Machine shops: What is an average turnaround time?

[Kern Dog]

We have all heard of "Paint Jail".....the term used to describe that condition where your car sits waiting for the bodywork and paint to be completed.
Equally frustrating is waiting on a machinist.

In the first week of June, I brought in a 440 block, crank, rods and pistons, heads, and cam bearings. I needed the block bored and honed and the crank installed to determine piston height at TDC. Deck the block, and hot tank it..... change valve springs and light surface to the heads.
It has been two months. Last week the man said that THIS week he would have it done.

I took this rebuild as an opportunity to fix a few other things and to upgrade the brakes. Even with a few other projects going on here, I've exhausted all the things that I can do on this car until I get the engine back. To make it worse, the new pistons are 100 grams heavier and will require a balance job.....that this machinist cannot do.
This guy does great work and is reasonably priced so it seems that I got 2 out of three:
Fast
Cheap
Good.

 

[eldubb440]

We have all heard of "Paint Jail".....the term used to describe that condition where your car sits waiting for the bodywork and paint to be completed.
Equally frustrating is waiting on a machinist.

the difference is body and paint can consume several hundred hours......... if an engine was machined that much, it would be a pile of filings

 

[CoronetDarter]

Two months sounds about right.

 

[5.7 hemi]

Got my 400 Stroker kit, took the block and kit to the machine shop, bored honed, decked, line bored, stroker kit rebalanced with my clutch kit, done in 1 week. 2 months is a bit long.

 

[Kern Dog]

I could understand it taking longer if I had additional stuff like disassembly, line boring, square decking, head porting and full assembly but to me, 2 months is a bullshit time frame. At this rate, the Summer is lost. It will take a few weeks to get the engine back in even if I had it today.

 

[RemCharger]

This guy does great work and is reasonably priced so it seems that I got 2 out of three:
Fast
Cheap
Good.

3 out of 3 is an option now?

 

[66 Sat]

As he's not waiting on parts then he needs to get his *** in gear. It's purely his labor, unless of course he is waiting for parts for his machines/tools.
My first rebuild in 2018 took 6 weeks which I was happy with.
This one I'm in 16 weeks and counting. Hopefully 20 weeks all in but I'm still in the dark. Not the engine builder's fault - waiting on custom pistons from JE.
It's not like you have a written contract or anything and you don't want to hassle the guy or piss him off so he puts your job even further down the line.
I'd go and visit him, have a chat, tell him you realise he's got a lot on etc but could he possibly get yours done next.
Edit: Also as a guide, my engine builder says 2-3 weeks once he gets pistons. That's to bore block, balance rotating assembly, re-assemble everything and dyno. He did the heads while he's been waiting for the pistons.
Engines sitting there don't earn him any money. Your guy is semi-retired? He's working on a different clock.

 

[Triplegreen500]

What's his workload?

Around here, we have 2, maybe 3, reputable machine shops. People who need machine work...KNOW where to go ("need an engine block done? Heads flowed? Go see Dave" - and people know who Dave is, and what shop he runs), and that guy gets BUSY.

All.
The.
Time.

Don't forget, they're subject to the same labor shortages/problems every other industry is subject to these days...as well as parts supply issues (not just parts for your engine, but also parts for their shop tools like cutting heads, drill bits, shears, etc).

When I did concert rigging for national tours and for installations, we had 3 types there too: fast, safe, and cheap. Pick two. Same deal. Fast and cheap? I ain't walking under it. Fast and safe? Pay up - we'll do it, but it'll cost ya. Safe and cheap? Be patient, you're at the bottom of our priority list but we'll get to ya.

 

[Nxcoupe]

Then these guys aren't busy. My guy, the only guy I will take stuff to, told me he was taking work in June to be completed in September.

 

[bm02tj]

When you are a one off you come behind his regular bread and butter customers
Hope you get it back soon

 

[69Bee]

That is a loaded question. The amount of time pretty much is a function of:
1) How much work they already have
2) How many employees
3) The amount of work you want done
4) The number of times you call and ask about it

Number 4 is inversely proportional, as the number of times you call about it, the longer it will take

Two months is not long at all. Hell, I have some I haven't even gotten to in that time, Right Jim...

 

[Nxcoupe]

My guy is a one man show which why I go to him. If he had employees it diffuses who screwed up the work, if that were to happen. Now, I know exactly who is responsible for every part of the job. I do my own valve jobs and portwork, and do all my own assembly, but rely on his expertise and precision for the machining aspect of it. Heck, I even do my own cam bearings and freeze plugs.

 

[t.flatt]

I brought in a bare block to get bored and decked. He ended up sleeving 2 cylinders as well. That took 8 months! I brought the heads to a different shop to get checked out. Their '2 weeks' ran about 3 months! Don't know if this is typical, but if they are good they will be non-stop busy, I guess.

 

[ckessel]

Time for some surprise visits to see how things are going. Kind of hard to ignore the customer when you see the whites of their eyes. Me, I take time frames literally. I've been that way for a long time. The only one I don't hold to a time frame is my wife. Anyone else, I'm calling or showing up. Someone tells me they'll call back in an hour, I call when the time is up to see wtf. They'll sputter but I tell them, you told me an hour-you didn't call back at an hour so here I am. What's up? Will get some but buts, so I said stick to the time you told me. Maybe you need to learn how to read a clock or understand the concept of being on time.

 

[6PKRTSE]

We are weeks behind. The supply chain business is killing us with never being able to get any brand race parts in a timely manner anymore. We have over 50 crate engines in the queue and over 150 race engines in the queue to be built.

 

[beanhead]

I posted earlier about my guy being relatively quick (not the cheapest but very good quality work) with my short-blocks but chose to delete it because it's been two years since I've had one done, and I can't say what the "NEW NORMAL" is...also like an above poster mentioned I do all the assembly, cam bearings, etc...I take the machinist my bare block and rotating parts for fitting and mock-up, he does the cleaning and cutting, and I build it. I'm sure that saves a good amount of time but I know not everyone can, or wants to, deal with that. But it really is just a shitty time to be doing a build, engine or otherwise....

 

[Cranky]

Don't know if anyone has mentioned this but one thing you never tell anyone working on your stuff is "I'm not in a hurry" especially a machinist lol

 

[RemCharger]

Don't know if anyone has mentioned this but one thing you never tell anyone working on your stuff is "I'm not in a hurry" especially a machinist lol

Yep and if you're one of those "I'm special and I need my **** right now" guys,

Give the guy 10k cash. Watch him hustle.

 

[6PKRTSE]

Yep and if you're one of those "I'm special and I need my **** right now" guys,

Give the guy 10k cash. Watch him hustle.

Don't give it to him. Flash it in front of him and tell him it is his as soon as he is done. Then watch him hustle.
We usually always do a 50% deposit on most of our customers except for a few special occasions.

 

[Cranky]

Yep and if you're one of those "I'm special and I need my **** right now" guys,

Give the guy 10k cash. Watch him hustle.

Wouldn't take that much for me LOL I'm sure most high end shops have their 'special' customers and even the low end shops most likely do too. When I was building engines there were several that were 'engine masters' that thought you could reuse head gaskets and on and on and on. I'll do that on my junk if they weren't used very much but never did that with a customer engine unless they didn't want a warranty but none of them did. They all wanted top quality work for low quality dollars. That was one of the reasons I quit doing engines and focused on rear end work. In the 30+ years of doing that, only had one guy bitch about prices while I was at pretty close to 1/2 price of the rear end 'businesses'. After sending him to one of the commercial rear end shops, he came back only to learn that he wasn't welcome anymore. He told me I should be lower since I didn't have any overhead because my shop was in my backyard. See ya......