[Crappie Master]

I give up on understanding how to read my slide micrometer. If my 1980 honda xr 80 is bored .25 over from stock i'll just buy a .50 over piston and ring kit. I'll bring new piston and cylinder to a bike shop and have them bore it so my piston fits. How much does having a cylinder bored out cost. Also is there someone on here i could mail my cylinder to and let them pick a piston and bore bike out for me. Where i live there are only two bike shops. One is too high and other is way to high to deal with

 

[ajcmbrown]

Any reputable machine shop can do this for a reasonable cost Here in Australia it is $120 which I find a little expensive just to bore a cylinder, I would assume it would be a lot less in the US.
You are better off financially purchasing the piston yourself, but easier for the machine shop to order it for you.
Tony

 

[kenglaze10]

don't know where you live but here in socal theirs a place called Importcycle Repair and Salvage located In Colton Ca. they bore and hone for $50.
909 423 0148 is the number. was going to use them but ended up getting a new bike instead

 

[ajcmbrown]

That confirms my suspicions that we are getting reamed down under as usual! I dropped a cylinder and piston at a reconditioning shop this morning, $120, which is about $95 US.

 

[ajcmbrown]

I picked up the cylinder the other day and the tosser tried to say that because it was a 3mm overbore it would cost $160!
I explained that I made him aware of that when I dropped it off, and if he had bothered to phone me, I would have told him not to go ahead with it.
When I told him to keep it, as I could buy the parts I need for less, he decided to only charge me $100 after initially quoting $120.
I guess I can't blame him for trying, but I will never darken his door again.

 

[DMKLSIMONS]

It cost 60 dollars here in Tulsa OK at a motorcycle dealer to have a DS80 Suzuki bored.

 

[kenglaze10]

I picked up the cylinder the other day and the tosser tried to say that because it was a 3mm overbore it would cost $160!
I explained that I made him aware of that when I dropped it off, and if he had bothered to phone me, I would have told him not to go ahead with it.
When I told him to keep it, as I could buy the parts I need for less, he decided to only charge me $100 after initially quoting $120.
I guess I can't blame him for trying, but I will never darken his door again.

damn crook. im glad you told him to keep it.. lol.. shut him up real quick and changed his attitude . good job

 

[storminnorman07]

very interesting read. I have personally shyed away from offering boring to the public due to this what should it cost business. Being a machinist and a rider i can see both sides of if. Being as such I would like discuss this a little more in depth and see if views change any or if they remain the same. The average joe has no clue the work or the great expenses involved to bore a cylinder. Which is fine but this is where i would like to see if some guys views change or not.

10..15 years ago shops around me would charge 45-60 bucks to bore and hone a cylinder. Now a days we are up to 90-120 bucks to do a standard bore. why more?...inflation and more sophisticated tooling. tooling is and always will be expensive. It seems like there is a pretty vast gap in what shops charge from location to location. but the one thing that seems to remain constant among the shops is that a standard bore is consider up to 0.040" which is equivalent to 1mm or material removed. anything of 40 thousands/1mm is considers another bore job and around me they will ding you another 10-15 bucks per each 1mm of material removed over the intial 1mm. I'm not going to bore everyone with cost of tooling but i will skim over the process of what most shops do to bore a cylinder to give some insight of the work involved.

In my experiences no matter how much i beg/plead/explain to a guy to make sure you clean it thoroughly. A vast majority of them will still bring me engine parts that are covered in dirt/grim/grease/oil. Talking among other machinist this seems to be a reoccurring issue amongst them as well. well....heres the view from the other side of the fence guys. a cylinder has tight tolerances and surface finishes are key in good ring seal and good longevity. when you drop your cylinder off at the machine shop looking like it was drug in the nasty pit the machinist can't just jump right into boring the cylinder. well....i guess if they didn't give a chit about their work and/or honing tooling i guess they could. but most paid through the nose for their tooling and would like to get the most out of it as well as provide the best work they can do for a guy. When the cylinder is all grimy and nasty we have to clean it before even starting the boring process. why?... if not cleaned well when it goes into the honing cabinet all the nasty chit falls into the honing oil. That then 1.) ruins the honing oil (which good honing oil isn't cheap) 2.) the honing oil gets recirculated and pumped back onto the honing stones which is currently trying to put a uniform consistent true surface on your cylinder. well now there is all this nasty debris getting flushed into, not so good for ring seal. Then if the oil isnt change the next poor bastard that gets a hone job even if they dropped a beautifully cleaned cylinder gets the same treatment. then the other things guys like to do when they drop the cylinder off are... Leave studs in, dowel pins, and remnants of gaskets. now the machinist has to remove all of that. why?.... to my knowledge all boring machines fixture off 1 if not both gasket surfaces. well if you leave remnants of gaskets on a surface or a dowel or a stud the cylinder won't sit perpendicular to the boring head. so now this machinist has quote you for a standard bore and has to spend 1/2 hour better preparing the cylinder just to be bored. Now is it fair to said machinist not to get paid for all the additional work that he or she had to do when it should of all been done before they received it?

After getting the cylinder prepared its not simply throw the cylinder in the machine and make chips fly. The machinist needs to know how much to cut and what his/her tolerances are for clearances. In most cases guys will drop the cylinder off with a new piston and either specify clearances or have a spec sheet from piston manufacturer. so i'm going to run with that scenario. The machinist will then pull out his/her measuring instruments. unfortunately its not 1 instrument measures all the components. Being as such there are multiple measuring devices that are pulled out to pull specs. to give this explanation some definition we will say the cylinders current bore is 50mm and the customer wants to bore it to 67mm and the piston manufacturer specifies a clearance of 0.038mm with a toleranes of -0.000mm +0.013mm. That means the cylinders bore diameter has to be fall between 67.038mm~67.051mm. Said machinist would then measure the piston. why measure the piston if you know its 67mm already? well just cause a piston is classified as a 67mm piston doesn't mean it will measure exactly 67mm. main reason why is due to in manufacturing/machining the basic hole techinque is used. which i wont bore guys with that lol but will say more times than not if what ever your "bore" size is your piston if slightly smaller for the clearance. again i'm not going to go into all that and will just the ficitional numbers i have stated. back on track. After measuring the piston the machinist often times will scribble the piston size and clearance on the dome of the piston with a sharpie, if not on the piston on a piece of paper. Then if the current size of the bore is unknown the machinist will use veneers to get an approximation of bore size to set up inside bore micrometer fixture and select a suitable anvil. this falls back to not 1 instrument measures everything. boring micrometers come with a number of different anvils. each one of these anvils gives a XX diameter range. Being as such the machinist will then select an anvil that falls within the 50mm diameter range then set boring micrometer fixture for 50mm and zero out the mic. After zeroing out the mic the machinist will then take few measurements in different portions of the cylinder and get an average bore size. in this case we said exactly 50mm. so the machinist will now then figure out how much material needs to be removed. when boring for a engine cylinder you don't take out all of the material, you leave it slightly undersized. I will explain why later on in this write up. after the machinist determines said stock they would like to remove again they will either scribble it onto the cylinder with a sharpie of on a piece of paper.

Now can the chips fly?....nope not yet. now the machinist has to jig/fixture the cylinder in the machine. there are a variety of different boring machines out there and each will have a slightly different setup. some will require more time to setup some will require less. None the less all the machines require setup time. It unfortunately is not as simple as sit the cylinder in the machine and start making chips. why?... well the bore has to be perpendicular to the gasket surface, concentric with sleeve/inline with rod travel. last thing anyone wants is a bore thats cut at an angle or favors one side of the sleeve more. an example of why what could go wrong there. being we are making a huge jump from 50 to 67mm theres fair probabilty there won't be much sleeve material left. good rule of thumb a min of 2mm thickness on all sides of the sleeve should be maintained to promote good ring seal. with that being said lets say the outer diameter of the sleeve 71mm. boring to 67mm leaves a grand total of 4mm, but you have to remember the object is round so that total is divided by 2. which leaves 2mm on all sides. now lets say said machinist went all half cocked and did true/square cylinder in machine and the boring head was offset from center by 2mm. By the time said machinist got to final size the one side of the sleeve would no longer be there rendering it a scrapped piece and one hella pissed off customer. This is why great care and time is spent jigging the cylinder.

upon getting the cylinder trued and jigged the machinist can finally start making chips. Most machinist will just touch off with the cutter and do what is called a scratch pass. This first pass gives a good indicator whether the cylinder is trued well as well as make sure the machine dont run into a section that have a lot of material and takes a bigger bite than it can chew. After taking the scratch pass the machinist will then start taking roughen cuts. these are big heavy cuts and removes more material. after getting the bulk of the material removed it is common for the machinist to swap out cutters for a fresh cutter and often times different ground profile then take lighter cuts. so why is this? roughen cuts produce rough finishes. depending on jigging and/or machine that finish could be chattery. not a even cut through out etc.. being the cutter is taken big cuts the profile angles are ground to handle such work load plus that bulk reduction dulls the tooling out quick. as stated earlier in this post surface finish is key. being as such by swapping out to a new cutter with different profile angles an lighter cuts will get a much nicer finish. Now this is where i'll explain why leaving the bore under sized is desired. Even the smoothest finish after boring is not suitable for ring seal. This is why honing goes hand and hand with boring. after the cylinder is bored the desired surface finish for said rings/sleeve needs to be honed into the cylinder. with that being said if said machinist were to bore the cylinder all the way to 67.038mm~67.051mm there is no material left to be removed during the honing process. if done like that the cylinder would be passed manufacturers suggested clearance tolerances and potentially could be a scrapped piece. being as such a machinist will leave the cylinder undersized during the boring process. how much undersized? well that all depends on the machinist comfort level and equipment. a ball park figure would be 0.15mm or less undersized. I'd like to take a min to try and help some guys grasp the sizes we are talking about. 0.15mm is approximately the thickness of 1 single strand of the average human hair. haha quite small huh. being so small and such an important component 1 wouldn't wanna trust the naked eye to get to that point. Most machinist dont a fair amount of machinist will creep up on their said undersized mark and make a couple mic checks. why mic it?....don't the machines have measuring graduations?.... yes they do but all machines have some degree of deflection. bigger more robust rigid machines will have less and small less rigid machines will have more. none the less there is always some degree of cutter deflection. what that means is if you hucked a 1mm cut from the graduations on the machine it may only cut say .9mm. that would be a 0.1mm differences and if said machinist was shooting for 0.15mm undersized thats that much more he/she would have to hone out. speaking of mic-ing falling back a earlier statement of anvils. with such a huge jump in bore size it is almost certain the machinist would have to select a different anvil and re-zero mic for final sizing.

Now the machinist has hit his/hers undersized dimension, now its time to hit the honing cabinet. With all the different piston manufacturers, sleeve types, ring types, plated cylinders etc... i can not give a definitive the machinist will use this grit hone then this then that. so unfortunately i will have to generalize there. what i can say all machinist will start with a courser grit hone and work to a finer grit until getting to desired surface finish. The process if similar to that of polishing. while going through each of the hones the machinist will make multiple measurements to ensure he/she doesn't blow passed tolerances. The tighter tolerances the more often the machinist has to check thus resulting in more time and more time equals more money. after getting the cylinder honed it potentially need more work depending on application. with 2 stroke application intake, transfer, exhaust ports need to be deburred. bridges in the ports need to be relieved. if not done you asking for one nasty seizure. oh amongst my write up i forgot re-chamfering the bottom of the cylinder for easier ring install and deburring the head gasket side. and that in a nut shell is boring.

Now with some back ground on what is done i'd like to hear guys thoughts/opinions. Thoughts/opinions such as my previous question if a customer drops off a cylinder thats filthy, remnants of gaskets, studs and dowels still in it. is it not fair to charge more? thoughts/opinions on the std bore of up to 1mm/40 thousands is held by most shops as 1 bore considered the initial charge anything over is more tacked on? which i didn't go into that yet. thats held as standard by most shops cause the bulk of bore jobs done on a daily basis are not big bore pistons. Most are just clean up bores, meaning they go 1/4 or half size up just to put the bore back round and true for good ring seal. being thats the average bore job the intial quote is what said shop charges per hour for as long as said shop takes to do a cylinder. anything bigger requires more time for the machinist and performance based pistons require strict tolerances again requires the machinist to take more time and effort to hit those numbers. thoughts/opinions now knowing a little insight what snuffy is doing with your cylinder what would considered a fair price for both the shop and the customer for a standard 4-stroke bore and 2 stroke and what would be fair to charge if doing a big bore? keep in mind guys to tool up and bore and hone your own cylinders you'll with out a doubt drop 10k easily on used less sophisticated equipment. some of these bigger shops have boring machines that run 50k and that's not factoring their honeing or measuring tools. thanks in advanced for any that may respond

 

[TNikolaus42]

Wow! That was some impressive info, Norman! Now I feel like I had a quick crash course on boring. Very descriptive and well done. I always had an idea that this process was a tedious task and not a quick operation. It's nice to hear the machinist side of things.

 

[spiz5]

I always have and always will bring anything needing somebody elses services in clean. Whether it be a cylinder, crank, suspension or otherwise. I feel its just a common courtesy.
Im a ceramic tile contractor, on the day Im coming to replace the tile in your shower I expect you not to use it in the morning before I arrive, again its common courtesy.
When we go on a new construction jobsite and the place is a mess, it also lowers the moral of my guys and at times overall quality suffers. I dont think machinists operate by lowering their standards when a cylinder isnt prepped by its owner properly, but i would expect for some to be quite bothered by it, and charge accordingly. Any of the plating companies clearly state on their websites that any studs/dowels left in will not be returned, and will be charged to remove.
As for cost, it is ridiculous to me that Joe Racer would spend $300 on some name brand piston, that wasnt even made by said name brand, and complain about a $100 bore job, and the fact that the turn around time isnt 2 hours after the machinist recieves it. Like anything in the world, you get what you pay for.
Chad all of us here know youre top shelf at what you do, and therefore can justify a higher price than the local production shop down the street gets. Me personally I wouldnt even open my toolbox for the amount of work, responsibilty, and money involved in what you just laid out.

 

[storminnorman07]

Wow! That was some impressive info, Norman! Now I feel like I had a quick crash course on boring. Very descriptive and well done. I always had an idea that this process was a tedious task and not a quick operation. It's nice to hear the machinist side of things.

Happy to hear it was entertaining maybe educational for you. Have any input on any of the questions I have asked?

 

[storminnorman07]

I always have and always will bring anything needing somebody elses services in clean. Whether it be a cylinder, crank, suspension or otherwise. I feel its just a common courtesy.
Im a ceramic tile contractor, on the day Im coming to replace the tile in your shower I expect you not to use it in the morning before I arrive, again its common courtesy.
When we go on a new construction jobsite and the place is a mess, it also lowers the moral of my guys and at times overall quality suffers. I dont think machinists operate by lowering their standards when a cylinder isnt prepped by its owner properly, but i would expect for some to be quite bothered by it, and charge accordingly. Any of the plating companies clearly state on their websites that any studs/dowels left in will not be returned, and will be charged to remove.
As for cost, it is ridiculous to me that Joe Racer would spend $300 on some name brand piston, that wasnt even made by said name brand, and complain about a $100 bore job, and the fact that the turn around time isnt 2 hours after the machinist recieves it. Like anything in the world, you get what you pay for.
Chad all of us here know youre top shelf at what you do, and therefore can justify a higher price than the local production shop down the street gets. Me personally I wouldnt even open my toolbox for the amount of work, responsibilty, and money involved in what you just laid out.

I couldn't agree more. Only issue is "common" courtesy isn't so common. I can't tell you how many times I stress the issue to customers "before you send me your stuff make sure it is cleaned well and If it's a complete engine make sure the oil is drained", just for the guy/gal to send me a filthy part or engine filled to the brim with oil. I'm sure you to can contest to see a fair amount of it this in your line of work too.

Thank you for the kind words. Now a days this isn't to big of a dilmea for me. With the mini bike stuff the aftermarket support has most bore sizes covered and the big bike/quad stuff is almost all plated and I don't have the equipment to plate cylinders. Being as such it's not very often that I need to bore a cylinder and when I do its usually for some high end custom build. In which case the customer went into it knowing it wasn't going to be cheap. After reading the ops initial post and the comments of the rest it brought up all the anxiety of earlier years when boring was more sought after. Thus is why I decided to give the machinist side of the deal and see if guys views still remained the same or if it helped make sense of why shops charge what they charge. Also one of my biggest fears as a builder/machinist is not being fair. I see post time and time again so and so company raped me on labor/machining charges. Then a slew of guys will chime and agree they got gouged. Granted there are times I agree 100% for the service/quality of work provided the guy/gal got hit hard. But more times than not the price seems fair for services rendered. So I often like to chime in on post like this one. first give some insight on what kind of effort is involved to do what is being talked about and see what the verdict is after. So far and luckily it seems like a lot of the time it's misconception that make guys feel the way they do about the prices. After some insight from the machinist/builders side of things guys go oh ok now that makes a little better sense. Lol then there's always those few that still feel a case of cold brew should be sufficient payment.

 

[ajcmbrown]

That was an excellent read Norman, and I agree entirely and learned a few things as well.

I guess I was a little short on detail in my previous post, so to clarify the situation, here is what took place.

The issue I had with him was one of poor business practice. He had all the information required to make an informed decision when arriving at a price.

I took a clean (beadblasted), no dowels, no gasket material, cylinder and new piston without rings or circlips to this guy and I specifically asked him if he thought a 3mm overbore was going to be ok, to which he agreed and quoted his initial price. I agreed on the $120 quote.

I called him four times over a nine week period until I happened to be in the neighbourhood and decided to drop in and pick it up to take to someone else if he still had not done the job.
This was when the "I tried to phone you a few times" story was used, then "you must have given me the wrong mobile number".
The number I gave him was handwritten by me on the back of my business card (the card of a company he does a lot of work for) and this is a private mobile number I have had for the past 9 years.
This was his excuse for not contacting me to discuss the increased cost of the job. He had obviously forgotten the initial quote of $120 since after some discussion he agreed to only charge me $100, after which I suggested that $120 was the original price, yet he still only charged me $100!

I never questioned the quality of his work nor complain about the time taken, but after 9 weeks I was definitely ready to take it to another machine shop.

I agree that it is a tedious job that requires expensive tooling and machines, experienced staff and all of the overheads of being in business.
I assumed rightly or wrongly that his quote had taken all of these factors into account.

My problem with this whole scenario is simply this:

1. For him to obviously lie about not being able to contact me either by mobile or business phone or email is in my opinion, inexcusable.
2. To then attempt to overcharge was simply ridiculous given that he initially agreed that 3mm oversize was acceptable and there were no surprises with the quoted job.
3. To then balls up the quoted pricing, be corrected by myself in his favour, yet still undercharge is pure incompetence, or an attempt at saving face due to embarrassment.
4. To take as long as he did to complete the job is not good business.

Given all of the above factors, I have decided not to use this business for any future work.

 

[storminnorman07]

That was an excellent read Norman, and I agree entirely and learned a few things as well.

I guess I was a little short on detail in my previous post, so to clarify the situation, here is what took place.

The issue I had with him was one of poor business practice. He had all the information required to make an informed decision when arriving at a price.

I took a clean (beadblasted), no dowels, no gasket material, cylinder and new piston without rings or circlips to this guy and I specifically asked him if he thought a 3mm overbore was going to be ok, to which he agreed and quoted his initial price. I agreed on the $120 quote.

I called him four times over a nine week period until I happened to be in the neighbourhood and decided to drop in and pick it up to take to someone else if he still had not done the job.
This was when the "I tried to phone you a few times" story was used, then "you must have given me the wrong mobile number".
The number I gave him was handwritten by me on the back of my business card (the card of a company he does a lot of work for) and this is a private mobile number I have had for the past 9 years.
This was his excuse for not contacting me to discuss the increased cost of the job. He had obviously forgotten the initial quote of $120 since after some discussion he agreed to only charge me $100, after which I suggested that $120 was the original price, yet he still only charged me $100!

I never questioned the quality of his work nor complain about the time taken, but after 9 weeks I was definitely ready to take it to another machine shop.

I agree that it is a tedious job that requires expensive tooling and machines, experienced staff and all of the overheads of being in business.
I assumed rightly or wrongly that his quote had taken all of these factors into account.

My problem with this whole scenario is simply this:

1. For him to obviously lie about not being able to contact me either by mobile or business phone or email is in my opinion, inexcusable.
2. To then attempt to overcharge was simply ridiculous given that he initially agreed that 3mm oversize was acceptable and there were no surprises with the quoted job.
3. To then balls up the quoted pricing, be corrected by myself in his favour, yet still undercharge is pure incompetence, or an attempt at saving face due to embarrassment.
4. To take as long as he did to complete the job is not good business.

Given all of the above factors, I have decided not to use this business for any future work.

After the hearing the full story I can understand and sympathize why your irritated. That definitely could of been handled better on the machinist behalf.

My question becomes if you don't mind me asking. His initial quote of 120 did you find that absurdly expensive or did it seem reasonable?

 

[ajcmbrown]

Hi Norman, that is a fair question. My initial reaction was surprise, but only because I have not had a cylinder bored for ten years or more and the last time it was $40-50.
I expected the price to be quite a bit more than the last time and to be honest I expected somewhere around $80-90 not taking into account the multiple bores that would have been involved, something I learned from your previous post.

It was more my being out of touch with current pricing than anything else that gave me a little "sticker shock" not that we are talking large amounts of money, just a surprise.

I guess the other thing that isn't obvious to the rest of the world is that here in Australia, we have almost become accustomed to paying double or triple for items due to the distance, location and lower volumes imported. For example, some software that you can buy for $3-400 can cost as much as $1800 to buy here, so I often ask what an item or service costs in other markets just to get a feel for what is fair, nothing hard and fast, just a gut feel.

We are well accustomed to getting "reamed" it seems on the surface, but when you look at the costs, import duties etc it starts to make more sense with the exception of computer software (downloaded) that often doesn't even get freighted or charged duties. Geoblocking at it's worst, but don't get me started on that.

Had I found the initial quote absurdly expensive, I simply would not have agreed to have him do the job, I just thought it was a bit (30-40%) more than I expected.

The job he has done seems to be of good quality, the cylinder was clean, not full of machining leftovers, however it will still get a thorough cleaning prior to assembly.

 

[storminnorman07]

Hi Norman, that is a fair question. My initial reaction was surprise, but only because I have not had a cylinder bored for ten years or more and the last time it was $40-50.
I expected the price to be quite a bit more than the last time and to be honest I expected somewhere around $80-90 not taking into account the multiple bores that would have been involved, something I learned from your previous post.

It was more my being out of touch with current pricing than anything else that gave me a little "sticker shock" not that we are talking large amounts of money, just a surprise.

I guess the other thing that isn't obvious to the rest of the world is that here in Australia, we have almost become accustomed to paying double or triple for items due to the distance, location and lower volumes imported. For example, some software that you can buy for $3-400 can cost as much as $1800 to buy here, so I often ask what an item or service costs in other markets just to get a feel for what is fair, nothing hard and fast, just a gut feel.

We are well accustomed to getting "reamed" it seems on the surface, but when you look at the costs, import duties etc it starts to make more sense with the exception of computer software (downloaded) that often doesn't even get freighted or charged duties. Geoblocking at it's worst, but don't get me started on that.

Had I found the initial quote absurdly expensive, I simply would not have agreed to have him do the job, I just thought it was a bit (30-40%) more than I expected.

The job he has done seems to be of good quality, the cylinder was clean, not full of machining leftovers, however it will still get a thorough cleaning prior to assembly.

I have done some builds for guys down under. All have been real particular of how the components were sent back. Meaning how much it was worth, what it was etc...they all have been pretty excited on the price I charge for most things (<--which I found odd cause most guys here in the states cringe) after this happened with a few guys I finally inquired about it. Lol must of been a sensitive subject cause this guy told me all about the ways you guys get boned and over charged for things. I was blown away what this one guy had to pay just get his engine back. Long story short most of the guys tell me exactly what to claim and write so they don't get hammer to bad. This was prior to knowing how you boys get over charged. So sadly to say I wrote down what everything was worth etc.. and for the guy to pick it up from customs it was something retardly high like 300 or 400 usd. That is just flipping INSANE!

But at any rate thank you for the honest reply back to my question. And yea I can definitely see and understandwhy the sticker shock since being so long having a cylinder bored. 10-15 years ago I wasn't boring my own cylinders and was having a local shop do them. Back then it was between 40-50. By the time I aquired a boring machine and honing equipment the price jumped to 60-70 ish few years back my boring machine was down and I was in one hell of a hurry to get a cylinder bored to hit a dead line for a customer. Needless to say when I got the bill it was 90 big ones. Fortunately for the shop being a machinist myself and knowing the time as well as the increase price in tooling I understood the increase in bore cost so I didn't fuss about it. There are still a couple shops around me that will charge a fair amount less. Unfortunately for good reason. I have had a few guys go to these shops and ultimately come back to me with issues. The quality of work was very bad. I guess the ole saying you get what you pay for holds true there.... again thank you for taken the time and providing some input to my question(s)

 

[kenglaze10]

storminnorman07, that write up you did on the machinist side of the story is absolutely remarkable. I thought boring was run a bit through a hole if you will. Now see that It is a timely job and time=$$.

But I still think the machinist that ajcmbrown went too was a crook and highly unprofessional in my opinion. Any professional machinist should be able to asses the situation of the job at hand and give an accurate quote right? The original quote of $120 is not bad I would pay that if I had to, but to take 9 weeks for this job should he be obligated to pay for the time it took the machinist to do the job as well. In this SPECIFIC situation the machinist is wrong and not consumer.

storminnrman07, From what I here on this site is you are the man for machining. I agree with you on poor prep work on parts that get sent to you. and im sure if a part gets sent to you filthy and un prepped you would notify the owner of added charges before doing a job and say I added another $100 by the way.

I respect your professionalism norman07, I read all your post when I can because your information is awesome. and I love learning about engines.
so thank you

 

[ajcmbrown]

Kind words Norman, thank you. Honesty is a commodity that is sadly very rare these days. You sound like an honest person and I am sure if I walked into your business and showed surprise at the cost, you would most likely explain why it is what it is.

Maybe not at the length you went to here, but I understand why you went to the trouble to explain it as you did.

I now fully understand the time and setup, cleaning, removing studs,grease, mud, tensioners and other associated crap that you could deal with on a daily basis.

I do not possess the skill, knowledge or equipment to do this job and I will now look at it entirely differently, thanks to your explanation.

So the thanks are to you Norman, I have learned something that I can use in the future.
What's the saying, "catch a man a fish, you will feed him for a day, teach a man to fish, you will feed him for a lifetime" so I always am willing to learn something new.
Now to start learning how to zinc plate stuff!
Regards, Tony.

 

[storminnorman07]

storminnorman07, that write up you did on the machinist side of the story is absolutely remarkable. I thought boring was run a bit through a hole if you will. Now see that It is a timely job and time=$$.

But I still think the machinist that ajcmbrown went too was a crook and highly unprofessional in my opinion. Any professional machinist should be able to asses the situation of the job at hand and give an accurate quote right? The original quote of $120 is not bad I would pay that if I had to, but to take 9 weeks for this job should he be obligated to pay for the time it took the machinist to do the job as well. In this SPECIFIC situation the machinist is wrong and not consumer.

storminnrman07, From what I here on this site is you are the man for machining. I agree with you on poor prep work on parts that get sent to you. and im sure if a part gets sent to you filthy and un prepped you would notify the owner of added charges before doing a job and say I added another $100 by the way.

I respect your professionalism norman07, I read all your post when I can because your information is awesome. and I love learning about engines.
so thank you

Hello ken I'm happy to hear you enjoyed the lil write up and that it was educational for you. Haha yeah that's why I decided to do the write up. So far in most of my experiences guys don't understand what's being done at a machine shop so thus is why they can't understand the price being quoted. This is why I often will chime in on threads like this one and try to explain what's going on from the machine shops point of view and see if it changes guys outlooks on price or not.

After hearing the complete story I agree the machinist ajcmbrown saw definitely could of handle that much better than he did. The initial quote of 120 for going 3mm overbore is an average price for the shops around me. But as I have stated in an earlier post it seems like there can be notable price difference depending on location as well as how the economy is doing in said location. The going 9 weeks without a call letting ajcmbrown know there will be a delay for whatever the reason may be is uncalled for. I can understand unforseen things pop up and cause delays now and then. What I can't understand is why the shop couldn't call and give the man a heads up and give him the choice to either wait it out for them to bore it or take it to another shop. I guess like many professions in life you have good and you have bad in the field.

I try to be as brutely honest as I can with guys. Even if that means steering a customer in a route the doesn't involve me making money off them. Haha ironically a guy I did something like that just texted me so I'll use him as an example of what I mean. This guy if memory serves had a V1 or yx head and was looking to rebuild it and potentially do some porting work to it. Any time a guy ask for work I always ask a bunch of questions to better ensure I'm giving them what they need/want as well as getting their desires at the best bang for their buck. Well after some probing this guy was realitively new to minis and has never been on a V2 headed mini. More questioning revealed he wasn't racing was just looking for a lil more power, good longevity and trying to keep it on a pretty low budget. To which I told him the to rebuild and do performance work to his current head would cost him more than a brand new bone stock v2 head and at the end of the day the v2 is a way better head. So after going through numbers he decided on the v2 head and wanted it ported. All the questions he had answered for me made me feel that porting may be more than what he wanted. So I explained to him I can port the head and yes it will make more power but... just by going to the v2 head you'll pick up 20-25% more power over your current setup without even touching it. I then proceeded to tell him that in my professional opinion being that he has never rode a v2 headed setup would be to try it out in factory form. That if in the chance it shouldn't be ample enough power for you he could always pop the head off and I can ported it, that it is always easier to remove material than replace it. The guy agreed and said it made sense. Well lol again ironically as I was typing "Even if that means steering a customer in a route the doesn't involve me making money off them." He texted me and said, "HOLY SHIT!!!! She pulls hard as hell! No hiccups in the powerband. If u do remember me u know I was going to have u port this head but u kind of talked me into running it for a while first and then seeing if I wanted u to port it. THANK GOD u did!!! This is all the power I will need for a long long time. Holy shit!!! I love it! Can't wait to get to the track. Second gear is terrifying on my street!! It pulls forever. Later Chad!" While a long winded example I feel it was well worth noting. My philosophy is that sure I didn't make anything on this guy at this point in time. But I like to think I have established a honesty reppor with this gentleman and that in the future if he should want any performance work or just simply rebuild work he will come back to me. Haha now that I have got off my orginal thought I was going to say that I up front tell guys when they go to send me stuff if a complete engine I will say if it's not drained of oil there will be an absurdly high clean up fee tacked on top of what was quoted as well as if the engine/components are not cleaned there will be another fee as well. Then when they ask how much like they are tempted just to take the hit I tell them a min of 1 hour then I multiple the arsehole coefficient to that 1 hour. Lol usually they question what that means. To which I tell them the arse hole coefficient is how much of an arse you were to me by leaving the engine in the state of such and such filth and how much of an arse I wanna be back to you for having to clean it. I found this helps motivate guys to send me stuff in a little better shape.

 

[storminnorman07]

Kind words Norman, thank you. Honesty is a commodity that is sadly very rare these days. You sound like an honest person and I am sure if I walked into your business and showed surprise at the cost, you would most likely explain why it is what it is.

Maybe not at the length you went to here, but I understand why you went to the trouble to explain it as you did.

I now fully understand the time and setup, cleaning, removing studs,grease, mud, tensioners and other associated crap that you could deal with on a daily basis.

I do not possess the skill, knowledge or equipment to do this job and I will now look at it entirely differently, thanks to your explanation.

So the thanks are to you Norman, I have learned something that I can use in the future.
What's the saying, "catch a man a fish, you will feed him for a day, teach a man to fish, you will feed him for a lifetime" so I always am willing to learn something new.
Now to start learning how to zinc plate stuff!
Regards, Tony.

Haha couldn't agree more tony. I'm happy to hear I was able to provide some insight on the matter.