Thread: '37 Oze build

Tweet

Sorry to have offended some of you with a joke-guess I should have posted that on the joke page-

However-----on a thread of ongoing questionable teckniques by the oringinator who seemed to be obsessed with slamming OZ for their quality of work and then doing repairs or mods to it that were even more questionable and refusing to consider ANY advice from any people in the world of building customs or race cars because he was a NUCLEUR engineer ----------well make it disappear----

Originally Posted by rspears

So this is where we are now? Making jokes about a profession that requires not only a college degree, but also passing a proficiency test in order to use the title "engineer". I'm also backing away from this one.

Certainly was not my intention to incenuate education is bad, far from that. And I didn't mean to disrespected engineers, or anyone else for that mater. I let the thought of someone getting hurt over foolishness get the better of me, my apologies to all.

I was always told, "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all"!

I've erased most of my past posts, so I'll correct some misconceptions. I am a mechanical engineer - BSME from Kansas State University, 1981 (at age 28). I worked at Lyons Manufacturing Co. in electroplating, welding and machining from 1971 until 1981. It's a small company in my small home town of Lyons, Kansas. Peak employment was about 180 people, back in the 70's. It's still in business - see the link below. When I was there we made a lot of parts for jet aircraft. They had a 6 spindle milling machine, large enough to mount six steel forgings that weighed about 700 lbs each. We whittled those down to 90 lbs or less, to make a landing gear component. We also made components for the M16 rifle at the rate of about 30,000 a month, for many years.

Information About Our Company


I worked at a federal government owned facility that makes all of the non-nuclear mechanical components for nuclear weapons from 1981 to 2003. This plant was Bendix Kansas City Division in 1981. It later changed to Allied-Signal and again to Honeywell Federal Manufacturing and Technology. Peak employment was over 7,000 people, with about 3,000 engineers. That plant was recently decommissioned and replaced by a new 700 million dollar facility that is called the National Security Campus.

https://honeywell.com/sites/aero-kcp...echanical.aspx

I'm also proficient at carpentry. I've done a lot of deck building and home remodeling over the years and acted as my own general contractor on the home that I now live in. If needed, I can and have done every single task required to build a home. With my new home, I finally got to put in some of my own touches, like high energy efficiency and an industrial staircase, that I built myself. I find it amusing that some folks here think that I'm not smart enough to use a tape measure to check my frame for squareness or adjust the rear end so it's square to the frame. It's not rocket science.

My name is Tim Taylor owner of Oze Rod Shop, I have been reading everything that Dave S has had to say about us. First thing I want to say is within the first 6-8 weeks of Dave getting his car he started complaining about a little bit of everything. I offered to give his money back on his car and pay shipping to return it to me, he did not want to do that. The funny thing is he never mentioned that to anyone on Club Hotrod. I have been in business for 20 years have never encountered anybody like him. I read the comments for about 2 years. People have told him to sue me, send it back, call the attorney general office, we have been a member of the BBB for several years and have an excellent rating. When we bought this company out of Canada their recommendation was to outsource fiberglass, grills and welding, we had so many problems when we outsourced. I could talk about that all day long. It was like they were setting us up for failure. Yes we had gel coat problems, we worked through it. I have been building fiberglass cars for 20 years, I haven't ever had a fiberglass car from another manufacture that didn't have problems including pin holes, bad fitting parts, thin gel coat, motor mounts welded in wrong place, I can go on and on.
We have changed 3 things on these cars and frames since we bought the company. Gel coat is now black, top of doors on 5W coupe, sedan and roadster are thicker due to cracks we had at front and rear of door where glass passed through, we also made trans mount removable. Oze early on made trans mounts removable and was incorporated into tube coming across frame but when you took it out of frame and tweaked it, then you had to get a porta power to push rails out to put it back in. All of our fixtures, molds and cad system is all the same haven't changed nothing.
I read comments that our molds are wore out, most ridiculous thing i have ever heard.
Anybody is welcome to come to our shop and spend a week and watch us build frames, bodies, parts for body and watch us assemble these cars. They are hand built hot rods. I hate when they are called kit cars. For 10 years all we did was build turnkey Oze cars, never had a clue what was involved in this process until we started building them. I wanted to keep these cars alive and help keep this industry going. I have had so many people thank me for buying the company so they could get glass, windshields and body parts for wrecked and damaged cars and help them build their cars. In closing of this letter Mr. Shepard said that I would not help him, when he did call he knew more than me, the really sad thing he has spent a lot of time calling other hot rod shops telling them our cars are junk. I think they call that slander. I would call him an educated idiot but I am not that way.
Another thing you complained about was the structure in the doors being in the wrong place, that's the same place they have been since day one. You also said metal was raw, always has been raw all through the car, we have never primed or covered with paint, we had no reason to.
You also said you had Alumicraft making you a grill, we tried that to we gave him our fixtures at Louisville in 2009 he had them for 8 months made 1 grill it was supposed to be chromed but when we got it back it wasn't and was so flimsy. We went and picked up our fixtures drove 1000 miles round trip and he charged us more than we sold them for. So good luck with your Alumicraft grill.
Reno Gagon made and designed all of these cars from Canada, Coast to Coast, Wildrod and Oze. He is a very smart man and has done an outstanding job making molds and fixtures for all of these cars. He made a lot of Street Rodders very happy with these style cars, but not one of these bodies, frames or grills were perfect.
Yes we have had problems, but we worked through them.
I sent Mr. Shepard 2 windshields, 2 consoles and 2 grills, still could not please him. Those grills are cut right off of the same cad system and built on the same fixture they were in in Canada. Anybody is more than welcome to come to our shop and we will build you any part you want to see built and can inspect any mold we own.
As far as spring size wheel spacing's that's the sizes that's been used for the last 15 years. Just because 450lb springs don't work for you doesn't mean they are wrong. We have built almost 30 cars since we brought the company to the states, have not had anyone complain and put our cars or us down like Mr. Shepard has.
Every car we have sold the customer has came to our shop to meet us and look at our operation. He was offered the same thing, we tell customers to fly into Dayton, Cinn., or Indy and we will pick them up. We have had customers from Austrailia and Saudi Arabia come to our shop.
Once again we did offer the money back and he denied it. If he would of then we wouldn't of had to sit and defend ourselves.
What you need to do is admit most of your problems are a result of a combination of your arrogance and inexperience.
Tim Taylor- Owner of Oze Rod Shop

if it were easy everyone would be doing it
in all my years i have never bought anything that fit perfect . in 40 years of working with vettes you get use to it .

Originally Posted by DaveS53

I've had all of this that I can take.... There will be no more posts in this thread.

Dave, I thought that you'd made a good decision, but you just cannot leave the self gratifying platform that you've erected for yourself. OK, you're an engineer, you worked Bendix/Honeywell, and put in some time in manufacturing to get through school. You also acted as general contractor for a house - and it's a wonderfully efficient, feature filled house, and you're 100% qualified to build another one all by yourself. SO WHAT?

There are several members here who studied engineering, passed the PE and practiced in various industries around the world. There are also others who finished college with other degrees, and successfully applied their education in careers which may still be ongoing; and others who were successful in their own right without the pursuit of a college degree. Lots of proficient woodworkers here, along with home remodeling, new construction, barn building, and lots of other complex hobbies. None of that matters a whit, because the common ground here is that everyone is trying to learn from one another. We post our projects, talk about our plans, and openly welcome comments that may help us end up with something better. Bottom line, we RESPECT one another, regardless.

From day one you came in with an attitude of superiority, and one of the posts that you chose to leave behind is telling. "Some people need to learn the meaning of a log." I guess since you posted a Build Log you believed that your words were above comment, even when everything that was offered was in a spirit of helping. It quickly became apparent that you simply wanted to preach, and praise and adulations were expected even if you were going counter to widely accepted general practices for chassis safety, geometry, and body work. Now you've chosen to delete your words, and when one scans through the thread now it's an amazing collection of constructive comments that you did not welcome.

Tim Taylor, thank you for taking time to explain. I don't know how you sat quietly in the wings for two years while this has been going on. That, sir, is a tribute to your character, and the way you choose to do business. I'm not in the market, but if I'm in the area I would love to see your shop sometime!

Been busy with an phone interview with an editor at National Dragster but catching up-

Mr. Taylor-------I'm planning on stopping by on my next road trip over that way----------looking forward to it--

To Tim Taylor, I applaud you for making comments, I have built the twin brother to your cars a wildrod sedan, also designed by Gagon, I agree 100% these are hand built cars, fitment is bodywork as well as paint. The one thing I have never found a problem with on a streetrod is the engineered suspension and mine drives great, like my daily driver and I would have to assume the frames & suspension you sell do as well. I too do not like the term "kit car" a kit comes with instructions and I have yet to find any, if a person wanted instructions I would assume they would not build a streetrod. Great looking cars and again thanks for speaking out and do please stick around the forum, we always welcome expertise in the field. Matthyj

Originally Posted by jerry clayton

learn more and more about less and less and someday you'll know everything about nothing------- defination of graduate engineer.

Originally Posted by jerry clayton

Sorry to have offended some of you with a joke-guess I should have posted that on the joke page-

Just to point out the obvious, a tasteless comment does not become "acceptable" by changing it's location. Trash is trash, even in a Tiffany box.

Mr. Taylor, thank you for your input and welcome.
Just a few questions;
As I now understand it you tried to work with him, even offering his money back with free pickup? Yet he posted here that you did none of that, so some of us suggested he consult legal advise to resolve. Which he claimed numerous reasons why he could not, while in reality he could not because he had refused the ultimate resolution. Was he expecting to pay nothing and keep the product too?
Seems to me the wrong people may be apologizing?

Sorry Mr. Taylor, don't mean to get you any deeper into this mess, and you are a gentleman! I'm sure a lot of good people from here will visit your shop and tell us the true findings.

Thank you all ! You are all welcome to come down to the shop and check us out. If weekends are better for some that is no problem. Give the shop a call and we will arrange it. I will definitely stick around the forum.

There's an old saying, "A camel is a cow designed by a committee." While I have well to the side of this discussion it is obvious that things are not are not always as they appear.

Mr. Taylor - you sir are a gentleman and if I'm ever in the area, I'd enjoy seeing your operation.

And I gotta get to Gardner Kansas on a road trip 'cause there's one real class fella there that I'd be honored to shake hands with!

Best All,
Glenn

Synergy------------How many of you ever hear this word?

I think that its about time (altho I'm too busy for a few days) to start a thread where we all get together and work out a few details/rough edges that have developed on this site and has been really brought to the light of day by this 37 OZE thread-

Over the last few years people that were very experienced in this sport/hobby have been driven off, kicked out, whatever------DennyW, Dave (now 2 Daves) Pat, Gary, etc, etc---------Its time we all make it an issue to add to the site, not slam/bam people with negativeness about how or why they say or do certain things-

Synergy------

Originally Posted by glennsexton

.......And I gotta get to Gardner Kansas on a road trip 'cause there's one real class fella there that I'd be honored to shake hands with!
Best All,
Glenn

Thank you for the kind words, Glenn. You'd be most welcome any time, and the feeling is very much mutual. Your posts are a great example to all who frequent this forum, and I'm glad that your most recent self imposed sabbatical is done, or at least winding down

You are in a part of the country that we've not had the pleasure of visiting, and we've talked about planning a trip to fly into the area, rent a vehicle and explore a wide area, likely returning the car to a different airport to catch a return flight. Crossing to Victoria island seems like a must, and the 101 down the coast looks like it would be a beautiful drive.... Just dreaming at this point.