Thread: You thought you got hosed on your rebuild huh?

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Guys, I took this job on about 2 months ago. It has been a severe pain in the butt. I'll try to give you the reader's digest version. Last year this guy calls me asking if I have or know of any good low mileage 7.3 powerstroke engines. We'll call him Jim. I told Jim I knew of 1 but I couldn't get the owner to commit to selling it. Jim kept calling and asking and then he asked how much it would cost to put a 5.9 Cummins in his truck. I told him expect to spend a minimum of $15k. He decided not to. I didn't hear for him until January of this year. Now some back round on what happened.

Jim's truck was running rough. Before he had my number, he took it to a known good local diesel repair shop and they told him his engine had high blow by and likely needed rebuilt. Jim told that shop he wanted a 500hp truck and this shop doesn't do major work like this so they gave him my number. Jim picked up the truck and about 20 miles in to his trip home, it threw a rod clear through the pan. His engine was junk. Through his searching for an engine, he found a fellow through FB about 2hrs away whom advertised to do high performance diesel repair. This guy also had a good running 7.3 he can buy out of an ambulance with 120k on it. (For $2k) So Jim, trailers his truck up to this other shop, and he purchases the other 7.3. They agree upon prices and parts etc to rebuild the ambulance engine and make it live at 500hp. 6 months go by and Jim hasn't heard much from the shop. He can't get the guy to call him back but gets broken texts with a lot of excuses and a lot of next weeks. (Jim has shown me all of them and everything he has for invoices from the shop which is not much. Finally he gets the police involved and long story short he gets the truck back. When he goes to get the truck it is February. He was suppose to be getting a completely rebuilt long block with new high performance injectors, $$$, a big turbo that isn't stock, $$$, and all his old parts. He gets there, and his "rebuilt" engine is in the bed of the truck with all the front end components jammed in between the tail gate and tool box. No turbo on it, valve covers barely bolted on, no oil filter on the oil cooler, hpop lines just flopping there not even hooked up to the heads. This truck is a 00 F-350 extended cab short bed 4x4 lifted on 37's and is a pretty nice truck. He had called me when he got the cops involved and arranged to bring it to me to get it repaired. Once I got it I quickly notice all the head bolts aren't installed, bolts are missing, Jim didn't get the turbo, new injectors, or a lot of stuff he was suppose to. He spent $7500 and got a very bad deal. The heads were bolted on with 2 bolts each. I told him we needed to tear the engine apart and inspect it. It's a very good thing I did. Supposedly the heads were taken to a machine shop and rebuilt. They definitely were surfaced and had new valves. But when I asked questions, I didn't like the answers I got. Where the heads crack checked and the injector sealing cups pressure checked? How much did they take off the deck? (At this time, the other shop was responding to Jim's texts. Sort of) Jim was charged $850 for the heads to be rebuilt. The injector cups in the head, 3 per head were leaking, and the valve guides were shot. But the first machine shop just re cut the valve seats without replacing the guides first. Plus they cut the wrong angles on the valves. Also, the heads were supposed to have stage 1 valve springs and were just old stockers. Another shocker was, this shop didn't even hone the fricken cylinders! He did buy a ford racing rebuild kit directly from Ford. The shop owner gave him the paper work that came with the kit. (That was a mistake on his part. That just showed all the stuff he charged Jim twice for) This engine was supposed to have new forged ford rods too. But they are cleaned up old used ones. The guy didn't even pull the crank and put new main bearings in it, let alone clean any of the inside of the engine! The high pressure oil pump still had all the old dirty oil in the reservoir, and the cam and lifters were never removed from the block. The gear housing was never removed, there was debris in the rod bearings and one of which has a slight groove in it already. The shop did charge Jim for hot tanking and honing the block though.........

So now, the heads have been crack checked, pressure checked, new valve guides installed, new valves, new stage 1 valve springs installed to correct install height for the boost pressure this engine should make, and the block is at the machine shop awaiting it's turn. The crank has to be polished as well.

Well, it ended up being a long story. But all this guy got for his $7500 was the engine yanked out, and a Krylon over haul, poorly re rung short block and some hacked heads. He didn't get any of his core injectors, he didn't get the good turbo from the van, he doesn't have another set of heads, a lot of missing bolts, no starter. He didn't get any KY, just rock salt and alcohol. Every day I find something else messed up. I can't believe shops aren't burnt down for this stuff! So far I'm about 8 weeks into messing with it and hoping it gets better from here! I'll make it right though! Too bad he's spent about $4200 more so far and we're not half done buying parts. That Cummins sure sounds cheap to Jim now. Haha

Morals, honesty and integrity are NOT things we are born with, and not everyone learns or cares to learn. References should be checked and shops should be visited before work is assigned. While the shop is at fault for unprofessional practices, the owner of the truck is at fault also for not doing due diligence.

Lucky for him he found you (which may not be lucky for you)...

More pictures of the messy rebuild.

Originally Posted by 36 sedan

Morals, honesty and integrity are NOT things we are born with, and not everyone learns or cares to learn. References should be checked and shops should be visited before work is assigned. While the shop is at fault for unprofessional practices, the owner of the truck is at fault also for not doing due diligence.

Lucky for him he found you (which may not be lucky for you)...

So true. This has been an aggravation for sure! Jim is only 21 and is eager to call and get updates. He thinks the machine shop was taking too long. Jim wants this thing done now. I try to get through to him that if you rush them, either A, your stuff will be out side, or B, you get a rush job. And he already got that. I told him it'll be right or he'll be taking it in pieces again. It's hard to find a competent machine shop and I've had great luck with this one. He'll just have to wait. It's out of my hands. He's starting to see the issues I was telling him about when he first brought the truck to me. It's a basket case. Haha

Originally Posted by 40FordDeluxe

Jim is only 21

Youth and its un-wisdom, LOL.