PS. Make sure you have a good box knife, he uses *plenty* of tape and he packs a 1 inch part in a 10 inch box.

edit* Cliff, can you move this to General Fiero Chat? Thanks.

I've held my tongue about this except for his "friends" that have asked me about it.

Terry has the ability to be your best friend when he needs to be.....like when he's selling you a car for instance. I bought the car in my signature from him. He said it had a bad clutch and he would fix it for $X so we agreed on a price and I sent him half of the money until he got the clutch installed. I waited and waited and waited and waited. He said he had to take it in and out like 5 times because there was something wrong.....finally stating that there was a spring from the prev clutch lodged in the press plate. He installed a rebuilt clutch instead of a new one as indicated btw and said that it was ready to go. By this time it had been like 6 weeks I believe since I'd sent him 1/2 of the money and I was anxious as you can understand. He also said he had to leave for CA in like 2 days from Cincinatti.

Ohhhh he was soooo nice, his daughter works for Delta and she got me a comp ticket from Richmond VA to Cincinatti OH where he picked me up. We did all the paperwork at his daughters house. Hell, he was my buddy, I didn't even drive the car.....why should I. He said it was fixed. It sounded great, interior great....couple of small clearcoat issues but nothing really bad. I was thrilled and ready for the 10 hr drive back to VA.

I stopped and filled it up and checked the oil and water and stuff and noticed that the clutch pedal felt pretty low. I figured it was new and just needed some time to break in. So, on with my journey.

After about 20 miles or so of driving I noticed that I couldn't change gears anymore! I had almost 9.5 hrs of driving to go yet! I pumped the pedal and all it did was get worse.....if possible. Fortunately I used to drive an old wrecker with the synchros bad in it so I knew how to get the rpm just right before changing into the next gear. This worked fine unless I had to stop for gas or to relieve myself. Then I'd have to put it in gear and let the starter pull it along until it started and then I could shift. OK.....I could do this I thought.....no prob.

About 3hrs out I had trouble shifting into 3rd gear.......and then 4th.....felt like nothing was there although it shifted...just like it was in neutral. Eventually I had to go from 1 to second to 5th......now that is fun.....LOL.

By the time I got home I was totally disgusted and worn completely out so I just slept the next day.

I come to find out that the body and drivetrain have 185k on them, but the engine has like 60k which is what the odometer says. What I found out is that the 3/4 shift fork was worn so thin that it broke from the light pressure I put on it shifting by rpm.

I put a new clutch assm and a used 4spd 4:10 tranny in it. The clutch would work for the eqivalent of about 20 miles of interstate driving.

I replaced the master and slave cyls and went thru several gallons of brake fluid. I bled the system anyway known to man. Eventually, always the same thing....no clutch pedal.

There was only one thing left.......the clutch line. I suspected one of the braided lines but wasn't sure so I was going to replace everything until I took the braided line loose at the front and noticed that in a place you couldn't see....there was a very small amount of brake fluid running down the chassis onto the tire. I cut out that braided line plus some of the regular line to get to a convenient place and replaced the line and connected it with a compression union. I gravity bled the clutch and have had no clutch problems since.

So, in a nutshell, Terry cost himself alot of time.....me ALOT of time and money, just for a leaking fluid line.

What bothers me is that he let me leave on a 10 hr trip, knowing that the clutch would not last. As the saying goes...."NEVER BUY ANYTHING FROM FRIENDS (SO CALLED FRIENDS) OR FAMILY"

My next surprise came when I tried to wash the front end of the car which he said had been re-clearcoated. Yeah...it had been and it just about all came off together. Now it's just a bare colorcoated facia.

All in all......I paid him $1,500 too much for this car because I considered him a friend.

Thank God I don't have many friends like him. If he's still in CA.....I hope he stays there.....on the opposite side of the US from me.......and even that is too close!

BUYER BEWARE OF TERRY OWENS !!!!!!!!!!!

Phil

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GTDude
OVER 25 years GM experience

The only other thing was the Seat handle I asked for, he gave me the wrong side and when I returned it, he never gave me the correct one. I emailed him several times, but I finally gave up and never got my handle.