The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Engine Shop Looking for a shop (near me maybe) to rebuild my 235. Any leads?

looking for a shop in San Diego or Riverside County where I can have my 235 rebuilt. Any of you Bolters now of a reputable shop please send me info. I called around here in SD and most don't want to touch it or reluctant claiming hard to find parts. One shop wanted close to $5,000 and that was just a rip-off! Appreciate any leads, Thanks in advance!

Does that $5,000 include them doing complete reassembly? If so, that is what I would expect around here.
Five years ago all of the machine work and all of the parts required for me to assemble the engine myself would run $2,300. I expect that has increased by at least 20% today, pushing the price up to $2,875.
That leaves $2,125 to reassemble. At a $70/hour shop rate, that represents 30 hours to clean up all of the parts and reassemble the engine.
That $5,000 all of a sudden does not seem that far out of line.

$5K for a quality rebuild isn't that outrageous, considering today's parts and labor costs. Of course, you could always learn to do it yourself, and save a little on labor. I built my first engine in 1958, and a couple of thousand of them later, I've learned to avoid cheapskates like a case or poison ivy! They'd find a reason to gripe and moan if I GAVE them the job! My shop has over $50K worth of equipment in it, and I'm pretty frugal about buying new stuff. One of my cylinder boring machines was manufactured during WW II. I just spent $3500.00 on a USED line hone mandrel.
Jerry

52Carl and Hotrod, The reason I say $5k is a rip-off is because a shop known for rebuilding engines such as the 235 quoted me $3k just a year ago. Unfortunately, the owner hopped on the bus and the shop closed! I understand every shop has their cost factor, (labor rates/location, etc.) but $2k over!? Guess I'll wait until I retire to work on it myself...in about 2 years. But in the meantime, the search continues! Thank you both!

In Dallas so many of the old machine shops have closed, gone broke, etc that you almost can not find anyone here to do that work any longer. In many cases the owners have retired and either they only had daughters or their sons have no interest in continuing the work. Scarcity of competition means prices skyrocket and quality usually goes south. Good luck. The picture isn't too pretty these days.

The OP might have a very good reason for wanting to completely rebuild a 235. Not going to question those reasons, “wanting to” is a good enough reason. Just to offer an alternative….

You’re not going to trip over it one walking down the street like you would with SBC/ LS motors, but good running 235s with LOTS of live left in them…are out there. They were in so many GM cars and trucks over so many years, and so many people remove them for V8s.

If you’re patient enough and watch Marketplace, you can probably even find an example and go hear it run before the guy pulls it out of his 1962 Biscsyne or whatever. It doesn’t knock or smoke and has good compression…throw some gaskets and seals at it…paint it up real nice, and go have years of fun for less than $1000.

I reside in College Station and there is shop that I know has worked on a 216ci and some work on my 216ci intake/exhaust manifold. The shop is Villas Motors Works, 901 Texas Ave., Bryan texas, 9797-775-1633. Also I'd like to add that my son's workplace has used Villas and they are happy with them.

A member on this site recently posted that he was quoted $7500 by Jasper Engines.

$5k seems like a bargain if they know what they're doing on this particular engine. It's also local so you have someone to go to and raise hell when it blows up.