The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Engine Shop Looking for Reputable engine builder in North Texas?

I'm looking for a reputable engine builder/ machine shop to rebuild my 292. I live in north Texas and can drive up to Oklahoma if necessary. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks,

Tinker's Machine Shop just north of downtown Dallas...think it is on Irving Blvd. He'll need you to be specific...that is you'll need to tell him what range you want him to hit (crank tolerance, piston tolerance, etc). He's a good guy, very honest and knows what he's doing. He has done several things for me and has done them all well.
Jon

Thanks Jon,
I have read good things about Tinker on HAMB and Jalopyjournal.com. but other than that have never found anything else. Your statement about being specific and me telling him what tolerances to hit leaves me scratching my head as to what that means. For instance I know the pistons will be .030 over but I dont know what tolerance should be between the piston and the cylinder or the crank and the bearings. I am after an engine builder over just a machine shop because of their knowledge of how to assemble an engine and the tolerances required for assembly. I certainly dont know these things. Can you please elaborate on what you mean by tolerances? I have a feeling I might be in the dark on this and would like to better understand what information I will need to relay to a builder.

Thank you.
Eric

Hi Eric,
I'd suggest before you do anything you get a shop manual and read it carefully. Think about what it says and the tolerances the shop manual suggests and then decide how you want the work done and what you'll be happy with in the end. If you just want somebody to rebuild it and make it ok for another 15 or 20,000 miles, that's one thing. If on the other hand you want to get close to having a relatively new engine, that is entirely another thing. Just make certain everyone is on the same page from the start and I think you'll be fine. The days of finding a man around here who is going to build your engine just the right way and take the time to do it as he would if he were putting it in his daughter's car are gone. Those guys started vanishing in the 80s. Tinker is as close as I've found to that breed around here. After 50+ years of dealing with rebuilders and machine shops here I can give you horror stories, but it would probably just be boring. The remaining rebuilders here are either putting together engines for unprofessional people racing them, mechanics who don't have the experience nor equipment or restorers...and each one of those groups have completely different desires. The so-called racers don't care about fuel economy, oil consumption or a long life. They want something that is going to scream for a while and they don't have unlimited $. The mechanics have a time crunch and they need something that will be predictable, affordable and won't require too much care to break it in. The restorers are a breed all their own...
Jon

Jon,
If a builder said they would "blue print" the engine wouldn't that entail the it was machined to within original tolerances? Out of four shops that I have called only one Self-Racing in Oklahoma has mentioned blue printing.
Eric

If an engine builder / machine shop has to be told what the tolerances are for pistons to cylinder, or main bearings and rod bearings, then you need to find another builder / machinists.

It would Don, but that is a term which was coined in the early 70s and I think overused and abused by a lot of people. Kind of like "gluten free" or "organic." Around 1972 I had City Motors here in Dallas rebuild a Pontiac 326 for me. They claimed it would be done to specs and their price was ok. It was done so poorly I would not let them work on a roller skate today. I'm not trying to make you worry needlessly, but I strongly believe you should get what you pay for. Blueprinting an engine is going to take much more time and effort than today's machine shop is going to want to spend or even will spend unless there's somebody in there with a passion for excellence. It comes down to time for the owner. That's what governs what these guys are permitted to do. And you also have to look at the kind of engines these shops are working on routinely. I mention Tinker because he has a reputation for working on inline 6 cylinder engines and doing it well. Not every shop does. They're heavy, bulky and they're an oddity for people who mainly work on late model Ford or Chevy V8s, etc...the kind the wannabe racers bring them. Inline sixes cause the guys to have to break their pace and use different skills, even set up the machinery differently. Every time I've been in his shop he has had at least 2 inline 6 engines working.

Roy, that's not really what I'm saying. I'm saying let them know where in the range you want them to be. Let's consider those tolerance ranges. The main bearing range is .001 to .003 with .004 being the outside allowable measurement for a worn engine. If it is greater than .004 the implication is "repair it." You only have 4 main bearings in the 235, so you want those tolerances as close as possible from the get-go. Otherwise your crank is going to be bouncing around more than it should and more oil is going to be squirting out at those points than you want. Plus if you start at .003 any amount of wear is going to take you where you don't want to be. .003 might not sound like much but it is 300% greater than .001. 300% isn't a piddling amount. Tinker straightened mine and still got it to .0015...which I considered excellent. Now to show you what can go wrong if you just give a shop an engine and say "rebuild it"... About 30 years ago I bought an engine in pieces from a fellow who had one of the machine shops here rebuild the short block. That is as far as he got with his project before deciding he wanted a small block V8 instead. They had been in business a long time and had a good reputation and a well-equipped shop. When I got it home, I pulled one piston to see what they had done. Here's what I found: the rod bearing clearance was .005. The ring gap end clearance (in the cylinder) was .035. I had to check it three times and ended up removing a second piston to check it also. The ring gap clearance was nearly twice the maximum clearance in the shop manual and the shop manual was careful to tell you that ring gap end clearance of greater than .03125 would affect the performance of your engine and that your ring gap should be .007 to .020. They didn't print that stuff because they were stupid. They had learned a gap larger than 1/32" would affect your compression, cause blow-by, cause you to burn oil, etc. It had to be re-bored with new and larger pistons and the crank had to be cut to 20 under with new bearings. Basically every bit of their work was unacceptable...they didn't even get close to correct. If that short block had been used, it would have run (at best) like an engine with 70,000 miles or more on it. I'd rather get it done right the first time than haul an engine around and have it re-done or find out the thing uses oil like crazy (like that Pontiac did from the start). I realize a lot of people never would have checked it. They would have just put it together and figured "ah, well that's just how these old things are."

All I'm saying is to let whoever is doing the work know what you expect.
Jon