mease downpipe

[bigal]

i just purchased a keith mease dp, from a turbobuick member and was totally screwed, i was told that the clearance was an issue and was close, but it turned out that the pipe didnt even come close to fitting and the puck was screwed up and should have been thrown out and i got screwed out of 350. well some people are not as honest as i thought............

 

[twodafloor]

name names

give specifics please

 

[bigal]

It fits good, except the top of the pipe is very close to the lower-front corner of the AC box (within 1/4"). My AC box does not have the heat shield and the lower-front peg for the shield has been cut off for greater clearance. Now my body bushings could be in need of replacement as I have never done that, and I do have the poly motor mounts that bring the engine up some. The pipe may fit another car differently. I want to let you know this prior to you sending payment in case you want to look elsewhere for a pipe. I believe the close proximity to the AC box could be overcome. this is coming from the turbobuick member , i have good motor mounts and body bushings and it doesnt come close to fitting and the puck is so loose on the shaft i feel that the dp should never have been sold and even though i was told that it was close, theres no chance of it fitting. i paid 350 and now i have nothing but a piece of s/s pipe that i cant use. thanks Rob_85Ttype, thats the way you do business oh well it was a good learning lesson. i appreciate it.

 

[Rob_85Ttype]

Al - First, I'd like to let you know that I think you have handled this very childishly.

You first emailed me last night (Jan 15) at 6:49 pm with this:

Al Lanzetta <cobra9797@verizon.net> wrote:
hey rob got the pipe today, and i see why you sold it cause it doesn't fit. my motor mounts and body mounts are new, and the pipe still hits the heater box. i thought you said it was close to the box, i wish you would of specified that it didnt fit at all. well anyway thanks

Then again last night (Jan 15) at 11:23 pm with this:

Al Lanzetta <cobra9797@verizon.net> wrote:
hey rob i appreciate you getting back to me, that pipe turned out to be a piece of ****.

Then again today (Jan 16) at 9:40 am with this:

Al Lanzetta <cobra9797@verizon.net> wrote:
hey thank for getting back to me, i guess i have no choice but to post my experience on the forums about a dishonest member............



Al, I didn't see any of those emails until around 2:00 pm today. It would've been nice to have been able to respond to your emails.

Concerning the puck: there is absolutely nothing wrong with it. It is supposed to be somewhat loose where it mounts to the shaft bracket so that it will seal to the turbo. This looseness is built into the design of the integral wastegate puck. Sorry that you don't understand this.

Concerning the fit of the pipe, and my "lack of honesty" as you perceive it - please again reference our email dialogue:

Al Lanzetta <cobra9797@verizon.net> wrote:
hey ill give it a try, my body bushings are fairly new, as i had an issue with another downpipe hitting the ac box, and so i changed the bushings and that cleared the issue, you probably need body bushings, and also the poly bring the motor up high, so i will give it a try, and if it doesnt work ill sell on the forums. so give me address, and ill send out in morning, the pipe doesnt have any dents or dings, and how is the fit by the header flange and upper control arm?

On Jan 6, 2008, at 2:49 PM, Rob Woodruff wrote:

Al,

I have all of the hardware you will need to install the pipe. I want to let you know that I went out today and tried the pipe on my car. It fits good, except the top of the pipe is very close to the lower-front corner of the AC box (within 1/4"). My AC box does not have the heat shield and the lower-front peg for the shield has been cut off for greater clearance. Now my body bushings could be in need of replacement as I have never done that, and I do have the poly motor mounts that bring the engine up some. The pipe may fit another car differently. I want to let you know this prior to you sending payment in case you want to look elsewhere for a pipe. I believe the close proximity to the AC box could be overcome.

Let me know if you are still interested.

Rob


Al Lanzetta <cobra9797@verizon.net> wrote:
ok ill take it, my zip is 11001, if you have the hardware also would be a help thanks, ill get the money order to you by tues or wed, monday ill pick it up at post office, just give me a total and ill make it up thanks rob

Sir, I do believe that I was honest with you on the fitment of the pipe to the car, and yes sir, it did fit my car as described in the email above. I disclosed this information because I did not want a situation such as we have now. I will now attach a couple of picture of the pipe that you also have that were taken prior to shipment. I sincerely wish I had taken pictures of the pipe as I installed them on my car when I disclosed to you the proximity of the pipe to the heater box.

 

[Rob_85Ttype]

second pic

 

[Rob_85Ttype]

third pic

 

[Rob_85Ttype]

Al, I sincerely regret having done business with you at this point due to your allegations of me and your knee-jerk reaction tactics. I don't know how much more forth-right I could have been with you. The pipe, while close to the heater box, will install properly on the car, and the puck is in good working order.

 

[Rob_85Ttype]

Also, for the record of this post, the pipe had never been used.

 

[bigal]

i never said it was used, im just saying the pipe in no way possible fits, you should see what i had to do to the pipe and it still doesnt fit correctly, i know you said it was close 1/4 in. but its not even close, and the puck on the pipe is so lose that it gets stuck on the w/g hole, the thdp is not like that it is alot tighter, oh well i guess i bought an expensive piece of s/s pipe that i can now go scrap.

 

[WLDWST]

I have had a Mease pipe that I bought from GBdyParts several years ago that fits great. I have new HRpartsNstuff poly motor mounts also. I don't see Mease changing his jig for any reason. Either this is an isolated instance of quality control on Mease's part or the problem is specific to your car. Being a new pipe I would say that Rob_85Ttype had no way of knowing you would have problems with it. Not trying to inflame the situation, but mine is perfect and the quality is great. I will stay subscribed to this thread just out of curiousity. I have never heard of Mease problems concerning quality, only delivery.

 

[Rob_85Ttype]

Al, I can tell you with certainty that the pipe did fit into my car as I described to you. I trial fitted the pipe the day I emailed you and completely bolted the flange to the turbo using a stock passenger header. As I explained prior to the transaction, my a/c does not have the shield, and the lower-front peg for the shield has been cut off, both of which offer greater clearance in that area. I have no idea what you've done to the pipe in an attempt to make it fit, but there are other non-destructive adjustments that can be made to gain clearance for a DP. Additionally, I had no problems with the puck hanging, and I did actuate it by hand against the mounting face of the turbo. The puck was not excessively loose in my opinion. The puck was oversized at 1-3/8", so I don't understand it getting stuck in your turbo's wastegate hole. I mentioned the pipe being unused to establish its condition prior to shipment to the readers of this post.

 

[bigal]

hey rob just out of curiosity what pipe do you have in your car now?

 

[Quick6'n'-K.C.]

bigal-

It would have been nice if you had given Rob some time to reply to your emails sent, you could have waited AT LEAST a few days for him to give you an answer. Giving him less than 4 hours is not even considerate when you come here and start trashing someones name.

Leaving feedback here on tb.com isnt a forum to sit back and duke it out and start lashing out at someone, feedback is here after the dust has settled and everything has been done to try and resolve an issue. IT APPEARS NONE OF THIS HAS BEEN DONE BEFORE YOU POSTED!!!!!!!!

Looks like he explained exactly what he was selling in great detail and kept all the email information. Personally i think you just needed some advice on getting the pipe to install correctly.

I CURRENTLY HAVE A MEASE DOWNPIPE ON MY WHITE LIMITED AND IT FITS PERFECTLY WITH MY TA61.... When these mease pipes were made, some would hit the ac box a bit, then he started making the holes larger and slotting them in the main flange. Massaging these holes will alow the pipe to pivot and clear the ac box,and also cover the puck hole in the exhaust housing. WHAT SIZE IS YOUR EXHAUST HOUSING HOLE?


You should have taken some time before altering the pipe, i can only imagine what was done to make it work if the pipe wasnt working correctly from judging how quick you were to jump Robs back.

I sure hope this isnt your angle

hey thank for getting back to me, i guess i have no choice but to post my experience on the forums about a dishonest member............

All of this could have been avoided if you waited, asked for advise, and put down the damn hammer

BW

 

[KevinB]

Also, are you using stock headers or aftermarket?

 

[bigal]

im using stock headers and i received the pipe yesterday and i emailed him yesterday and he never got back to me until 2pm today, not 4 hours???? it just appears to me that this pipe apparently didnt fit his car and wanted to sell it because in his post it says he has a mease dp. its frustrating when you buy something for 350 and it doesnt fit and now its basically useless and i have no dp. and by the way i emailed him while the pipe was in transit about the reason for sale and he never replied????

 

[T Spool]

My Mease DP is the best fitting piece of metal on my car :biggrin: Like Bryan said, there is quite a bit of adjustment by loosely installing the pipe and then rocking it up or down. There is also adjustment in the motor mounts. Did you try raising or lowering those? I'm not going to judge on the fit as I haven't seen it in person, but rather mention that these cars are over 20 years old now and have their own personality. You just can't expect one DP to fit all cars the same way and usually some finaggling is required. I hope it works out for you.

 

[Rob_85Ttype]

Bigal, if you emailed me while the pipe was in transit about the reason for the sale, it did not get to me. I never saw such an email. I did see all of the other emails you sent though. I emailed you however once I received your payment to let you know that I got it, and again when I mailed your package and got your tracking number.

Bigal, apparently you're not listening to me when I tell you that the pipe did fit the car. I trial fitted it to the car the day I emailed you to verify that it did fit (the email referenced in the post). I also disclosed to you the proximity of the DP to the AC box on my car.

I don't believe it is relevant to this problem, but the reason I decided to sale this DP was because I decided to use aftermarket headers, which this downpipe was not designed to use with.

In reference to four hours, that probably comes from the fact that you first emailed me last night (Jan 15) at 6:49 pm, then when I didn't respond immediately you posted here last night at 11:27 pm about getting screwed and dishonesty. Bigal, do you sit by your computer 24/7 and wait on emails to trickle in? Have you ever been away from your computer for more than a few hours? I went to work today but decided to come home early and deal with this saga when my wife called to tell me about the emails she read from you.

 

[bigal]

how about this consider it a done deal, im not worried about the money, ill just take my loss and move on. thanks and sorry for the misunderstanding,lesson learned

 

[8AV8]

Is adjusting this DP to fit out of the question. I've had 4 different DPs and they all required a little adjusting.

You can open up the holes in your headers just a bit, at the turbo flange.

You can get some adjustment out of the DP at the DP bolt holes( there's a little play there, you might have to get someone under the car to push around for you to make it a little easier)

If you get close...1/4 to 3/4 " , get under the car with a healthy pry bar and push it around

And what I would try last ... there is adjustment in the motor mounts.

My 3.5" THDP needed a massage...try working with it a little and you might be suprised. My friend has a Mease 3.5" and loves his. He had to trim a little off of the fenderwell where it swept out from the turbo but...oh well...it works like a champ.

If he had 1/4" clearance, and all these 20 year old cars sit different, I bet you can make this DP work with a little time and effort.

 

[bigal]

at this point the only place it can be used is above a fireplace mantle