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Poopdeck

I love Horrible repair shops

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So my area has been gearing up for another predicted major snow event. A few days ago I'm driving down the street and a neighbor is  dragging a generator to the curb. I stopped and asked if he is throwing it out. He said he was. I asked if I could have it and he said sure but It was dead and couldn't be repaired. he said he always had a difficult time starting it even when it was new. It would wear him out but  he could always get it started with a can of starting fluid and 20 minutes worth of violent pulling. This time it finally quit and he could not get it started. He took it to a local shop and they told him it had lost compression, was dead and would never run again so he dropped $750.00 on a new one. 

Based on his description I was pretty sure I knew what the problem was and he helped me load it in my truck. Today, I had Some time so I pulled the spark plug, popped the valve cover off and confirmed the valves were not set correctly. Loosened a nut, turned a bolt a smidge until my feeler gauge said it was set at .004", tightened the nut and repeated that process on the other valve. Buttoned it up and it started 1st pull like it should with properly set valves. Total time spent was about 30 minutes and zero dollars.

I told my neighbor and he said he was sick. I told him he could have his old one back. He declined and only asked that I not tell his wife about it It's only a 3000 watt generator but I think I'll use it to power my shed. Boy I like crappy repair shops. 

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Can't beat that! 3000w is decent enough to get some good use out of for sure. That's what mine is and when I lose power I can still power my TV, Cable equipment, PC, box fan, two aquariums, and a couple lamps. I've even powered my 5000btu AC at night if I turn off everything else. So should be great size for a shed workshop.

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Not a workshop just a shed. It's a hundred feet from the house and I don't feel like running electric that far. Right now I power the shed with a 750 watt Honda generator that I got from the trash. It needed the carb and gas tank cleaned. I generally just work on my lawn equipment out there so I just need a couple lights. With the new generator I can run a small heater. That will be nice. 

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Indeed. Since the problem always existed it was not set right at the factory. It probably lost another 1/1000 over the years to heat and vibration which is why it finally would not start. When I checked the intake valve was at .002" and the exhaust valve was set at .005". Both should have been set at .004". I will always be amazed how 2 or 3/1000's can throw off an engine to where it will not start. 

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5 hours ago, Poopdeck said:

Indeed. Since the problem always existed it was not set right at the factory. It probably lost another 1/1000 over the years to heat and vibration which is why it finally would not start. When I checked the intake valve was at .002" and the exhaust valve was set at .005". Both should have been set at .004". I will always be amazed how 2 or 3/1000's can throw off an engine to where it will not start. 

That's amazing. I'm afraid I don't know about such things. I'd be at the mercy of the repair place too.

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I know very little about engines but have always worked on them myself as most problems are small things everybody can fix on their own. I use to pull mowers from the trash fix them, frankenswap parts and do whatever to them to sell them for extra money. Which back in the day was generally anywhere from 2 to 10 dollars. We also would fix our own cars in the backyard under a shade tree. The term shade tree mechanic use to mean just that. I did that until they started putting the engines in sideways. 

If I know about setting valves even the dumbest of repair shops should know about it. To say the engine was toast makes that shop either complete dopes or Thieves. They didn't sell my neighbor the new generator so my guess is they are just dopes or they didn't want to work on such a small job. One of the problems around my way is most small engine repair shops are gone or exist only at the commercial mower shops so they rely on the commercial mower repair business and charge $85.00 up to $100.00 an hour labor rate. 

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Good for you! I've worked on all kinds of engines and other things, and always had enough basic knowledge to know if a repair shop was telling me the truth. That is a problem with some of them.

I had tires and an alignment done one time on my truck, and when they called to tell me it was ready, I went and of course checked the work, before I paid the bill. The tires were obvious, but when I raised the hood and none of the dirt on the suspension had been disturbed I questioned the shop manager how they did an alignment without even disturbing the dirt on the shims or the rust on the bolts?  Many folks wouldn't even have know the difference and unfortunately shops will take advantage of people. 

 

That fellow was a bit pissed, and I don't know if it was because they got caught, or that he had to go and question his "mechanic" about it. Needless to say, the truck went back into the shop and they completed the job while I waited. 😠

 

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Went to a drive-through oil change place. The kid rubbed his fingers over the wipers and said they were cracked. Told him the were replace by me two weeks before. It was a long time before I went back. FWIW, had a Check Engine light come on...oxygen sensor. They tried two but didn't solve the problem. Read up on it and the article said some things are better replaced with the OEM part. Told them, they installed the OEM part and no extra charges except for the original repair. Problem solved.

Knew a kid who worked shuffling cars at a local dealer. Oil change? Wiped off the old filter and added oil to bring it up to full. Tune up? Brushed off the old plugs, gapped them and put back.

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I am no mechanic, but years ago I bought a cheap OBD II scanner, out of curiosity.
It paid for itself many times over on the day It help me diagnose correctly a leaky air hose that I replaced myself. 

I could not tell you how much more it has saved me in visits to dubious mechanics by giving me a good idea of what might be wrong, even if only generally.

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My son bought a scanner several  years ago. Paid for itself in just a couple of cases.

Speaking of dubious mechanics, had a Chevy Astro van with the 4.3 V-6. Got about 65K miles and started drinking oil. Front two plugs on the driver's side looked like they were dipped in tar. Took it to a local shop and had a diagnostic run on it. So..."It needs an overhaul." "What's wrong?" "It needs an overhaul." Never did say what was wrong. Took it to the Chevy dealer. Guy told me the basic rate and would call if they had to go farther. OK. Got the van back and compression was in factory specs. Found later that the 4.3 engine had oil consumption problems with 10% of them. GM never did find the cause, according to a guy who had worked at a Chevy dealer.

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A good mechanic is worth his weight in gold, literally.  It sucks every time I move to a new location, I have to go through the process of finding a mechanic that's either 1.  not a thief, 2. isn''t lazy, or 3. isn't a moron.  I honestly think the latter 2 are the most common.  I think most repair shops just don't know any better or don't care.  Its ignorance or laziness instead of greed.  So its a good thing I enjoy doing minor repairs on my cars: brakes, fluid/filter changes, ball joints, CV joints, shocks, tie rod ends.  They're all pretty straight forward and haven't changed much since I was a kid.  And it gives me a chance to take a look see at whats going on down there.  But I just bought an Impala with 112k on it for 900 because no heat and the gas gauge didn't work.  Owner said he was told it needed a new gas tank/fuel pump, and heater core.  I installed a new heater door actuator, fixed the heat issue.  $20 for two new actuators on Amazon because they're known to go and its a dual heater control, so I'll probably be replacing the other one soon.  Pulled the dash board apart and re-soldered a connection on the circuit board to fixed the gas gauge.  Had a similar problem on a  Chrysler mini-van a few years ago causing a no-start issue, re-soldering a circuit board connection fixed it, way cheaper than a new $800 circuit board.  Last month my son bought a used Regal because it kept stalling every time you gassed it up and was pulling a bunch of codes on the OBD reader:  02 sensors, MAF sensor, evap system, blah, blah.  Replaced rubber vacuum hoses or taped them up as necessary, new gas cap, new evap solenoid.  All less than $50.  Less than 100K for under $2500.  A cheap OBD 2 reader and you-tube have literally saved us thousands of dollars.  As for free/cheap push mowers, power washers, etc on the side of the road, I could go on and on....

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I had two friends that owned auto repair shops now I only have one friend with an auto repair shop. The other got tired of the constant and never ending search for good mechanics and the problems associated with bad mechanics. He broke his business up into 2 businesses, auto repair and towing, and sold both. He bought and runs a campground in upstate pa and is finally happy. 

 

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Niveker,

That stalling after filling up was the last thing I fixed. Looked up the codes, started with easy solution first, and voilà!

 

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