john bizal - faith in mankind restored!!


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Posted by mannyc on Wednesday, February 07, 2007 at 09:38:01 :

im finishing up the command car that ive been working on and off on for the last 10 years. during that time ive dealt with almost everyone in the hobby that sells and makes parts. my truck is assembled from parts purchased from great guys like sid beck, the late dave anwell and brian asbury in Canada. each part tells a story. after the passing of dave anwell, i was introduced to john bizal. he had a lot of the wwii stuff i couldnt find elsewhere. i liked that he answered the phone himself and knew the truck i worked on as he restored a command car or two. before i met john i purchased a repro tailgate from another vendor. it was almost right and i blamed the poor fit on the fact that i replaced the entire floor during the process. must be me and my poor skills. fast forward 7-8 years and im finishing my truck. NOS gas tank, repro wire harness, orig top bows etc, etc, all look good and will make my truck a really sharp driver and a local meet contender if not winner. all is well except that damn tailgate. the edges are not bent sharply, they're curved. the hinge is not bent like the orig and the gate bottoms out on the bolt heads. in general it closes, but i was a little embarrased to hang that thing on my truck. i spoke to john about it and he offered to send me his correct hinge to weld on my inferior gate. (he never knocked the other vendor BTW) i received the hinge and the quality of that part convinced me that i needed to replace the gate altogether. i ordered a gate from john but threw a curve at him. The cage nuts in my floor were installed about a 1/8 to 1/4 off and would not match the holes in a properly built gate. i drew a template of my holes and AL at john's shop transfered my holes to a new hinge. I received the gate yesterday and was BLOWN away. The gate was a perfect fit and the holes all lined up! I couldnt believe it.

i have now shelved the idea of installing the pioneer rack i was going to use to hide my first gate. i will leave this one just as john sent it. no body work needed to make this one perfect. i told john that i was thinking about just clear coating it to show off the anal attention to detail and the fact that im proud that there is someone still making great stuff in the usa! If the above appears to be a plug for john it is. i want everyone here that i call friends to experience what a valuable resource midwest military is. i also am plugging him for selfish reasons. more business from us equalls more parts he will make for us. i'll post some pics of the gate installed so you can see what im talking about. if i sound sappy regarding the above, i am. ive got 10 years invested in a project that ill be proud to give my sons. they'll see that dad & his friends took no shortcuts back in the old days.

sorry for the long post - it needed to be done. mannyc



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