Had a great Porsche experience this weekend

I looked through the phone book for a place do do my mag and polish on my crank Saturday. I found a place called "Precision Crankshaft" in Boise. I was real scaptical because it is in Garden City (not the best Part of town) and I toild myself that if the people there looked incompetant that I would quickly walk away. I go in this place and find one olderman working my himself. I introduce myself and tell him that I have a crank that I would like him to take a look at.I didn't mention the word "Porsche" because i wanted him to quote me a price first to avoid the possible "P-tax". I pulled it out of the box and as soon as he saw it he said: "ah, Porsche 911 huh"...
I stood there in shock for a second before asking him how he knew this. "I owned my own shop in California a while back and did all of the crank work for Andial before they moved to Costa Mesa (or something)" Wow, Andial...that's pretty impressive.
"Oh yeah, I've done hundreds of 911 cranks."

What a neat gentleman. We sat and talked cars for a long time. He really blew my mind with one of his stories about a wealthy client that he had in the 70s about working on a 917!!
Too cool...he said that the guy broke a crank and had him do the replacement. The owner had his mechanic fly to Germany to find another crank (found one from a crashed 917 that was left in a field)... when he got it from Germany it came in a Laqeured wooden box lined with something that looked like Velvet...he asked the owners mechanic how much he paid for the wrecked car and he said more than either of them made in two years!

Anyway, really cool guy...knows his stuff...showed mt the crank from a Masarati and a 308 ferarri.
He said my crank looked "cherry" and that it hadn't even worn through the tuftriding (sp). And he also noted that the only 911 cranks that he has seen that didn't mic. came from cars that lost a bearing. Anyway I'll have it back Wedensday $35 dollars lighter.

Great story Leland. It's little gems like that that you look back on years from now and smile.
Bobby

To me THAT is the Porsche experience. No wine and cheese bull**** with ladies wearing funny hats having a picnick in a daisy field. Just good old hotrod war stories.

Cool beans dude!
I'm with rarely... Stories like that seem to take one there while they listen. The description of that velvet lined box with the
"BAR OF GOLD" in it really popped into my head
Far better story than the rice burner I ate in 3rd bavarian style......

Rock on with da project!

Will these craftsmen soon vanish off the face of the Earth along with our older vehicles?
I mean, if the crank or whatever breaks in your new 996 or Boxster, and they just throw the whole motor in the trash, replacing with new, who needs a specialist?
Good story, Leland.

------------------
Doug
'81 SC Coupe (aka: "Blue Bomber")
Canada West Region PCA
members.home.net/zielke/911SC.htm

Yes, he was a super cool dude... he was saying how he knew a bunch of the guys who worked for Brumos Porsche in the '70s and that he still does quite a few exotic cranks for a group of loyal customers back in CA.

You all should have seen the way his eyes lit up when he started talking about that crank out of the 917..."I've never seen anything like it... there wasn't a SINGLE unmachined surface on it....that thing was a work of art"...
really cool...

He also said that he was the one who had to call a couple of the Porsche engineers to tell them that their fancy 917 crank had broke to begin with and they didn't believe him...he said they were quite pissed about the whole affair...

Cool story. Just because its in a bad part of town doesn't mean anything I've learned. The Porsche shop I take my car too to do the timing belts and wheel balancing is located directly across from the housing projects ghetto!

Leland,

How about sharing his company name and phone? To have someone like him "approve" our parts would make me feel alot better at 7000+ RPM!

Thx,

JA

Joe, i have his busieness card at work and will post it tomorrow.

Here is the gentlemans info...
Tom Franks,
"Precision Crankshaft"
Garden City, Idaho
(208)321-8134
This guy obviously knows his stuff when it comes to exotics. He said he had never really even messed with the crank from a Chevy small block until he moved away from California.
Very reassuring to have a guy like this look at our "stuff"...And he is very reasonable price wise as well!
I would love to be able to throw some much deserved business his way.