Here's to BUBBA aka Jim Lindner

[TonyM]

Jim, I received the condenser today. Thanks.

[tubman]

I guess I'm lucky; I've only been waiting for my Mallory YL since march, 2014.

[Seth Swoboda]

Originally Posted by Carter

Well I still haven't received my Desoto Autolite. Also, in an 'explanation' of his side of the situation in the HAMB, Mr Linder claimed the reason he couldn't build my Mallory per our agreement was that it was of incorrect rotation. Turns out that isn't even true. I initially assumed that to be the case, but after a while I pulled the rebuilt Mallory out to identify to sell it since I couldn't use it. Since I don't have my Autolite to compare it directly, I can't verify this with a direct comparison, but according to what I could find, they are both the same.

I noticed after my last message all of those people saying what a stand up guy Jim was haven't responded. I'm curious as to why that is...

I have never had a problem with Bubba and he has done several distributors for me. I even had coil problems once and he talked me through them and assisted me. A lot of the time communication is the problem in these cases. I bet if you call Bubba and have a reasonable and polite conversation he does his very best to resolve your problem.

[Lawson Cox]

Yes, Bubba handled that very well. Kudos.

[BUBBAS IGNITION]

Originally Posted by tubman

I guess I'm lucky; I've only been waiting for my Mallory YL since march, 2014.

Tubman you are almost done. I took your $5.00 swap meet mallory and have scraped up enough parts to make it able to do what you wanted. Flathead machine work, upper cam change and even needed another housing to enable you to run a crab cap. Shes a beauty , hang in in there you will get it.....soon

[BUBBAS IGNITION]

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I told myself this morning i would not reply but i am home now and here goes!

I said Feb 24th 2014 :
Guys i can tell you one thing for sure , i would like for this thread to just go away ,but thats business i guess....
As i said in another post life just goes on and things happen and it seems like the busier you get the more chance of things happening !!!!!
Just did some number crunching from 2013, we shipped 487 distributors out the door , most ( not all) were happy . BTW in 2015 we shipped 450 units.
We receive boxes from all over every day and process each and every one, some have no notes other than i talked to Jim, others come from ebay that were purchased by someone to ship direct to us for repair.???

I have 3 on the ups bench right now with no notes etc..

Each order is entered into a computer as they arrive and some ( get done the day we recieve them) while others are torn down with parts being sent to the machine shop down the street. (theres 38 working orders on the screen right now ) 42 orders today ..

Actually had to fire my machine shop guy this year as my parts would lay there for weeks before he got to them. ( have new guy doing them now and seems much better)
So in respect to this thread , we will continue to do the best work possible and get them done as quickly as we can. However if you get caught in the cracks pm for status report and we will always respond...
Our goal is to be the very best Vintage ignition service available anywhere ....

Jim @ Bubbas

I finally found a core ( Old Autolite) to return to Carter next week.....


__________________

[Carter]

Originally Posted by Seth Swoboda

I have never had a problem with Bubba and he has done several distributors for me. I even had coil problems once and he talked me through them and assisted me. A lot of the time communication is the problem in these cases. I bet if you call Bubba and have a reasonable and polite conversation he does his very best to resolve your problem.

Seth, thanks for your suggestion, but I have called Jim more times than I can remember over the last few years, along with messages on here and the HAMB, and I've always been reasonable, polite, and courteous. That's not exactly easy to do with all of the broken promises.

Hopefully I receive MY Autolite back, not some junk core that was laying around.

I do find it odd that Jim always talks about how the cores and trades he received in these situations were junk. I asked Jim several times early on if we were good on my trades, that I'd be happy to pay whatever was necessary so that the deal was fair to him as well. He assured me that all was good. Now that I've decided to speak up, all of a sudden everything I sent him was junk, which it most certainly wasn't. Was the stuff NOS or like new? No, of course it wasn't. These were 50-75 year old distributors. But they were what most here would consider nice cores, all but one complete with nice two piece cap, rotor, brass condensors, etc.

And I notice Mr Linder also did not have a reply about what he told me about the rotation of the distributors.

Jim, I would very much like this thread to go away as well, because that would mean I have received my parts back, even though it was not per our original agreement. I'm willing to accept that after all this time. I do hope you have found MY Autolite to return to me, or at the very least a reasonably similar unit. I do have pictures of that particular distributor from when it still was in the engine.

[Mike B]

Not picking sides, but would hope the Autolite would be ready to run when received.

[tubman]

Originally Posted by BUBBAS IGNITION

Tubman you are almost done. I took your $5.00 swap meet mallory and have scraped up enough parts to make it able to do what you wanted. Flathead machine work, upper cam change and even needed another housing to enable you to run a crab cap. Shes a beauty , hang in in there you will get it.....soon

Bubba,

Thanks for the input. I am looking forward to getting my unit back. The remarks about a "$5.00 swap meet Mallory" at this time are kind of insulting. If you remember, I sent you detailed pictures of the distributor before I sent it it in make sure I wasn't wasting both of our time. You said "Send it in, it's what we do." So I did. I also told you I had another YL that had already a crab cap if you needed parts.

I don't want to get into with this with you, as I have another SBC Mallory I need done. (it has both a vacuum advance and the mechanical advance). Let me know what I need to know to get it done on a reasoable time frame.

Tubman

[Ken Crans]

I big thanks to Jim for helping me with this F1 project as well as Charlie for the carb rebuild. Ken

[Scott H in Wheaton]

I guess I'll weigh in on this issue too. Pull up a chair, this is a long one.

I've met Jim in person and toured his shop, right in the shadows of the Indy 500 grandstands. Its a cool old building that seems to have started in the 1930's as a service station, then was added on I think in the 50's to make a small car dealership, and then added on a third time. Its kind of fitting that Jim is working on these old ignitions in a building that was around when our old cars were still new cars.
Overall I'd bet its the size of a decent 4-5 car garage. Neat and well organized inside, nicely painted walls and floors, tools and test equipment nice and tidy. Just down the block is AJ Foyt's place.
Jim seems to have a ton of experience as a former automotive teacher, used to run a fuel injection business, and recently closed that to focus on the ignition business. A lot on his plate for basically a one man operation with some part time help.
When I was there it looked like a well run small business, no chaos or mess, just someone who knows his stuff very well and is in high demand as the old farts who know how to do this stuff are retiring and dying off.
For the volume he does there are bound to be a few hiccups, and he seems to acknowledge them and try to fix them. I'd rather have that than someone who dodges an issue and won't even attempt to correct it.

My own frustration is not with Jim or an ignition issue, but with a body man who is working on my cab. I know how to do the work, I have the tools, but I don't have the shop space, the time, or a paint booth to finish the cab myself. This body man had my cab for about six months, then I got it back in primer. Six months later he was getting caught up on projects and we had another go at it. Set aside time for January and February to bring it in, finish the body work, get it painted and back to me by March 1. Mind you, this is just the cab we are talking about. He works full time in a body shop and he has a 3 stall shop he rents to do side jobs.
As of May he wanted to give up, but he's really an artist with metal and I don't want to find someone else. he's installed a bunch of patch panels and the truck looks to be 90% finished with no plastic filler. Meanwhile, his wife is having their second baby, he sold his condo, just closed on a house, and HOPEFULLY will be back on my cab in the next week or so.
Moral of my story is if you have the guy you want to do the work be prepared for delays and hiccups. If you change your mind and no longer want him to do the work, be prepared to find someone else with the same talent. In my case, I'd rather wait it out than search for another. Maybe someday I'll change my mind, pick up my parts, and move on. But for now I'm still convinced the guy I've found is eventually the guy I will trust to do the quality of work I want.

Your mileage may vary.

[flatheadmurre]

Think Bubba may be a victim of being a small buisness and to nice trying to help everyone...then gets a bit overloaded from time to time.
Look at it from the other side...hes providing a great sevice getting less available for a descent price...if he start raising the price and accepting less volume...making the same money and not getting overloaded...will you all be happy with that ?
Things go wrong with everyone from time to time...havent seen him denying or bashing...just trying to solve the issues.

[Blu Dice]

Originally Posted by flatheadmurre

Think Bubba may be a victim of being a small buisness and to nice trying to help everyone...then gets a bit overloaded from time to time.
Look at it from the other side...hes providing a great sevice getting less available for a descent price...if he start raising the price and accepting less volume...making the same money and not getting overloaded...will you all be happy with that ?
Things go wrong with everyone from time to time...havent seen him denying or bashing...just trying to solve the issues.

Well said and right on target.

[Mike B]

I think some need to reread what has been posted by those who are not satisfied, put themselves in that position...one must remember that Jim is not "doing it on the side', but is his his business.

I won't say anymore because I don't have a horse in this race.

Only thing I'll mention is mileage seems consistent, many get 40mpg, while some are looking at "gpm".

[Bluebell]

I agree with FHMurre, and last couple of posts.
I have never sent Bubba a job,never bought anything from him, but have had lots of help from him by way of the info he posts on here.
Not too many guys do that for free.
Thank you Bubba for you valuable help, from me on the other side of the globe.
btw. Many of my saved threads are info from Bubba, because we tend to be "do it your selfers" down here.

[Mike B]

Carter should have been contacted by now?

[itstom]

I'll chime in here although what I have to say echos a lot of the previous posts.

Jim has done a couple of helmet distributors for me in the past. Both were done quickly and were quite reasonably priced. I also had the pleasure of being in the audience when he spoke at the Springfield meet last year. Clearly Jim is a man who knows what he's talking about and is willing to share that knowledge with others.

But I sent Jim a distributor a month ago and have not had the pleasure of a response to my emails or phone messages. I just wish the communication was of the same caliber as his work.

So Jim, how about an email or PM and let me know what's up with the '38 Buick Special distributor?

Thanks,
Tom

[Hoop]

The saga of Jim "Bubba" Linder continues on Ford Barn's ongoing drama, the CARdashians.

Future episodes will feature Bubba's early years which include some of the following flashbacks:

!. Bubba was raised as a foster child by African-American sharecropper parents in Mississippi. Due the hard work harvesting the family's crops, his hands were permanently scarred which prevented him from pursuing his dream of becoming a neurosurgeon ... he learned how to rebuild distributors in rehab.

2. Bubba ran away from home at 15, lied about his age, joined the Navy and became the youngest SEAL. His first assignment was to recover Monica Lewinsky's panties from a desk drawer in the Oval Office. Unfortunately he stumbled upon Hillary and Janet Reno taking turns trying on the targeted item ... he was reassigned to the Aleutian Islands serving in the motor pool rebuilding distributors.

3. Bubba was actually born Jennifer Linder. While in the Girl Scouts as a Daisy, Bubba realized that joining the Boy Scouts provided a better route to a merit badge in Auto Repair. Carefully and cleverly he hid his identity, BUT sharp-eyed Ford Barners caught this rare 2012 Barn photo post of Bubba at work in his (her) shop complete with pseudonym ... Shelly? ... RIGHT!





So ... if anyone wants to continue this silliness, press on. The US Postal Service has delivered my mail wrong in the past two of three days. Good thing they are not rebuilding your distributors.
.
.
.

[Kahuna]

Great narrative, Hoop

[BUBBAS IGNITION]

Originally Posted by itstom

I'll chime in here although what I have to say echos a lot of the previous posts.

Jim has done a couple of helmet distributors for me in the past. Both were done quickly and were quite reasonably priced. I also had the pleasure of being in the audience when he spoke at the Springfield meet last year. Clearly Jim is a man who knows what he's talking about and is willing to share that knowledge with others.

But I sent Jim a distributor a month ago and have not had the pleasure of a response to my emails or phone messages. I just wish the communication was of the same caliber as his work.

So Jim, how about an email or PM and let me know what's up with the '38 Buick Special distributor?

Thanks,
Tom

Your cast iron 38 Buick is on this weeks list to get done. BTW a few weeks on a project like this isnt abnormal . It will be done and it will be perfect , just takes time . I wish some days i only had a single project. Fridays ups brought 7 more and i shipped 2 .
Guys, give me a chance before you give up !!!