55.2-59 Is Code 504 in business?

[autowrench]

Their website isn't working. I tried to contact them about boxing plates for my 59 and the voicemail is full. Too bad, it looked like a heavy duty part. They didn't respond to email either and it's been a month. Looks like No Limit or Speedway are the next choices.
Tom

[mr48chev]

4 day work week for all the crew.

Not only are the guys out in the shop on a 4 day work week everyone including those on the phone are.

[autowrench]

Okay. I guess I can cut them a little slack. I'll give them another try possibly.

[mr48chev]

Shocked me a bit because I have been around several shops where the crew out in the shop works 4 10's but the office folk work 5 8's .

A local commericial cabinet shop that is no longer there used to work from 3:30 to 12 noon in the summer months because the building wasn't air conditioned. They were getting to work when I went past between 3 an 3:30 on my way to the airport to go to work.

[autowrench]

I'll probably give them a call this week during their hours and see what the story is. I know a lot of people speak highly of the S-10 swaps. I'm just curious if anybody has bought from them lately.

[mr48chev]

Until the S-10 donor supply is dried up or they see the handwriting on the wall they will probably still be in business but things like the boxing plates show that they are already looking to the future with new products beyond S-20 swaps.

Not to get sidetracked but the S-10 thing will probably go the way of using Stock MII and Pinto crossmembers that were popular in the 80's but the supply ran out when you walked out in your local wrecking yard and there wasn't one Pinto, Bobcat or MII with a usable front end in the place. It happened with the F 100 guys and Volarie front ends too but parts supply also put a hurt on those swaps. Here S-10 trucks are still work trucks for a good part of the local population who are either farm workers or processing plant workers. That keeps the price up a bit but they get fixed and driven and not parted out until they actually do die.

Still it would be nice if Code 504 at least put a message on the answering machine statin their hours because 8 to 5 on Fridays are still business hours for most of us.

[joedoh]

ask on facebook. whenever this comes up, them not answering the phone, someone invariably has the owners phone number and it gets a response.

but...

this comes up often because they arent answering the phone during 4 10s, or 9-80, or 5 40 or even 10 min/7 days. they took all the products off their website. their lead times were slipping from 2 weeks last year to a month over christmas and the last i heard were 9-12 weeks out, if at all. thats a quarter of the year!

I am a similar supplier, and I dont make the boxing plates but I have a 56 here in the driveway so tell me what you want to box and I can give you a quote. I am getting a lot of business with 504 and others slipping lead times but I am still usually able to ship parts in 48 hrs from order. I have to design your parts, so it may take a week. recently I made a guy some motor mounts to put a SBC in a 63 lemans and it was about two weeks total.

mr48 I know you wish the s10 swaps would go away but its been about 30 years, and I sold 104 kits so far this year.

[autowrench]

Okay, I will send you a PM.

[mr48chev]

The primary reason that I don't like S-10 swaps is the guys who buy a nice running and driving and often fully restored truck and rip a real nice chassis out from under it to replace it with a worn out 300 plus mile frame that they then spend another 3 k on by the time they buy the kit and the kits to modify the suspension on. S10 frame your kit, 504 or ?? kit, longer control arms 4 link kit for the rear with bags all around and they think they cut a fat hog but in the long run spent half again as much as they would have with a decent independent front end and 4 link and notch for their stock frame. You on the other hand usually haul the cab off a grain truck home, find the nose and bed and running boards and build the whole truck out of pieces.

It's these new guys who show up on FB with their just bought really nice trucks that they drove home and then pop up saying that they just bought the truck and drove it home and ask what S-10 frame they need that burn my biscuits. They are clueless to the concept that there is any other way because the guys down at the local hangout say that is the only way to go. There was even one showing up in a 32 ford group the other day wanting to know what S=10 frame to use under a 32 body.
No frame, hacked up frame or wrong frame I don't have an issue with S-1- swaps. but you sold 104 kits, all the other vendors in the country probably sold another thousand combined, Then throw in the number of long bed S-10 trucks that went to the crusher without the frames being salvaged or the number that guys went to salvage the frame only to find that it was in too bad shape to use. Around here there are more 4x4 S 10 trucks than two wheel drive for the most part.

[joedoh]

someone just mentioned that seward ne sherrif said the business moved out of seward.


i track closes on my kits, 3 of 5 buy my kit and 1 of 5 buy another, 1 of 5 do not buy a kit or dont tell me. I would guess that I "see" (not sell) about 40-50% of the market, so the kits per year isnt thousands but more like 3-350, that includes both kits that other sellers sell and kits that are built by guys reading skymangs thread. of that about 10% build their trucks in a year. 10% put it up for sale as an unfinished and the rest no response or dont finish in a year.

so about 30-35 trucks a year get finished. when i was doing two a year I was finishing 5% of that total!