Just purchased a Beck!

Hi Everyone,

I joined this group a few months ago, mainly to get more information and confirmation on what I had already pretty much decided on. And I must say ALL of your insight and experienceds have been pretty helpful. Thanks Anthony! You have been a great encouragement. Can't wait to drive over this spring.

I placed my order on Dec 17 and expect delivery sometime in April, may....I guess whenever it gets here! Snow still hasn't melted, yet.

This is basically a dream come true for me. I remember the originals racing when I was very young and always thought they were the most beautiful cars I had ever seen. When Beck started up I followed the company in hopes of owning one someday. I still have all of the original articles from the car mags that did stories on Beck way back when. Now I finally have one. Well, almost;)

Looking forward to a long, happy relationship here.

Doug

Congrats!

You will enjoys it.

Mike

Congratulations and welcome!

Doug:

Congratulations. Search this site and www.spyderclub.com for answers to your questions about your Beck and other versions. You'll probably find what you are looking for. If not, there is a treasure trove of information and experience among the members of these forums.

Congratulations on your purchase! I received my Beck in November and can tell you Dean Rogers and the team at Beck have been great to do business with.

Loren Hulber
lhulber@ptd.net

Doug, you're gonna love it!

Thanks Everyone!

Dean and the Crew have been great so far, in fact everyone I find associated with these little cars has been fantastic!

The closer it gets to the delivery date (OK, when ever that may end up to be...) the more anxious I become. I'm starting to drive my wife crazy, um wait, crazier, yeah, thats it!

Can't Wait,

Doug

Update!

My engine is complete and will be on the Dyno this morning! Beck will have it at their shop on Monday. All suspension and running gear is otherwise installed iin the car. After the motor is installed in will go over to Russ at Fibresteel for all of the detail work and accessories.

Dean says it might be ready in as few as three weeks! Now I'm REALLY getting anxious!

I'm leaning towards Horseless Carriage to haul it out here. Anyone have anything good/bad to report on this outfit?

Doug

Congratulations on your new car - you're going to LOVE IT!! I have worked inspected trucks and doing safety audits on trucking companies for eight years.

Horseless Carriage is a good company. I've inspected several of their vehicles roadside and do not recall any serious safety defects or problems with their drivers. The most recent one I inspected was NB on I-5 toward Alaska with an entire trailer full of brand new dodge vipers. Fully enclosed trailer, carefully secured cars. Good attention to detail.

The following website can lend you additional information. It will show a thumbnail sketch of the carrier's safety practices as found in truck inspections. IT will show how many trucks have been inspected, how many were placed out-of-service (that would be for VERY serious safety defects), how many miles and how many accidents they have had. Look for a carrier will one or few accidents per 1.5 million or so miles traveled. This will also give you some of their insurance information etc.

safer.fmcsa.dot.gov/CompanySnapshot.aspx

angela

Thanks Angela! I read another post of yours that directed me to that site. I checked it out but at that time I didn't know who was going to be hauling the car. I appreciate the info!

Doug

The motor was going in yesterday. Car should be on four wheels today and should be ready to go around the first or second week of May. The carrier is hired and it should arrive at my door, or as close as the truck can get, somewhere around the third or fourth week of May.

The suspense is killing me.

Doug

Well, the car is finished and now I'm waiting for the shipper to pick up the car and deliver it to my door. Or as close as he can get the truck! Should be here next week, or the next, or??

You must be beside your self w/excitement!! It will be here soon and you have the whole summer to unroll under the wheels.

Please post pics when your car arrives!
angela

I AM beside myself with excitement!!! I'm hoping it gets here before June 11 so I can drive over to VWoA headquarters in Detroit for a VW car show!! I figured I'd slip it into the Aircooled category;)

But then again, no sense in rushing things! You're right, I'll have all summer left! But then again, this is Michigan and summers can be elusively short here sometimes!

The car is on the truck and is motoring it's way east. It could be here as soon as Wednesday. I'll post pics shortly after it's arrival.

How exciting! So you should be in about your 3rd or 4th case of Depends by now?

I just opened the 5th case this morning!!!

Just heard, the truck is in Chicago, only 2 1/2 hours away!!!! bad news is the driver is within a couple of hours of his "limit" and probably will have to stop and shut down for 36 hours between there and here!!!! AAAAARGHHHH!!!!!

Calm down Doug, that truck will get there, when???
Have a lot of fun with the new 550.
Hope to have the suspension and wheels/tires on my kit this weekend.

WAAAAAAAHOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!

It's HERE!

I am the happiest man on the planet right now. I got through the Police inspection with NO issues whatsoever. Now the insurance carrier needs to complete everything and issue the policy (Hagerty) and it's off to the Secretary Of States office to get all of the "legal" stuff taken care of.....

Took a "test drive" with the Officer last night. I got on it a little bit and he blurted out "Holy Sh_t!" He was impressed. And so am I.....

Spent an hour at the counter at the Sec. of States office today trying to get a plate for the new Beck. it took 4 people to figure out what to do, but they finally got it. I hope. I walked out with registration and a 60 day temp tag. Now if it will only stop raining.....

Don't worry about a little Rain, get out there, drive it, enjoy!!!

Got the engine (CB1915) and transaxle in mine and now working on wireing and brakes.

Well, I did just that! Took it out to fill it with gas last night and after the crowd dispersed and I could fuel up the car it started raining. What a hoot! That's a neat way to practice hanging the tail out!

Did you get car directly from CBM? If so, when was it ordered? How long did it take?

Yes, I ordered it directly from CBM on December 17, 2004, and it was delivered on June 8, 2005. It took almost exactly 6 months to complete. When I ordered it Dean Rogers said they would try to shoot for delivery around the first of March. But, one thing and another popped up and we ended up in June. No big deal for me, actually worked out better for me. And that's pretty much what I expected from what I gathered were "reasonable" times for delivery based on what I read in these Forums.

Give us an update on the Spyder. Would love to hear how things are going.

UPDATE!!!

I've had the car for a little over a month now. I have 2500km on the odo. The smile on my face is now permanent.

I've had amazingly few "issues" to sort out. Fuel filter on backwards, clogged idle jets, warped drumskin rubbing on caliper, throttle cable rubbing on cooling shroud, loose drivers door catch.

The latest from this weekend. After a long hot (VERY hot for Michihgan) drive this weekend the motor started breaking up above 5000 RPM and when I got home there is a faint "ticking" noise coming from the engine somewhere. A valve maybe? Have adjusted tehm once already and I guess it's time for another.

The biggest hassle has been registering the car. Big surprise. The local office and the state office disagreed on procedure, argued for a month and now I'm starting the process over again. Frustrating.

That's all for now,

Doug

Another update.....

Saturday was spent taking the Webers apart and cleaning them out completely. The popping and rough running developed into will not run at anything but full throttle! Now, I could live with that but it does make things interesting in traffic...

Back to Saturday...here's what I found. The emulsion tubes and associated jets were all covered with a fine white powder, fairly thick, that cleaned off with an aggressive spray carb cleaner. They also had all kinds of little black stuff in the openings. There was all kinds of black gritty junk in the top plates (the bottoms that the air filters sit on. And the idle circuits were also filled with that pesky black stuff.

Where did all that black stuff come from and what is it? The washers on top of the air cleaner top plates that have rubber backing on them. Every time the air cleaners were put back on some of that rubber scrapes off from being filed off by the threaded mounting studs and gets sucked into the carbs. With all of the issues I had the aor cleaners off a dozen times so far. Each time more junk go t rubbed off and I didn't realize this was happening.

I still don't have any idea what the white powder was on the emulsion tubes et al. Gas deposits maybe, I did have to fuill up that monstrous 8 gallon fuel tank at a questionable station, and I was dead empty so maybe it was bad gas.

So, long story short, my Spyder now runs like a raped ape.

Hmmmm. Son-of-a-gun. Anyone know what's happening to the Spyder?Keep the updates coming. It's nice to follow.

Thanks Shawn,

I'll keep the updates flowing!

Doug

doug , i dont know how much rubber comes off of the washers but i had a tiny pieces of rubber issue that was caused by the black rubber "turtleneck" , the rain/ fuel overflow catcher that is around the fuel filler neck . they place it and a cork gasket between the filler neck and the tank . i dont know if it is dry rot or what , however tiny pieces eventually flake off into the tank and clog everything from the tank outlet forward . i found a bill under the seat to the previous owner, from a shop that cleaned out the tank and lines , rebuilt the carbs , and charged an arm and a leg to do it . later i saw that they had grounded the battery to the carb . not a very good idea . the clogging cropped up again for me after a spirited ride through the ilion gorge on rt 51 , i replaced the fuel filters and discovered that one of them was literally resting on the exhaust header. another not very good idea . then it was on to an electric fuel pump . another tank cleaning and this time removed the rubber overflow thingamajig and replaced it around the fillerneck and not under it as a gasket . troublefree since then , so far . good luck sorting out the problem . hope this helps you some .

Hummm... I also had the tiny pieces of rubber issue when I first started-up my engine and had to clean out the carbs, will check out that turtleneck and see if it is under the filler neck.
Am also having a little gas leak out of the tank somewhere on rough roads.
Thanks for the heads-up Jerry

Thanks for the tip David! I'll check that out, but it might be a longshot. I have two fuel filters, one before one after the fuel pump. The size of this stuff is like grains of sand, maybe slightly smaller. Don't know if that can get through two filters.

I'll let you know.

-Doug

don't forget to clean the carb inlet screeens too.

Carb screens are added to the list! Thanks Mike!

Doug:

For heavens sake, please post pictures of your car. You are killing me describing it, please post photos. I hope you are enjoying the heck out of it.

Juan

OK OK!!!!

I had a photographer contact me a couple of weeks ago and he wanted to shoot my car for a calendar!!!! We met at a Historic Village in SW Michigan with a wooden covered bridge and buildings from the late 1800's. Met the Director of the Village by chance and she flipped over the Spyder and gave us run of the Park. We got to pull the car into lawns, up to equipment and buildings, barns etc. Any location we wanted! Stopped traffic! Everyone wanted to know what we were up to....

I'l post them up as soon as I get them.....

On another note, the Michigan Secretary of State's Office is affixing my VIN Plate this morning! Woo Hoo! I now have a valid VIN and Title. It only took two months! Now I still need a plate....details, details!

hi doug . what was the outcome of your fuel clog problem ? congratulations on your vin and title . be thankful that you're not trying to register in that westernmost state with all the hoops you have to jump through . david

Hi David,

Yeah, I'm glad I'm not out there! They still have a soft spot for stuff like this in Michigan!

Fuel clog problem was traced to rubber scraping off of the rubber backed washers on the two studs holding the air cleaner tops on. Every time I would put the washers back on they were shaving bits off (and you can't see that as you're sliding the washers down the studs)and teh bits were falling into the carbs through teh clearance between the studs and the casting! Frustrating to say the least!

I thought it might have been junk in the tank, but the two fuel filters were doing their jobs and the intake screens were clean so apparently nothing was getting through that way.

It runs fantastic now! Wonder what my next "glitch" will be;)

Doug

Good to hear all is going well.