So, here's the latest in my quest to get the Squaw Magnet back home. I went down to Ground Up Customs yesterday to pick up the studs they said were the wrong length as the machine shop said they could be cut to size. They told me that they had already returned them to S&S and that they were shorter anyway. They were lying to me. I am now convinced that the studs that S&S sent were the right size. Ground Up Customs concocted the story that they were the wrong length so that they could stall for more time. What they didn't tell me was that the only mechanic they had capable of tearing my engine apart had broken his hand and not returned to work. I found this out through other sources. Instead of telling me this so that I could make other plans, they concocted story after story until they were forced to outright lie to me in order not to lose my business. If they had told me the truth when I brought the engine in, I'd already be home.

The machine shop finished their work today as promised. Unfortunately, S&S has stopped returning my calls as they had set everything up to go through Ground Up Customs so, not only did the new studs not come in, I had to pay for the machine work myself. The shipping company had also stopped returning my calls so I dropped by when I was in Anchorage to discover that they didn't have any crates large enough to ship the sidecar. Looks like I'm back to my original plan of shoving everything in a U-Haul and driving home. Of course, if Ground Up Customs hadn't hung me up to dry, I'd have been on the road last week. Now I'm going to have to haul ass to get home in time to meet my personal commitments. What a nightmare!