Mechanics possessing good engine rebuilding skills are becoming harder to find as time goes on.
I learned in a 2yr auto mechanics course, where we got lots of hands-on practice and with instructors there to help us learn from our mistakes. It’s been years since I rebuilt engines but I have an enormous respect for those possess the skills to do it correctly.
I’ve bought a few rebuilt engines for myself (Jasper) and never had a failure. I have also rebuilt a few engines (gas and diesel) with no problems. If an engine is done quickly I could see failures resulting from inattention or carelessness. If you have attention to detail then failures can be nearly eliminated. Shows like "Fast 'N Loud are for entertainment only…they are not a good example of how vehicles should be rebuilt as a whole.
In a word,no, rebuilt engines can be very good,have assisted in a good many rebuilds and seen the “Rogers Mustang” rebuilt engines perform very well,however I would think some of these newer engines would be a pain.On a Japanese car,the best route would be to buy one of those imported engines with around 30K on it-Kevin
I remember those Sears catalog engines.
Sears also sold houses through the catalog, but that’s a different forum…
Re: the shows, the one I always enjoyed was Monster Garage. Perhaps the coolest project they ever made was when the made a trike out of a Peterbuilt engine, tranny, and rear end. Jessie James wanted to build a bike, until he discovered that the Peterbuilt engine & tranny assembly weighed about 4,000 pounds and was four feet high…
I was a fan of Monster Garage myself, although the Hovercraft Delorean episode ticked me off. They destroyed at least 2 Deloreans doing that.
@SF,you know I used to like Monster Garage myself,but then I figured HotRod TV was a infomercial as was the other one cant remember its name(Is Monster Garage still on?) Would like to see Jay Leno have a show about His cars and such,he seems very respectful{maybe the Tom Macahill of today}-Kevin
Not all the episodes were great, but that trike stuck with me.
It’s generally not economically feasible for a shop to rebuild an engine. It’s hugely time consuming to do right and flat rate times can run from 20 something to 50 something flat rate hours all depending upon the car and engine.
If a shop has say a 90 dollar an hour flat rate labor charge that’s a ton of money before one even gets into parts, fluids, sublet machine work, unforeseen extras, and so on.
The companies that rebuild engines for a living do it on a production line system. They have and maintain all the disassembly machinery, the cleaning baths, the inspection stations, the machine shop area, and the reassembly and inspection and test areas. Everything is set up to move through the process as if they were making new engines. That’s really the only way it can be done cost effectively. I absolutely agree with OK4450 that a private shop simply is not set up to do the job cost effectively, simply cannot do it less expensively than a rebuild company. I would also add that rebuild facilities have very expensive specialized equipment that private shops don’t, like programmable coordinate measuring machines, magnetic resonance machines, large cleaning baths, and such that enable them to do a better job IMHO than a typical private shop.
An individual working on his own project and outsourcing machining, cleaning, radiographic or MRI work, etc., can do a great job, but there’s way too many hours involved and too much necessary outsourcing to do it cost effectively.
I absolutely agree with OK4450 that a private shop simply is not set up to do the job cost effectively, simply cannot do it less expensively than a rebuild company.
40 years ago it was cost effective. That’s when I actually worked as a mechanic. And we did rebuild engines.
There are two major processes for rebuilding an engine. One is the machining. This can be screwed up royally. I’ve dealt with at least one bad machine shop.
We basically were just doing final assembly. And if you don’t take your time and be careful…there are many places you can easily screw up.
We use to have some machine shops that would do a complete engine rebuild. You just drop it off and they do the whole thing. A lot more money…but they usually did a better job.
Mike, I agree.
Interestingly, it’s sort of analogous to the manufacturing industry itself. In the early days, cars were pretty much hand built. It was cost effective because the market as it existed back then could support the expense. When Henry Ford set up production lines and standardized the operations, the price dropped dramatically, the market changed, and hand building cars became noncompetitive for he bulk of the market. Engine rebuilding has sort of followed the same path.
The cost of parts has become prohibitive also. From my hazy memory, I seem to recall pricing out some pistons (bare, no rings) on a Mitsubishi about 10 years ago and they were about 110 dollars each.0
I seem to remember a set of pistons for a 6 cylinder Benz were a lot higher than that and a long time friend of mine just about had a coronary many years back when he priced out a crankshaft for his '63 Jaguar XKE.
Anatomically correct it was not, but the price of that crankshaft led to a Ford 6 cylinder conversion.
@OK,did that use a small six or the larger 240-300 cid version ?good move on his part-Kevin
For many years 2 parts stores sent their engine warranty complaints to me and the same problems seemed to keep showing up. First of all the greatest cause for failure was poor installation. Dirty pans, pick-up tubes damaged when hammered into the pump, failure to prime the oil pump and pump oil through the engine pre-start up and grossly misaligned gaskets were common problems. I once pulled a piece of baby bed blanket out of an oil pan that was blocking the oil pump screen.
As for manufacturing defects, rocker studs pulling out of Chevrolet heads was common as was the failure of welds on crankshaft journals. The seemingly indestructable Ford 300 I-6 was often rebuilt with a camshaft that was polished to the point that the oil clearance was excessive, reducing oil pressure well below an acceptable level. Occasionally a mismatched assembly would show up and cause some difficulty diagnosing the problem. A domestic engine component catalog became necessary to decipher the numbers. Engines with no dipstick tube and no place to install a tube have shown up.
I could write volumes of stories from all the years working on cars and dealing with customers.
Love those old " six with the performance of a V-8 engines" Ak Miller did some good work with those engines-Kevin
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but then I figured HotRod TV was a infomercial as was the other one cant remember its name(Is Monster Garage still on?)
Are you thinking of Overhaulin’? I remember watching the show and it never failed that they wiped everything down with ArmorAll after they finished the build; proudly displaying the item in front of the camera, even when they weren’t actually looking at the camera.