diverjeff200

Hey all,

Anyone ever try to repair something on your Runner only to find the repair exceeded your abilities? If so did you take the vehicle to a mechanic? What would a mechanic say about trying to put a vehicle back together? CHA-CHING?? Might a mechanic give you credit for dis-assembling? I know I'm being anal but am fixing to jump in the deep end of the pool tomorrow taking off heads. Trying to consider options. Expect the best & prepare for the worst.

Safety & blue skies,

DJ

yaqui

You might call the mechanic ahead of time and let him know what you are about to attempt. I would see no cause for charging more or less. I do know my mechanic pretty well and he would say hey, "at least you tried."
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surf4runner

mechanic rates:
standard = 50/hr
if you watch = 70/hr
if you tried yourself and broke it worse = 100/hr

Kaydon

I've heard sometimes they'll refuse to work on it if you come up there with a box of parts.

ewong

depends on how well you know the mechs...

The guys I work with dont care.
The issue is if the part you supplies dont work etc - you stillowe them shop hours....

82yota

I know I hate working on stuff that someone else has already taken apart. Doing heads really is not that big of a deal. You should be able to do it yourself if you get yourself a FSM and some decent tools and you have your head screwed on fairly straight. There may be some cursing and swearing involved but it is not that big of a deal. I tore into my 3vze this week and I have one head in the garage getting cleaned and the other is still on the truck waiting for me to get ambitious and go at the exhaust nut on the downpipe. But as for the mechanic thing if you don't think you can handle it talk to the guy first and see what he has to say but I know I hate it when people bring me half done jobs and more often than not jobs that were done poorly and require more work than the job had originally needed.

stormin94

If you don't think you can do something, don't. Or you could just get a couple of buddys together and get a 24 pack and see if you can figure it out. That always works for me...the truck doesn't usually get fixed, but I sure feel better about it. But seriously, mechanics overcharge by probably 80%. If you do the work your self, it will probably cost like 65-75% less than if you had a machanic do it. Most things you can do your self though. Transmissions are not my specialty, so I have my neighbor do em for real cheap.

dijlop

certainly depends on the mech. find a good one, make nice, real friendly like. go to that mech all the time. tell him your outlook on life. tell him a secret. he'll probally only charge u twice what it woulda cost ya to do it urself. cant beat that.

habanero

Happened all the time at the shop where I worked. If it appeared the person kinda knew what he was doing and he didn't royally screw it up we'd fix it and away they'd go. If they didn't have a clue they've often left a mess that cost time to undo the damage and then time to repair the original problem. Can't think of any time someone got charged less for 'beginning the job'. Usually we stuck to book time, even on partially worked on stuff....unless we had extra work as if often the case, then more time was charged. There were a few exceptions for people we knew well but after getting bit bad on one of those (the guy did most of the brake work, we finished the driver's side, the passenger side wheel came off while the guy's brother-in-law was driving the truck and the brother-in-law sued us. We couldn't prove we didn't touch that wheel even though what we did was described on the work order. It was expensive.) we were much more wary about fixing pre-worked on deals.

ewong

Oh thats why some work orders are written upt hey way they are
(customer supplied parts, customer noted x previously repaired by self)

habanero

Yep, but it's still not enough protection. Saying you didn't work on it, writing you didn't work on it, the customer saying you didn't work on it, isn't always enough. The verdict was that we should have double checked his work. We weren't asked to and we didn't. You can bet after that no more Mr. Nice guy on partial DIYers.

mehret

When I worked at the garage, we had one guy who was trying to work on a 4.3 Vortec and he snapped a bolt off in the intake. He then brought it into us and asked us to work on it, and since it was a friend of the assistant manager, we did it after hours. It became more of a pain than it was worth. In general, we didn't touch work from DIY people because of events such as that. My suggestion is to do the research on your project really well. If you feel confident that you understand what's going on, give it a shot. If you're still uncertain, I would bite the bullet and take it to a shop.

CyMoN

I know of a few shops that will not work on your car or truck with parts you supplied that have to order everything if they do the work

Yota4runner

The guys I work with, (myself included) woud likely fix it but we would curse you the entire time

diverjeff200

Hey,

Thanks for the advisements and ideas. I would hope, IF, taken to the mech. they would have some mercy. May take the suggestion and invite the mech to the house for some cold brewskys and advice. Might be worth $20 an hour for a housecall just to tell ME what to do.

Removed the dist, timing cover off today. After worknig 1.5 hours on that D**N exhaust pipe nut. Finally gave up. Will buy a long 3/8 ext tomorrow. Pulling cam & crank pullys, plenum, rails & valve covers tomorrow. Thank you again everyone!!

Safety & blue skies,

DJ

drews4rnnr

take lots of pictures ,make some cardboard templates & maybe more pictures . the good thing about toyotas are they basically came with 2 motors & there are many many people who have done the job you are trying to do that will help .

dcg9381

I have to admit I had an experience like this not that long ago.
I was working on my wifes 5.4L Ford, F-150.
9.75" rear end.. Posi clutches had gone.
Simple right? I've replaced them before in Mustangs and Ford wanted $800 for $100 in parts and a few hours of labor.

Took the posi out, disassembled, replaced the clutches.
I'll be darned if I can get the thing back in. I end up damaging one of the spider gears.

As I've damaged a spider gear, I order a complete (assembled) posi unit.
Bummer, but still way under the $800 that Ford wanted.
It shows up about a week later, I go to put it in and guess what.. I've got to shim it.

At this point, I'm looking at another week for the shim kit, several hours of my time to get the backlash set right...

I call the local driveline shop - they say no problem, $200 if I haven't driven on the ring and pinion, as I've already torn it all down - no fluids.. and we're in good shape.

$200 plus a tow.. $400 in parts.. Shy of that $800 Ford charge, but not worth my frustration!