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1968 c30 "Papa Smurf" prerunner build. links, beams, and turbo

Any butt weld like that needs a strap around the pivot tube. Always.
Yes sir! I'm not impressed one bit with the "prerunner specialty" shop I used to source the beams and steering. I've never even noticed the steering had a butt welded bushing in the steering in the first place. (Which is my own fault for not inspecting more thoroughly) Every other pivot joint is a heim except that one. Why it is idk. But I fully intend to find out why that garbage was sold to me like that. Super unsafe and super sketchy. I am not happy.

Going to his shop tomorrow to figure out why the kit I bought, was made with a butt welded bushing in the steering and the 4 other kits he has built for other local trucks have all heims on them.

Here is photos of my truck compared to the other trucks he has built steering and beams for...(my truck it's the passenger side swinger, top bolt is the drag link that broke and had the butt welded bushing) On ever other vehicle it is easy to see he used heims on every joint.

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Wtf.. coulda killed you simple as that..
I agree with wade, I've never seen a swinger like yours with a bushing?? Does that tube have a bend in it somewhere?
 
I'll just sum up everything that happened today from this.
Hit up shop owner in the morning asked good time he'd be around for me to come in. He replied after 2pm so I said okay.

Showed up at 2:36 and owners gone. No one in the building knows I'm supposed to be there to meet him.

His I guess supervisor??? (Who is I would say a good aquentence of mine( we don't hang out, but we go to all the same truck stuff and have a good relationship I think.

He instantly apologized for that and genuinely I could see that he knew they dropped the ball. Like I said instantly apologized and we began to talk over why that was on my setup and why it ever left the shop like that. The reasonings are too long to go on about but it was a mistake on the supervisors part and he admitted it.

Right after that he said your here now gonna fix it right now. And he did. Cut some new tube. Grabbed some new heims. New bungs. Spacers. Hardware. Everything. He welded the bungs up gave me everything and apologized about 50 more times along the way.

Now. Truck should have never left he shop that way. I should have spotted that myself and known what's was on my truck. 2 big mistakes by 2 people involved. But thankfully nobody was hurt. The truck wasn't wrecked. And the 2 of us learned some hard lessons over it.

What I am happy about is I walked in with the busted parts and within 10 minutes the supervisor had apologized(a lot), fessed up to why it happened and owned it, and was cutting new tube to make a completely new drag link. The way I look at the best way the whole thing could have gone.

Now the owner on the other hand.
For some reason he ditched out and I never saw him in person today even though I was in his shop for 2 hours today. And only after I had been there an hour got a phone call from him. First question out of his mouth "you still at the shop" Me "Yup! Still here" Him "oh okay yah I'm not gonna be able to make it back there today I have things to take care of so what's up"

I began in on everything. Layed it all out. Took about 5 minutes to get it out to hear back "ughhhhh yah sorry dude that sucks"

We talked more but it's all pointless

Who wants to see these things in the trash and see what @Deuling and myself can dream up this winter

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Glad the supervisor fessed right up to the mess. Sucks the owner ducked out and was unable to take his chewing face to face. He should have been there and taken care of it.

Still don't make any sense that everything else they put out had heims and not yours.
 
Out of parts and wanted it gone. See it so many times.

I am dealing with PSC on a faulty steering box on a 2015 JK. They got it Tuesday of last week. Warrantied failure. They cracked it open today. I have called everyday because it was supposed to be a one day turn around. They were supposed to call back today, again. Never heard a word. They suck.

At least your guy stepped up and made it right.

Customer service is a dying commodity.
 
Companies also fail to realize the impact social media can have. At least the important guy was cool and made it right right then. Owners are useless individuals alot of times.

Dealing with a similar situation on a SxS. Stupid golf carts. Anyways a 800$ aluminum steering rack was machined incorrectly, causing it to over steer and break both CV axles. Owner of company is a HUGE douche, and his only answer to any and everything is "we ran it at KOH".

I don't give a F about KOH honestly. Sure it's great you dragged your unit there and raced. Amazing. But your machining 100% caused a massive steering failure, and now the dipshit doesn't want to cover the cost of the other failed parts, because it ran KOH. Once. And lost.
 
Glad you got the right parts. Glad the failure wasn't worse. Glad the driver and any passengers are okay.

David
 
I'm going to say it. We see a lot of stuffed suspension pictures. Where's the air time?
Yah yah yah. It's not by choice believe me. 2 main reasons

1.) The dunes are very weird this year. So many new go fast trucks hitting the scene almost the whole place is whoops, and most of the hill peaks no longer have lips to jump as they are rounded over smooth from the go fast traffic

2.) The place has been the busiest it's ever been this summer. Most of the good areas that have lips or jumps are always blind landing jumps in high traffic areas. Meaning it's really hard to get enough spotters to clear a long enough take off approach and landing for most of these jumps.

I'm headed up Fri and Sat this week with some other prerunner friends in hopes the dunes are finally gonna be clear enough to find some jumps.


Also I will ad this. I do not mean this to come across as bostfull or bragging. Because honestly and truely idk how it works so well, but Papa Smurf is the "King of the whoops" (atleast here in MI). Story time for an example. I'm sure your familiar with Funco cars. Well there is a Funco car that runs arund here with a twin turbo 427 ls7 in it. A arm front with king coils and bypasses. Trailing arm rear coils and bypasses on paddles, gorgeous car. Raced him thru one of the bigger whoop pads we have. Smurf came out the other side with the Funco car about 1/2-3/4 of the way thru the whoops. I can tell you it wasn't my N/A 4.8 that let me walk away from him.

The Truck works so good thru the whoops and it's so fun that even after 8 trips the first thing I do when I get in the dunes is go straight to the whoop pads. Working on a little video project that will help show what talking about.
 
I have dealt with Funco cars. Look good. Need to be reworked to make them work. Sounds like he bought it done and just drives it.
 

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