From: Me
Date: Thursday, March 25, 2010
Keith
I was just wondering if you had a chance to reconsider your decision? I can see/understand you not willing to pay for another shop's work, but are you even willing to consider at least refunding the $370 for the last repair bill (plus shipping) you charged me and maybe even the replacement costs for the new parts I had to purchase?
There seems to be a lot of buzz throughout the community about this topic and I need to know what your final stance is and weather or not you are willing to negotiate/discuss.
Let me know

From: Keith Craft
Date: Friday, March 26, 2010
There is always a lot of opinions on anything posted on the internet. I
have seen the things that you have posted and you always have the people that know everything chiming in. They all need to go into business since they are all so smart. Personal I felt very good about the heads when they left and even did some extra port work on the bowls for you. I also have talked with people and several have had the same thing happen on the guide deal and ran them just like me with no problem what so ever. When ever you take another shops work somewhere else you normally get these kinds of results.
I see no reason to replace any seats in the heads at all and they will
probably screw them up and make the valve job deeper or leave sharp edges where they install the seats. I would put new exhaust valves in and if I replace those few guides just touch up those seats. You might have .020 difference in the seat heights at the most and you can trim the stem to equalize the length on the top end. We cut the valves all different thicknesses on original heads to equalize the ccs in the chambers because we do not want to sink any of the seats that we do not have to. This is pretty common on factory heads even when the seat are the same height because the chambers will vary in the head. The original 428CJ head always came out with one chamber smaller because the casting had the top of the chamber higher than the rest. We always had to run a thinner valve in this chamber. No matter what you were told the valves would not have caused hot spots on the head.
Here is what I will do to try and make you happy is give you 300.00 and a set of new exhaust valves. You have already been trying to make me look bad on the internet and this will not help that any. Since the damage is done and you say that you will only say bad things about us and tell other people to not do business with us I do not know why I would do anything at this point. It is always ok for me to get screwed over by customers trading me stuff and such but if I get anything out that someone else thinks is bad then I am the bad guy. But I always try to make everyone happy and have for 25 years now. No matter what your other people say and tell you there would have not been any problems with the heads or I would have not sent them out.
Thanks,
Keith Craft

From: Me
Date: Friday, March 26, 2010 7:29 PM
Keith
That will be fine.
You can send me a money order, Paypal to this address, <OMIT ADRESS> or credit back onto my CC if you still have the number. You can send the valves to me or just comp me the value of the valves and not send any valves at all. It's your call.
Dan

From: Keith Craft <shellyc@iocc.com>
Date: Saturday, March 27, 2010 0:29
I will do and I am sorry for the problems you have had. If I do any original heads in the future I will make sure that all the bases are covered and I know what the customer expects to see. I hope this will make things right between us and that we can put this behind us.
Thanks,
Keith Craft

So a week went buy without receiving the refund or valves so I sent this email:

From: Me
To: Keith Craft
Sent: Monday, April 05, 2010 8:52 PM
Keith
Did you send the refund and valves yet? I haven't seen anything on this end
yet.
Let me know

To which I received this reply:
From: Keith Craft
Date: Saturday, April 6, 2010
I will get it handled today. I had not heard from you and wanted to make
sure that was what you wanted to do.
Thanks, Keith

Now I don’t understand the “I did not hear from you” comment because he replied to my email on March 26th that told him were to send the money order and valves to!

It is clear that Keith has decided NOT to refund my money. The heads have been completely rebuilt with the correct valve job and new bronze valve guides made. They are on the engine and running strong, and my peace of mind that they will not fail was worth the extra $700 expense.

So there it all is, in black and white direct emails between Keith and myself with nothing to hide. Hopefully this will help anyone else considering doing business with Keith Craft. I am sure he has done right by other customers, but he did not treat me that well. Maybe it was because I only spent $2000 and not tens of thousands for a car or complete motor.

Again I am sorry for this LONG post, but I hope this helps someone else in the future.

[Keithc8]

It seems that you have a lot of extra time to do this stuff. Maybe you can get one of the guys that knows so much on these sites to help you with the heads. And yes If the heads would have caused youa problem I would have taken care of those problems.
The problem is people think they know when they do not know. opinions are like ass holes, everybody has one. Your heads would have been fine or I would not have sent them to you. I guess we have a diffeence of opinion and it happens all the time in the world. Just because you think the heads have a problem does not mean that they will not do the job just fine.
I am done with this ****, if you want to talk with me any more you can call me. I tried to buy the heads back before you got into all of this crap. Posting on forums is not going to determine what I do or do not do.

[Jerry Clayton]

Dlotz---

I have posted about the pics that you put up and not only me but other long time racers and mechanics have pointed out that what you had would work and not cause any problem but you ignored those posts. The facts as you have so described them---- you really, really want to run 50 year old heads on your car and you haven't given up on the idea. good for you----but, you refuse to listen or heed any advice from people that have a long and first hand relationship with these or any other engines from the era---

I certainly hope that the reason your radiator cap leaks is that you simply don't know how to twist it and not your correct vintage heads leaking

Jerry

[Jerry Clayton]

I also love the way you have posted emails out of sequence to make it more dramatic

[slider701]

Originally Posted by Jerry Clayton

Dlotz---

I certainly hope that the reason your radiator cap leaks is that you simply don't know how to twist it and not your correct vintage heads leaking

Jerry

But Jerry..........he has a Masters in Mechanical Engineering so I'm sure that somewhere in 6+ years of engineering school someone taught him "Righty-Tighty, Lefty-Loosey"

Of course from my 15+ years of working for Ford as an engineer my experience was that most engineers (not all) with Master's degrees didn't know which end of a screwdriver to use.

This post is a prime example of why my father shut down his auto repair business of 30+ years. He got tired of wacko customers who were never happy that their bumper fell off after you did an oil change and blamed you for it......yet they were never willing to take a refund........they wanted a new car out of the deal.

[jhv48]

Maybe I'm wrong here, but everyone jumped on this guy's wagon UNTIL they found out that it was Keith Craft that was the retailer.

Now those supporters are jumping ship like a bunch of wharf rats on a sinking boat.

The original complaint seems valid to me. Keith's remarks make sense too. The head, according to Keith, will work just fine and he will stand behind any engine damage should it fail.

However, that is not good enough for the customer. Don't think it would be good enough for me either, but that's just me.

They both have time and $$$ invested here. Take the money and return the heads and call it a draw. My impression is that the customer expected more than he actually got. So, return them and move on. Both of you!

[blykins]

Slider, same experience here. I'm a BSME and the guys I went to school with didn't have any hands-on experience at all. But most of them were book smart. Problem is, nothing ever turns out like it should in theory.

[dlotz]

Originally Posted by Jerry Clayton

Dlotz---


I certainly hope that the reason your radiator cap leaks is that you simply don't know how to twist it and not your correct vintage heads leaking

Jerry

Jerry

You will be happy to know that the radiator cap was not the correct cap for the expansion tank in the end. The supplier sent me the incorrect cap, labeled as the correct cap, which is why I posted here to verrify it was indeed the correct cap (by part number) or not.

And thank you for pointing out the email date, I corerect that too so as not to confuse you with an email that was 5 days out of order.

Out of all the posts about the heads only you and one other guy mentioned that the heads wouldn't be an issue. And even the other guy said that it wasn't ideal, but useable. So there you have it "all the advice I ignored about the heads being ok" were from you and one other guy.

[Jerry Clayton]

Dlotz

Post some pics in your gallery---

And please have the sparkplug wires on correctly!

Jerry

[dlotz]

Originally Posted by slider701

But Jerry..........he has a Masters in Mechanical Engineering so I'm sure that somewhere in 6+ years of engineering school someone taught him "Righty-Tighty, Lefty-Loosey"

Of course from my 15+ years of working for Ford as an engineer my experience was that most engineers (not all) with Master's degrees didn't know which end of a screwdriver to use.

This post is a prime example of why my father shut down his auto repair business of 30+ years. He got tired of wacko customers who were never happy that their bumper fell off after you did an oil change and blamed you for it......yet they were never willing to take a refund........they wanted a new car out of the deal.

Slider

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]

Originally Posted by jhv48

Maybe I'm wrong here, but everyone jumped on this guy's wagon UNTIL they found out that it was Keith Craft that was the retailer.

Now those supporters are jumping ship like a bunch of wharf rats on a sinking boat.

The original complaint seems valid to me. Keith's remarks make sense too. The head, according to Keith, will work just fine and he will stand behind any engine damage should it fail.

However, that is not good enough for the customer. Don't think it would be good enough for me either, but that's just me.

They both have time and $$$ invested here. Take the money and return the heads and call it a draw. My impression is that the customer expected more than he actually got. So, return them and move on. Both of you!

Thanks Jim

And I have moved on. I didn't want to give the heads back to keith at a $400 loss, so I invested another $750 to get the heads in better condition where I was comfortable putting them on my engine. I figured I would have to spend $500 in machining or so on a NIB set of heads, not to mention further delays, anyway. I saw it as wash and decided it would just be faster to add a little more money to these heads instead of buying and machining a NIB set of heads. Besides, they are date code matched to my origional block, crank and carbs. Plus they fit my "origionalitly" build plan.

Everyone asked me to post this vendors name and ,as you say, jumped on the band wagon and agreed that I had a viable complaint. Yet I refused to post his name and I didn't for the longest time to allow Keith and myself the time to work this out. We agreed for the $300 refund and new valves and I still didn't post his name.

Must I point out that Keith outed himself? I was happy and waiting for the $300 refund and new set of valves, but he never sent those.

AND I STILL didn't post his name!

[SoTxButler]

dlotz

Obviously you think this is a bad deal. Not debating all the issues along the way, my experience is that when you find yourself in something that YOU think is a bad deal......YOU cut your losses and move on.

In my opinion, this is where your education has failed you. I have never found myself in what I thought was a bad deal and then come out whole. It just doesn't happen. There is always a cost. You should have taken the $2,000 when it was offered and called it a day. Remember, it is YOUR OPINION that the 40 year old heads should be on the motor. Most of us would not give you one extra penny for that. Most of us might give you more with a nice set of proper aluminum heads with the proper porting and polishing.

I have also read your post about the expansion tank cap. You are rowing your own boat....but you may be carrying this "original look" thing farther than necessary to have a wonderful car that your fellow enthusiasts will enjoy and admire. I promise you that no one but YOU will give a damn about that radiator cap.

Enough said....!!!!!!

[DAVID GAGNARD]

Originally Posted by slider701

But Jerry..........he has a Masters in Mechanical Engineering so I'm sure that somewhere in 6+ years of engineering school someone taught him "Righty-Tighty, Lefty-Loosey"

Of course from my 15+ years of working for Ford as an engineer my experience was that most engineers (not all) with Master's degrees didn't know which end of a screwdriver to use.

This post is a prime example of why my father shut down his auto repair business of 30+ years. He got tired of wacko customers who were never happy that their bumper fell off after you did an oil change and blamed you for it......yet they were never willing to take a refund........they wanted a new car out of the deal.

This ****e happens everyday. Back when I worked in an auto body shop, we replaced a door on an older,high mileage car and did an overall paint job on it, a week later, it jumped timing and ruined the engine, owner wanted us to replace the engine out of our pocket, told him, no way, he claimed his "expert" determined that the carb had sucked in the paint fumes during painting (enclosed/ventelated spray booth) which caused it to jump timing A WEEK LATER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Similar things happened at least once a month.....I quit counting the burnt headlights/taillights we replaced after doing a paint job just to make the customer happy.........

Dats one reason why I'm NO LONGER in that business!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

David

[Bobcat]

This has also been posted on Fordfe.com .

[jhv48]

Starting to look like a dog pile here.

[dlotz]

Originally Posted by SoTxButler

dlotz

Obviously you think this is a bad deal. Not debating all the issues along the way, my experience is that when you find yourself in something that YOU think is a bad deal......YOU cut your losses and move on.

In my opinion, this is where your education has failed you. I have never found myself in what I thought was a bad deal and then come out whole. It just doesn't happen. There is always a cost. You should have taken the $2,000 when it was offered and called it a day. Remember, it is YOUR OPINION that the 40 year old heads should be on the motor. Most of us would not give you one extra penny for that. Most of us might give you more with a nice set of proper aluminum heads with the proper porting and polishing.

I have also read your post about the expansion tank cap. You are rowing your own boat....but you may be carrying this "original look" thing farther than necessary to have a wonderful car that your fellow enthusiasts will enjoy and admire. I promise you that no one but YOU will give a damn about that radiator cap.

Enough said....!!!!!!

Russ

I agree with you and I did move on. Everyone on the forum(s) asked me to post his name so thatthey could avoid him simply after looking at the pictures.

I didn't post his name because Keith and I were working it out. I had moved on and already had the heads fixed (by another shop) and on the engine when he outed himself on the forum.

Everyone wanted to know who did the work and now they know. And now Everyone seems to think that I am after a refund but this is long and over with and I have moved on and not looking for a refund. It's pretty clear Keith isn't going to send the refund he said he would, he even emailed me and told me he wouldn't three weeks later.