resurfacing a flywheel, or polishing a crank etc.

Grumpy

The Grumpy Grease Monkey mechanical engineer.
Staff member
I recently had a neighbor ask me
"where he could get a billet flywheel resurfaced, that looked dis-colored from heat,
and get a scored crank journal repaired, that had a minor scratch from a spun bearing failure?"
he was told the $450 billet steel flywheel was not worth repairing,
and he would be better off buying a new forged crank "$780"



I suggested he try talking with several other other local machinists ,
at several other local machine shops,
before he just pitched his expensive and very repairable parts and buy new parts,
I told him, many "machine shops would much rather sell you newer, parts,
as it takes less work, by them and there's a higher profit margin, involved,
plus, they tend to add in other required / and profitable jobs,
thus, adding additional profit potential,
like reminding you you'll need to have the new components re-balanced,
to match the existing parts,
that might not be required with old, repaired parts, or might be included in the repairs, lowering the true profit margin,
this is especially common if the shops already backed up with work.
keep in mind the quality of the work done, and experience that's required to do anything, of the machine work,
depends on both the skill and experience of the machinist, the tooling he has at hand,
and whether or not he thinks doing the required work is worth his time and effort for what he can reasonably charge!
I know for example I had aluminum heads on a BBC at one time that required new valve seats and valves,
the machine shop I used to deal with told me the heads were "past the point they could be repaired"
I later found the machinist, just hated doing valve seats, and had recently had one of the required machines,
he needed to use break down, and he knew it would take several days work,
and several hundred dollars in parts cost,
he was reluctant to get involved with at the time,
a different machine shop completed the work in only 5 days, and did a great job,
" the required work did not take that long,
but waiting my turn to get the heads worked on did take several days"
and once the heads were done, they charged me $230, charged for labor and parts
So it was not, that the heads were "IRREPAIRABLE" but that the first machinist just did not want to do the work required
in many cases , (we can't do that translates into...)
" its not worth my time and the effort required for the price I can reasonably charge."
or
that work requires a tool I don't , or won't use often enough,
to justify its purchase price":facepalm:

if you are going to build and maintain a high-performance car,
using some aftermarket parts,

you will be using, a local machine shops service's rather regularly
and most likely be forced into many detailed time-consuming discussions with several local machinists
on a regular recuring basis so you better try to make them like and understand you,
appreciate the business and cash you're investing in the process and cash for the parts you purchase from them,

and ideally take an interest in helping you succeed:like:




related thread and linked sub linked info






http://garage.grumpysperformance.co...haft-journal-surface-finnish.2728/#post-72043


 
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