Got robbed... Dang theives

Ranchero5.0

The Voice of Reason
Jan 1, 1999
5,306
0
76
Hagerstown MD
Been busting my hump lately trying to remodel the downstairs of my house so I haven't been in the garage too much the last couple weeks. Was outside the garage cleaning up my junk piles and I noticed my stainless pipe pile was moved around. Noticed immediately that the 3" magnaflow stainless mufflers and pipes off of the Capri were gone... Pissed 'bout that. Went to do the blower install on my friends '87 T top GT last night and I couldn't find the head unit. It was freshly rebuilt and setting on the floor covered with a shop towel to keep it safe. While going nuts trying to figure out where I had hid it from myself I noticed the BBK shorty headers I had hanging on the wall were missing. Talk about an empty feeling in your gut. A little more brousing turned up my spare autometer ultralite gauges missing too. Today I noticed the dog food container was missing so they must have used it to go shopping with.

I had a couple FMS boxes up in the rafters and one of them was on the floor and a box injectors come in was off the shelf and on the bench. Guess they didn't want empty boxes, just the goods? They had even dug around my junk explorer 4.0 motors looking for good parts. So far the loss is looking around $1200+. The blower wasn't mine so I have that to make right. Pisses me off because they didn't take the brackets for the blower or any of the good tools around the garage. They did get a 5 gallon bucket full of the pulleys and air filter stuff.

I'm going to install the twin turbo stuff off of my Capri to make it right until I can find another blower for him. The rest is loss, plus getting another garage door opener to keep that make sure that door is looked and jumping up everyt ime the dogs bark at night.

Jamie
 
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Wow Jamie I hate to hear that :( That's a lot of good stuff!!

I would be kicking some major ass if I were you and was able to find out who they were - no questions :mad:

Good luck in whatever you do.
 
i have some advice for you! round up all your stang buddies and do a stakeout on your house wait for the dickheads to come back and ambush them! dont forget about easily viseable bait!
 
I really didn't consider it valuable, just safe in the garage 30' off the alley and fifty feet from the house. It was just spare stuff I've been gathering for the last couple of years except the blower. The gauges were all off of eBay for the '93 until I went phantom ($50). The headers were about new and given to me for swapping out BBK longtubes in there place. The mufflers were $150 new and off of the Capri. Had about $500 in the rebuild kit for the Paxton and another $100 or so for the polishing and instrument grade clearcoating. I'll endup with another paxton head unit and put it on the ranchero if I don't find this one to put on his car. He came over tonight and was pretty cool about it, wants me to start the work ASAP on the turbo kit.

I made a 24' gate last fall after they got the Sport Comp 5" monster tach out of the Capri (forgot to lock the door one day after digging around in it for parts). They just popped the tach out of the ring and cut the wires. I actually had the ring sitting on the ultralite gauge boxes and it was on the bench. I noticed that it had fell and I just put it back up where the gauges were not realizing they were gone. Must be geezing...

Over the winter I had to leave the gate open because it froze that way and someone had gotten in the Capri under the car covers and unbolted one of the racing seats. Got bonzo pissed over that and cut the car up out of spite. Had it sitting on the trailer with the roof cut off and the cage cut free wanting them to try and steal it too.

The bummer is the dogs were going nuts last Friday night and I was too tired to get out of bed and check on it (too many 6 hour nights of rest). I'm looking into the security system and seriously thinking about selling my house in town. I'm a country boy used to walking the woods, not residential blocks. I also need to get the gate motorized ($500 for stuff). I spent this evening moving stuff around and cleaning up out back. Neighbors didn't see anything outside the normal traffic I have. I feel it was an inside job by one of the guys I know or someone they know, too dang knowledgable and easy to be coincidence.

Jamie
 
Motion detection flood lights are cool. I want motion flood lights that when they turn on, they broadcast the sound of a pump action shot gun!

The worst part is you feel responsible for your friends super charger. That shows you are a stand-up guy! We need more folks like you. :flag:
 
It might be one of your "buddies" that are responsible. They obviously knew what they were looking for, and they didn't take any major tools so I think they were probally figuring that the things were just stuff you had laying around and had no use for, so it wouldn't be that big of a loss, and you would just do an insurance claim and get full cash of the items so they probally thought they were doing you a "favor" where you would both bennifit.

It's not the value of what's lost that sucks about theft, but just the fact someone would take from you.
 
Jamie,

From your posts, it seems like someone is checking your goods out often enough that it's someone local to you. When you put my subframes on, you were telling me about a guy up the road that was trying to thieve from you. Does he still live there? It definatly sounds like someone knew what you had "available".

Sorry to hear about this crap. I hate thieves! I hope you get those scumbags. Atleast call the cops and file a report. Homeowners insurance should cover it right?
 
Did you leave the door open while working? If so that will make it harder to try and round this stuff back up? If you did not leave the door open then I would have to think back as to who knew what you had in the garage or if you had any subcontractors there if they had unescorted acces to your garage.
Good luck will keep my eyes and ears open for ya.
:flag:
 
Ok for the layout, the good garage 24' x 28' is located behind the old garage 18' x 36' on the house side of the alley. you have to pull around the old garage to get to the new one. The two garage doors face the neighbors lot and I have an access door facing the house. I have a 24' x 6' high sliding gate at the alley end of the lot from the old garage's corner to the end wall that I go lazy and didn't close last weekend.. I have a 8' x 24' wood shed along the fenceline that has a 6' hedge growing there. I just fired up a new puter so I don't have any pics to post yet. There is a city street light at the corner of my gate and I have three motion detector lights at the garage doors. I feel they just lit the way so the guy didn't trip and hurt himself.

The inside job theory is really gaining ground. I turned off the lights tonight and couldn't find crap in the garage while trying to be sneaky with a flashlight. The blower was covered, but the headers are shiny. Not sure about the gauges, but the rockers were on the top shelf in a black box right next to the door where you wouldn't want to get careless with a light. The bear is you can't see anything in the garage unless you walk up to the garage doors.

Oh guess I didn't mention that my spare sets of Harlon Sharpe 1.6 rockers and Crane 1.6 rockers are gone too.

I'm going hunting tomorow evening. Going to do a surprise visit to a 'friends' garage to see if anything pops up. Wife says his car sounded really different after he picked up his daughter at school and he didn't say anything to her as he walked by her. Plus the fact he hasn't stopped by has me bothered. Of course I can't prove anything without some physical evidence, but it bothers me that he knew about all those parts and what was in the boxes. Lucky or ?

The weirdest thing about the parts is I keep looking around for them like a misplaced them. Oddly enough I was talking to my nelghbor about it and decided that if they just showed up on the door step I wouldn't worry about it any more or even who took them, but if I find them on someones car that I'd go nuts and end up in jail or dead.

Jamie