The scariest part of 911 engine building.
 

Is boxing up all of your parts, and sending them half way across the country , and hoping they all arrive intact. Sent 5 boxes out, wrapped them up like I was shipping to Iraq. 4 out of 5 arrived, hopefully Fed Ex comes through today. Any body ever have parts get lost in shipping transit?

Not lost but damaged. Send "cgarr" my heads and the studs pierced through layers of cardboard damaging sealing surface and combustion chambers.

I was sick when Craig called.

Craig just finished up my heads, and he asked me to remove my studs before shipping just because of this issue. Worth the effort in my opinion. Sorry it was you we learned on.
I had a case damaged in transit before. It was on its way back to me, I did not pack it. A forklift punched through the side of the box, and left a pretty large divot right in the face of the spigot bore. I was able to fix it, but I was sick when I first saw it. That was my lesson learned. I now pack, correction, overpack stuff to survive small arms fire, or anything Fed Ex can throw at it.

Even worse if your stuff is numbers matching to the car. . .

Thick styrofoam packing (actual blocks of it, not peanuts) is your friend when shipping heavy, pointy stuff. Any time you ship something heavy, assume that it will be handled roughly and dropped because it usually is.

Matt Monson at Guard Transmission once told me to pack my diff like it was going to be dropped from waist-high, because it will be. I suspect handlers don't expect a small box carrying a diff to weigh as much as it does. I suspect it takes them by surprise and therefore usually gets dropped?

I pack fragile stuff in heavy card board boxes wrapped in a garbage bag and then fill the rest of the box with that expanding foam weather sealant. It fills all the nooks and crannies and creates a 'custom' styrofoam case. If it's especially fragile or hard to replace, double box with more packing material.

^^^ That's a great suggestion.

Leave the studs in your heads but use so many layers of cardboard that there's no way the studs can poke through. I cut strips and just wrapped them around and around and around, intentionally poking holes in the cardboard for the studs to come through so that eventually the two outermost layers were well above the highest part of the stud.

When I received them back from Anchor Atlantic, each head was in its own individual thick-walled box whose dimensions were so tight that the head could not have moved enough for the studs to poke through. Then all the individual boxes were in one big box.

I sent a transmission off over the winter and used big folded pieces of cardboard to keep it from moving around inside a really heavy duty cardboard box. I was also told by the UPS guy to pack it so that it could be dropped from chest height and have nothing happen to it.

I like your idea.

when i shipped my case i used empty pop bottles with the caps tightly screwed on.
it was like uber bubble wrap, downside, the box was a bit bigger.

This is the only way I ship heads now! Bolted to a sheet of plywood!

http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c3...1/6e9cd845.jpg

Great idea for shipping heads!

Be careful with the expanding foam. The "Great Stuff" brand gets pretty hard and is not as soft/manageable as the typical expanding foam used in the packing industry. Great Stuff is also pretty forceful in its expansion. So you have to use good wrap material to avoid the foam bursting it's way through.

Reason I know is because a long time friend of mine had this happen to his 915 gear shafts and had to replace all the bearings because they were contaminated by the foam. That stuff doesn't come off easy..... Tried all sorts of solvents and couldn't kill the stuff. I wonder what solvent they use in manufacturing that foam?

How many heads is that?

I ship my heads a little differently. I bolt 3 to one side of a sheet of plywood cut to the same size box and lay the plywood on the bottom of the box, then I stand cardboard up all the way around the heads(taller than the studs), then finally 2 layers on top then fold the flaps in and tape the box up really well. I typically wrap tape all the way around the box several times.

I once had some rear hubs shipped to me and when the box arrived, only one hub was still inside. The other apparently fell out a huge hole torn in the side of the box. The part was never recovered.

Thats 6 heads, These were gong to Finland and I came up with this way to pack them and now always ship like this..

my cut on this is to use a cooler to ship heavy items...I actually shipped a tranny to a guy I sold it to & he was amazed at the scuffs & dings on the outside of the 100 qt size cooler...BUT, the tranny inside was perfect which I filled the blank spaces btwn the side of tranny & the inside walls...the shipping was from MA to KY...only bummer was the cooler cost me ~$80, but it can be reused which is a good thing, especially when the contents arrive in 1 pc...

I would definatley use a cooler again for a tranny or any important engine parts...

just another way to try...

Bob

I shipped a very rare snowmobile crankshaft shipped via USPS and I bubble wrapped the heck out of it and when it arrived the corner of the box was smashed in and a connecting rod was broken off. I'm still fighting the USPS 2 months later for my insurance money.

I am off base..I would say the final case 1/2 assy. ! may it all glue together and work ! Just so many things going on and one person doing it...!

+1

that how we send turbochargers to and from our turbo rebuild specialist.

small Igloo cooler, wrap turbo in bubble wrap...peanuts to make up the rest of the room..

I love the looks at the Seneca Lodge going to the desk and picking up a cooler delivered by FedEx or UPS....

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1326265962.jpg

After several months and at least 5000 miles (MI->FL->Netherlands->Finland) heads are here. Plywood packing method was perfect solution for this long trip. No broken fins or any marks on head sealing surfaces. Thank you Craig!