As we all traverse the new reality of the world today, hopefully we become accustomed to what we have to do to stay safe until a vaccine is in circulation. The disruption that has happened is no doubt the most our age group has ever witnessed and hopefully will be for the rest of our lives and our children’s lives. I wanted to drop in a leave a few thoughts and updates about what we have been up to around here. (we as in me)
As of July I began my deferred retirement from public service, this was a hard decision to make especially in this climate but I had been planning for a while to focus on bigbrakeupgrade solely. Without the distractions of a regular 40 hr week job I could offer more and offer more faster. The extra time I’ve afforded myself has not gone wasted. With a new shop and home in the works I’ve needed the extra time to meet with architects, engineers, builders, suppliers etc. Not only have we been very fortunate to have plenty of work thought this pandemic we have had enough to keep me so busy I still have not had a day off ! Thank you! My backlog has been a consistent two weeks all along and that is very inspiring when letting go of a guaranteed income source to waft alone in the world for your income.
As much as I always thought the extra time would afford me to do more special projects and new offerings, it is still a struggle to try and develop these things and maintain reasonable turn around time for orders during this ‘new normal’. One of the largest hurdles during these past few months has been delayed shipping, cutting the post office workers overtime and introducing a worldwide pandemic all at once was a huge blow…now lets throw in mail in mass voting too and see how that goes. Any – who … I digress. I have had a rough time getting in some items, some lost most delayed, supporting vendors with less help due to unemployment paying more than the regular salary many decided to not go in and take the bigger paycheck..I get it, hopefully that saved them from the virus and debt at the same time…and hopefully they have a job to return too now. So with shortages, delays and more business, I had to keep a few of the big time consuming conversions from stock. I do apologize these conversions take so much time I get so far behind that it just have to become a secondary priority right now. The tall spindle conversions, especially the 5×5 stuff…I try to get these done on a timely basis but it never happens, hubs take hours and hours to do, spindles take hours and hours to do, there is welding to the brackets, lathe turning for the stand offs, I just can’t charge enough to make them worthwhile..I`m undecided what to do with these at this point but I do like to offer them- so cool to see these older cars and trucks get these newer set ups. Guys have been patient with me too…just hate making anyone wait for them is all.
New shop additions: We have picked up a new hydraulic press, a enerpac a 310 arbor with a 10,000 psi cylinder and power unit, this is our primary press for installing press in wheel studs now, we also have been using it for bearing races on the hubs. New to the shop also is a 200 amp Tig welder. Our fabricator would normally do all of our welding but during these past few months some weldment brackets have been added (our 98-05 blazer brackets most recently and also our wilwood Mustang II pro spindles) Some of these can now been done in house (if the fab guy would rather sit at home eating tacos for a few months on gov assistance than working for his money)- not judging. So having that tool is important and we have had it on the list of “Wants” for a while and this climate forced it to the ” Need” list.
Updates and status
Inventory- I have started increasing the amount of custom parts we keep, the amount of normal stock has been doubled roughly so less out of stock items should be the result.
Billet hubs- have been a huge success..we have a new review video coming out about theses and have just placed the order for another 200 parts.
Powder coat- still a problem- ugh
Shipping – has been better these past weeks with things kind of getting back to normal even with the postal offices starting to talk closures..I have more opportunity to drop orders off and the hours of business have almost returned to normal for most carriers..hopefully that trends back to what it once was.
That’s about it for now, any comments you have just drop below!
We have moved away from the USPS priority mail..primarily. I’m not going to say we have went exclusive with FedEx because we will still be using Priority international service for our northern, southern and eastern sales..oh yea Western too. But for the rest of you inside the great 48 – we will be using FedEx 2 day and express for smaller packages. All of our normal inside 48 sales that wont fit into pre-sized boxes will go ground FedEx for now.
On another note our Billet hubs are now all back in stock! awesome as ever ! Stay True !