All points bulletin !!!!

[Dropacent]

Just heard from one of our club members. North central Ohio “ Bumps and Grinds” , MTFCA club. A beautiful father/son/son/ family team. They have a nice roadster pickup truck in a storage unit, and it had all the varnished wood wheels, spindles , brake drums, the spare with a brand new tire, headlights with nickel rims, sidelights and brackets, tailight and bracket removed, STOLEN. If anything along this line is offered please notify the Lagrange police department immediately. 440-355-4469. I’ll attempt to get better pictures to share, but these should help. Please be aware of Craig’s list, Facebook etc, offerings. These bums will be caught!

[Henry K. Lee]

WHAT A BUNCH OF A$$H0L3$!!!!!!

[Dropacent]

Lagrange is a village of 2500 good souls, but right on the edge of a much more populated area. I don’t believe they were car people to take the wheels off like they did, and I’m hopeful they will be caught. I’ll be letting the local antique shops know tomorrow , but feel free to pass this along. Thanks!

[Burger in Spokane]

You really gotta wonder about people ... all those parts and the time/
risk it took to take them .... worth what, by the time they actually trade
them for a little cash ? Black era T's are about the cheapest old car a person
could own, and parts are correspondingly cheap, meaning they ain't gonna
get much for the parts, even if they CAN sell them ! At what point does it
occur to morons like this that just getting a job will pay much better, and
without the risk of legal entanglement ?

[ThreePedalTapDancer]

The parts probably weren’t stolen to sell individually, they were however, probably stolen to enhance somebody’s existing T in an effort to sell the whole car. Dont just look for parts for sale, look at whole cars for sale.

[FreighTer Jim]

The storage facility might have a camera
at the entrance and/or exit.

If access is granted by an electronic gate
that uses a keypad or magnetic card
there might be a record of entries.

Storage units sometimes the include insurance
in the rental fee - or their homeowners iinsurance
might cover the loss.


FJ

[sweet23]

Someone was there for a while making noise to remove all those parts. unless it was late in the evening someone must have saw something. The unfortunate thing is, the police are of little help. They sure were not when I had things stolen. The only help would be for them to do their own detective work. The storage place should have a cameras, they must have had a truck or van to haul all that stuff off, might be able to get a tag number. Or if it was another renter, the items may be in another unit.

[TWrenn]

Unbelievable. Totally ridiculous. Almost seems sadly that someone is familiar with Ts to "go for it", hate to think anyone
in "our brotherhood" would stoop so low. But then again, it was probably some druggies who will stop at nothing to steal anything to support their habit. What a shame. Hope they get caught, and the goods returned in good condition.

[Ruxstel24]

I doubt this was a random theft.
I bet the owner has shown the car to the crooks at one point. And the bastards knew what they were doing. We all know T rear wheels don’t just come off with lug nuts. LaGrange is in the middle of nowhere also. Hopefully the parts will find their way home.
What brand are the tires Tim ?

[John Codman]

I think that the thieves knew exactly what they wanted, and have significant T skills. The pieces are either for their own T or they stole them to sell to someone else. I hate thieves!

[Dan Hatch]

How many people know how to remove Spindle on a T ? Specially in a hurry.
Ever watch a Non T guy try?

[KWTownsend]

If you don't know how to unscrew front wheel bearings, taking the spindles off would be the way to do it. There must gave been a wheel puller the to get the back wheels off.

[TRDxB2]

Just heard from one of our club members. North central Ohio “ Bumps and Grinds” , MTFCA club. A beautiful father/son/son/ family team. They have a nice roadster pickup truck in a storage unit, and it had all the varnished wood wheels, spindles , brake drums, the spare with a brand new tire, headlights with nickel rims, sidelights and brackets, tailight and bracket removed, STOLEN. If anything along this line is offered please notify the Lagrange police department immediately. 440-355-4469. I’ll attempt to get better pictures to share, but these should help. Please be aware of Craig’s list, Facebook etc, offerings.

Its possible that the "selected" items may be used to complete/replace those of a T being restored. So... don't just look for loose parts (T's with varnished wood wheels). OR the old items may be being sold as a group or individually by the same seller, so consider that as well.
Do you know if the police dusted for finger prints? Also the person must have been on the thin side to remove the drivers side rear tire, looks like a tight squeeze.

[Oldav8tor]

This theft required some planning and preparation. Also required some T knowledge. They had to know the T was there and brought the tools needed to remove the parts they wanted. The car's owners likely know them which makes it even worse. Unfortunately, there is little way that you could identify the parts as coming from the car now unless there is something unique about them. I agree that the parts were not randomly chosen....they may well be going to someone's "project" although watching craigslist, marketplace, ebay and this forum is a good idea.

I know of a couple of guys who keep their cars in storage buildings... time to re-think security. Some kind of wifi monitoring system would be my choice but I doubt most storage facilities offer such a thing.

[Dropacent]

Just heard back. The tires are universal 30x3 1/2 , with the spare being brand new, 0 miles. Steering wheel also gone. Frankly , they have insurance, but that’s just ignorant to fluff it off as “ just turn it into insurance” Don’t you realize we all pay for claims like this? I’ve sent an email note to the several large antique shops nearby, and also to some auto parts picker friends, to keep an eye out. The model T hobby isn’t that big, where a fresh pile like this wouldn’t be noticed. When was the last time you saw a set of 5 natural wheels , great tires, with spindles and brake drums attached been offered. Not very often, if ever. Just please , share the story, make people aware.
This isn’t the big city, and this small police department would be right on it. Perhaps in the big city they have bigger fish to fry.

[TRDxB2]

Just heard back. The tires are universal 30x3 1/2 , with the spare being brand new, 0 miles. Steering wheel also gone. Frankly , they have insurance, but that’s just ignorant to fluff it off as “ just turn it into insurance” Don’t you realize we all pay for claims like this? I’ve sent an email note to the several large antique shops nearby, and also to some auto parts picker friends, to keep an eye out. The model T hobby isn’t that big, where a fresh pile like this wouldn’t be noticed. When was the last time you saw a set of 5 natural wheels , great tires, with spindles and brake drums attached been offered. Not very often, if ever. Just please , share the story, make people aware.
This isn’t the big city, and this small police department would be right on it. Perhaps in the big city they have bigger fish to fry.

The last reported car theft was later found 30 miles away and the area is a source for T parts.

[Jerry VanOoteghem]

Check local flea markets too.

I helped a chapter member get a stolen set of wheels back after another friend of mine was telling me about a set of wheels he'd seen at a flea market. I tipped off the chapter member to the flea market. Police pointed out that the thieves now knew where his garage was. Making an issue out of it might induce a garage fire.... The guy ended up buying back is own wheels.

[Humblej]

I dont think a non T person would be able to remove rear wheels, have the knowledge or have a wheel knocker/ puller at hand. Unless a hack saw was used, this thief knew what was there, had the know how, and the tools. This was not a target of opportunity by someone that randomly broke in. Hope he gets caught and stolen items are returned.

[Ron Mac]

Something smells really fishy here.

Lots of things just don't add up. Interesting how they took the spindles but left the arms. Someone spent a fair amount of time to get these parts off. And, they needed a decent size car trunk or pickup bed to get these parts out of this facility. There's got to be some cameras somewhere that recorded all this and the passcode for getting in and out has to be recorded somewhere. We use a few of these storage facilities for overflow work equipment in various locations. Most also require ID and/or a list of the people who have access to the code as well as permission to get into the storage space. Something is weird here.

[Tadpole]

That's a crying shame. They didn't take the television though, would be odd for an average thief.

[Oldav8tor]

One thing that would be nice to know is whether the wheels were originals or re-spoked. Natural or stained. Fordite or wood steering wheel?

[Dropacent]

Most thieves aren’t the sharpest knife in the drawer. If these were very smart, they wouldn’t have taken the time to do this theft, in this manner. It’s a small T and old car community around these parts with a lot of overlap between clubs. Word is out, thanks

[Mark Gregush]

There is a guy here looking for cowl light brackets, maybe the robbers are reading the ads here and saw that someone was looking for a set? Taking them off also take a bit of know how. They removed the spindle arms! Those take a bit of pounding most times to remove.

[Derek Kiefer]

My gut instinct on this one is that someone stole specific parts that they needed for their own car.

A typical opportunistic meth head would have gone for the scrap-value of the radiator.

Sad and infuriating either way.

[ewdysar]

I doubt this was a random theft.
I bet the owner has shown the car to the crooks at one point. And the bastards knew what they were doing. We all know T rear wheels don’t just come off with lug nuts. LaGrange is in the middle of nowhere also. Hopefully the parts will find their way home…

I agree. Years ago, I had a non-op ‘66 VW Squareback. The engine had been disassembled to the point of diagnosing a major overhaul, and the car has sat for a few years with many parts in boxes in the back, figuring that I would get back to it “someday”. Eventually, I listed it in “The Recycler”, the weekly SoCal paper classified ads that were the olde-timey (1970’s - 2000) version of Craigslist. A few folks came and looked at it, but declined to buy. A few days later, I noticed that the lock had been punched out of the rear hatch, and some select rare and almost new parts were missing. I shrugged, adjusted my faith in humanity downward, knocked a couple of hundred off the price and listed it again. Someone bought it and hauled it away a few days later. The buyer might have known the thieves, or not. But in the end, I had moved on…

But yeah, I know that I had spoken face to face with the guys that later ripped me off. Many people suck.

Eric

[John kuehn]

Somebody knew somebody and etc and knew about the car to begin with. Maybe even knows the owner through a casual acquaintance. It was planned and whoever got the parts knew what he wanted. He had the right tools to remove the back wheels. Think about it. Hope they find the folks who planned the heist.

[perry kete]

They need to look at adjoining storage units to see if the parts are still on the property. There was a theft from a storage unit just down the road from me and it turned out to be a fellow who had rented a unit two doors down from the unit that got robbed. He opened his unit climbed through the ceiling and took everything he wanted passed it over to his unit and waited until things cooled down and then tried to sell them. He made the mistake of offering them to a friend of the person he robbed.

[John Codman]

Sadly, I agree with OldAv8or (those of us who were pilots must think alike). I think that the T's owner knows the thieves. The scumbags knew that the T was there, they knew what unit it was in, They knew that all the parts they wanted were there, they knew when they would have all the time that they needed, they knew and had all of the tools that they would use.