Fish Plate Kit from Eastern Surplus
This post is in response to post # 6 made by user 'country'.
I have met many helpful and kind individuals on this forum.
Without the help and advice of some of the members of this community, I would have never gotten this far with my FMTV project.
Therefore, I regret to have to write this post.
I have agonized over this for several days.
I am posting this because I wasted $ 2700 for a 'set' of fish plates that were mentioned in the above post for sale by Eastern Surplus in Philadelphia, PA.
I am posting this because I don't want anyone else to make the same mistake.
I found out about this product offering from this post:
"if you have too much flex- we have a kit to help
also have full parts support for FMTV models and LMTV
dave
www.easternsurplus.net
855-332-0500
dave@easternsurplus.net
I also read that some of the LMTVs and FMTVs had frame issues that required the use of these plates to avoid potential frame issues as reported in this article:
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ground/fmtv.htm
Therefore, I wrote to Mr. Newman and told him about my FMTV build.
I specifically wrote to him that I needed a 'set of plates'.
I twice asked him if the price was for a set or individual plates.
He responded that the price was for each plate.
These plates are side-specific (either driver's side or passenger side) and cannot be reversed as they have support structures only on one side.
He gave me a decent price $1100 each but raised shipping from PA to CO from the previous estimate of $ 450 to $ 1700.
That alone should have been a red flag.
Nonetheless, I paid $ 2200 for a set of two plates.
I set up my own shipping using Freightquote and even though I rarely ship freight got a price of $ 520 for inbound shipping.
The plates arrived a few days later.
Upon inspection, it became apparent that Mr. Newman sent me two (2) driver's side plates instead of a drivers and a passenger plate.
Here is a picture of what I received:
So I e-mailed him, thinking that this was just an oversight.
No, Mr. Newman explained that I never specified that I wanted a set, or a driver's and passenger side.
Therefore, I got two driver's sides.
And, to make things even better, he told me that he does not have any passenger side fish plates.
I guess I have always wanted to own what basically amounts to two left shoes, two right gloves, two left skis.
How foolish of me to assume that a set was just two of the same product for only one side of the vehicle.
I really can't see how one could use one (and especially two) fish plates like this on just one side of the frame.
If anyone has experience with this, please let me know.
Especially since Mr. Newman stated that these were 'kits', not just driver's side plates.
After a few days of attempting to explain that I was not interested in just putting two fish plates on the driver's side frame rail, I gave up.
So I filed a Pay Pal dispute.
I sent Pay Pal a copy of our rather lengthy e-mail exchanges.
Fortunately, Pay Pal agreed with me that selling just one plate, or two, for the same side of the frame, was not of much use beyond scrap metal.
The good news is that Pay Pal, not Mr. Newman, is going to give me a full refund for the purchase price.
The not so good news is that I have to ship these plates back and eat $ 1040 in shipping costs just to get $ 2200 back.
I am breaking my silence on this matter because I don't want anyone else to fall for the same thing and waste a ton of money for....well, nothing.
Again, so far my experience on this forum has been great.
I think I have made some great friendships and hope to meet my more of them in person one day.
This is one exception that I hope not to have to repeat.
With best wishes to all,
Toby
Not much flex. The rear tire is off the ground on the other side. Both fronts in contact. The bed still looks in line.
