The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Engine Shop When machinists attack.

Machine shop called yesterday. Said my cylinders were bored too tight, engine had only about .001" skirt to wall clearance. Engine is going to have to be power honed to give .0025" skirt clearance, new plasma-moly rings are needed too. If the oil pump hadn't failed, the pistons would've burned up in the cylinders. We caught the pistons in time, but the rings & bearings are shot.

That pizzzes me off, cuz I specifically asked the original goober about piston to wall clearance, deck clearance & the other things that have now gone wrong. I think that &*%$$## gimped it up on purpose just cuz I asked him about it.

Chip :mad:

Chiphead,

What do you plan to do about (to) the original machine shop? Are you still communicating with them?

If they do not want to pay the cost of making good their bad work, are they close enough to allow a conversation in small claims court (it does not cost much; you get to state your problems in public; and, you might get a little justice)?

I am not a lawyer but I have successfully used the common law argument that if you pay someone for goods or service and they fail to provide the goods or service, they must reimburse you for the reasonable cost of having someone else provide the goods or service.

First, of course, good luck getting a good engine and learning what was wrong with the first job.

Tim

Get the new shop to put this on the repair bill. This would be all the proof you need. Did the other shop have the pistons on hand when they did the work?

When watching "Judge Judy" :rolleyes: , she usually ask, "have you contact the defendant and allow him/her to correct the problem? If not then the plaintiff bites the bullet. :mad:

Its not worth my time to wrangle with that moron. I just won't take any more work to him & tell others to stay away. I've blown so many thousands of dollars on this car that the 500 he charged me is laughable in comparison.

I just want my car to run longer than a month.

chip

Chiphead,

If I were You, I'd take it to the shop that has made the mistake and talked to them politely that they had made a mistake and what they should offer me as a possible solution.
No succes into it, them I'd move to another shop
to have it fixed and after it all I'd look for my rights if a considerable amount of money were involved in the repair.
I work here assembling engines in a commercial level. I do a lot of machine service. And I have used over the time 4 or 5 machine shops in different cities where I lived thru the years. And in the shop I take my parts to be machined nowadays I use to act this way:
1- I use to explain to any employee that I do know how He does his job, and I trust him my parts and so I like to measure all the jobs I have done there in front of the guy who has done it.
2- Normally at a first glance they do not like it. After it is done and I check it out ok, the way i asked it to be, I use to hand him a tip.
Also, at X-mas time, I do take a box full of wine bottles and hand to all the guys in there.
3- Of course as I use to hand into the shop a ridiculously big amount of parts to be machined, they use to look at me as a big and important customer. But the way I use to deal with the employees and the shop managers normally helps me a lot in getting a decent job almost all of the time. And if occasionally I do not get what I want I use to talk it out normally, and get it fixed, at no charge.
Been working with the shop for almost 2 years since I moved to Brasilia and no complaint about their job. And as an added bonus, I do not pay the same price other customers have. They do offer me 30% off the reg price and always offer me at least 30 days to pay even with the discount. Needless to say I love working with them. And I have to admit that they do have it the same way!

My gut feeling is that if your pistons were too tight, you would have found out in the first few minutes. Maybe they are on the snug side, but I think that your new shop may be a bit over the top on their criticism.

I had a engine block done at a machine shop a couple of years ago here in Toronto, I measured it and figured about +.30 would clear the walls. So i sent it to the machine shop and he confermed the same (I only had a plastic viner guage). I ordered the new pistons, rings, cam bearings, frost plugs ,etc and sent them over to him. A week later i got the block back, hot tanked, cam bearings, frost plugs installed & bored & honed, and the box of pistons marked on there tops as to where they went each one was sized for one cylinder. I checked all the fits and clearences to the manual and they where right on, did'nt even have to file a single ring. Cost $200cdn for a straight 8.

Hi Chip

Couple things

It's pretty hard to tell what piston clearences were when done if the pistons have been skuffed much They can change a bunch

You don't need or want a fancy 'Buzz word' ringset

The new guys may just be looking to make money on you

I agree about getting the old shop to pay....unless
you are in a small town,in business,and 'known'
most jerks that screwup are used to complants and don't care

Be REAL CLEAR with these new guys that you want to drive this thing...not look at it!!

I'm sorry but I'm guessing that you are on the road
to hell again

Good luck

Not for nothing, the stock piston clearance on a 235/261 is .0005-.0011 .If you're using stock type cast pistons,.0025 is kinda on the loose side.

Just add one more thing, wasn't the first physical evidence that there were brass type filings in your oil ? These cannot possibly come from pistons.

Most professional people won't say any more than they have to when commenting on other's work. This is because it is not always clear to them who did what and who put what together. They usually will send work to each other if they don't have the right machine, etc. so making enemies in the industry is usally not something they strive to do.

The pistons are Badgers that I got from Patrick when I bought the original rebuild kit. Pat stated that the skirt clearance should be about .003" so Im thinking that .0025 is about right.

The new shop will only do what I tell him to. I noticed the strange cyl wear and asked him to check it. New shop made sure I wanted to go into engine before I had them tear it down. New shop was going to price cheapest rebuild parts, I asked them to upgrade to more expensive parts, like moly rings over plain cast.

The shop that did the bore job is the one that kept my engines for 9 months before they did anything to them. They had the pistons and other parts on hand. This guy charged me for balancing which wasn't done. I really think it won't do any good to ask him to "make it right" cuz I dont trust his work and the money isn't worth the time it'd take to sue him.

And the filings were cast iron from the oil pump body. Thats another 200 bucks gone into distributors and oil pumps.

whatever. When this engine blows up ill cut the car up with a torch and roll it off red bluff in hattiesburg.

chip

Just got an itemized estimate faxed to me from the machine shop. Every line makes sense, and the prices for parts and labor rates are clearly marked.

Total cost for diagnosing cam, oilpump/distributor, disassemble engine, jet washing block, honing, installing cam brns, freeze plugs, cleaning pistons, vatting and polishing crank, new rings, brns, gasket set and petronix, plus tax comes to a grand total of $761.25. I'd do the final assembly.

Sound fair for a good shop or am I getting the crankshaft?

thanks

chip

How much extra to have them to the final assembly as well? At this point I would just let them do the whole thing and just drop in the motor. That way if anything goes wrong it is their fault.

It is not worth it to save a couple hundred bux now. IMO

I asked him about it, but he's so busy he wouldn't be able to build it until late fall. Think I should wait that long? Im thinking working in the cold sucks.

Hey Chip,
I think Jim Carters sells rebuilt inlines for around 850 You may want to look at them.

Is that with any sort of guarantee?
How much would you charge for the same deal and be happy about it?