An update on the worst customer service

I posted this on the Gen5 web forum and have yet to receive any form of reply from Kevin or the staff at Gen5.

"He won't answer my messages or my phone calls. So I'm back to contacting him via public means. As I am unable to make comments on the Gen5Alive facebook page anymore. I must resort to the Gen5 site.

Kevin you said my parts were being shipped out by the 15th of October.

Remember?

Just wondering if there is any word on there whereabouts?


A valid USPS tracking number would work.

Cheers"



Well at least the Better Business Bureau has finally caught up with him. They have given his store the lowest rating it could possibly have, an F

BBB Business Review of Gen5Alive - Automobile Parts and Supplies Retail - Norwalk, CA

Unfortunately this doesn't seem to make any difference in the way in which he conducts his business.

Time for some shaving!

Shaved Doors
Finally took some time on a rainy day to get some work done. I started by removing the door handles from both the front and rear doors.

The front was a wee bit harder to pull out than the rear as it had what seemed to be a safety mechanism around the lock cylinder.


Once both of the handles were removed it was time to swap the opening mechanisms.

The one on the top is the rear door handle and the bottom is the front. You can see that the rear door handle uses a metal plate to push down on the rear door opening mechanism. Where as the front handle operates with a rod that is connected to the handle.

This is a better picture of the two different operating mechanisms once they were removed from the handles. The handles themselves are identical, so swapping the mechanisms was fairly easy. Here is the rear door handle with the front handle opening mechanism swap completed.

The actual mounting holes in the doors for the two handles are not the same. I forgot to take pictures. What I had to do was weld a small tab on the existing mounts to extend the surface area. Once welded on I drilled the new mounting holes and it was easy sailing from there.

Now with the front door lock, technically shaved it was on to shaving the rear door handle.

There was a bit more work to do here than there was on the front. Cleaned up the paint around the opening so I would have a good clean weld.

I then proceeded to make a paper template and traced it onto a piece of sheet metal. Cut the shape out and contoured it to the existing body lines.

I took a few trips to the grinding wheel to shave off a little here and a little there until I got it fitting flush with the existing door panel. Once it was sitting pretty it was time to weld it in place.

Now it's time to do the same to the other side.

Active Spoiler Modification Take 2

I couldn't wait to get this project finished. Spent a few hours down in the garage today to get it finished up.

Here is a shot with both struts and mounts in place. Almost ready for the spoiler.

Once I had them both lined up it was time for a test fitting. When I had the spoiler mocked up. I was able to see that the spoiler mounts needed a slight modification.

To the grinding wheel I went. Once I had it roughly were I wanted it with the grinder I leveled them with a file.

Once I had the mounts leveled It was a lot easier to attach them to the spoiler.
Here they are securely mounted to the underside of the spoiler.

Now it was time to make the final adjustments on the transmission cables and sleeves, one of the steel sleeves had to be curved a wee bit to get it to work freely.

Time for a manual test.

Flush mounted, this will be the ride height under 45-50mph

And fully raised.

The fully raised position is where it will be when the spoiler ECU sees that my Accord is going over 45-50mph. With the flip of a switch I will be able to manually raise and lower it to any height in between.

A few more shots of it in the down position.

I will finish welding in the side panels for the drops another day.

Hope to have a video up as soon as I get the welding complete and all of the wiring hooked up.

Active Spoiler Modification Take 1!

Today I got a chance to start on my active spoiler modification. This spoiler is speed activated. It will change it's pitch depending on the speed of the vehicle. this should create a larger down force on the back of the car. Exactly how much down force it will create on my Accord is unknown. It may end up creating drag and be completely useless. I'm not really concerned with the aerodynamic properties right now.  I saw it and figured that I had to give it a try myself.

Pictured below is the Volkswagen Corrado active spoiler motor and transmission assembly. Along with the fiberglass spoiler that I will be using.

Fist thing was to mark and cut the trunk. I quickly realized that if I want the spoiler to lay flush with the trunk surface while it is in the down position. I have to create a drop/step in the OEM trunk.

After everything was marked out and lined up. It was time to cut and bend the steps into the trunk lid.

Here is a look from the underside of the trunk lid.

I had already removed a lot of the cross bracing from the underside when I shaved the license plate recess. The picture shows how the OEM down brace on the trunk is in the way of fitting the spoiler motor mount.  That was easily remedied by cutting a section out or the brace and welding the spoiler motor mount directly to the remaining bracing.

After having the spoiler motor mount securely welded into position. It was time to mount the spoiler transmissions and struts.

Had to make a template of the transmissions in order to drill the mounting holes and strut opening. Once the templates were on and lined up it was just a matter of drilling everything out.

Then it was time to check everything out and make sure it all fit and operated properly without any obstructions. Everything bolted up rather nicely.

and the struts and spoiler mounts moved up and down without any dragging or obstructions.

With the one side pretty much completed the other side shouldn't take quite as long to finish. I should be able to get started on mounting the struts to the spoiler very soon. The only thing left to do on the trunk lid is to weld in a couple of side panels on the step-down. I'm going to leave that until the very end. That way I will have an access hole to see the mount under the spoiler when it is flush to the trunks surface.

Cheers!

Under Construction

Well I'm finally getting around to cleaning this blog up a bit. As you may or may not have noticed. I have added the "Build at a Glance" heading in the right column. This is where I will be creating all of my archived project pages. These pages will contain project specific details. Rather than having to search through the archives by date.

I'd like to thank those of you who took the time to critique my blog and force me to get off my but and actually make this a somewhat easier blog to navigate.

I would also like to take this opportunity to thank my bud Neil, for showing me how to create, link and move pages. As well as sorting out my blogs colour theme. I can't believe that I didn't match everything to the logo before now. Guess that's what happens after a year of not doing any real design work. ;)

Have a good one! Cheers

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Stanley Foglight Install

Well I got all of the screws and seals for the fogs now it's time to install them.

Pulled my bumper out of the shed and set it up for fitting.

Then went right at it and started hacking it up........

Actually it was a very slow process trimming the grill so that it followed the shape of the fog light perfectly.

Once I had the grill cut out it was time to start on fabricating the sheet metal brackets.

You just have to love the simplicity of beer box templates.......


Top bracket ready for test fitting.


Slid in just like it was factory made.


Then was the time consuming process of measuring, cutting and bending the bracket to fit the the light housing.


With the top bracket fit in place it was time to do the same for the bottom. The curve and uneven size of the bottom half of the grill opening proved to be some what of a pain. I was eventually able to get the lower bracket in place. After a few hours of trimming, grinding and filing.


With the brackets in place it was time to alter/fabricate the 94-95 Accord fog light housing brackets themselves.

This was a fairly easy part of this process.

First was the very long and way off level lower bracket.

I heated it up and bent it straight back. From there I was able to make it into a 90. So it was on the same level as the upper bolt hole. Drilled the hole and we are good to go for that side.


The other side of the housing was a bit harder. It was way off but unlike the other side it was too short. Therefore I had to bend this one straight up and weld on a new bracket.



New 90 bracket tack welded in to place and it was ready to be fit to the grill brackets.

Here is how they sit now.


Waiting for a fresh coat of satin black paint and some new wiring.

Stanley Foglight Referb

Working condition my F#@K'n A$$. The ground wire was severed and there was a blown bulb in the other one. Nether of them worked when I got them. I thought they looked like they were in pretty good condition........on the outside.

Then I tried to get them to work...... and that's when this hornets nest was reviled.



Yes these are the same fogs that are posted above.

They didn't mention any of this in the item description. Complete with severed ground wire, burnt out bulb, all 4 glass lenses broken around the edges and all the weather seals are toast.



and then after I cleaned them up

I am now waiting for seals and new screws and bulbs to complete the restoration. They don't look so bad now after 5 hours of drilling taping, grinding & polishing.

I ended up getting half of my money back from the Ebay member once I showed them the pictures... Nice to see that there are still some good honest people out there.