A reminder on the dangers of using the wrong glow plugs...

[The Warden]

Hello!

I was reading the thread about lbzbuick's truck with a windowed block and it reminded me of a receipt I had once seen in my truck's records about some major engine work. I had thought that the work was done due to a swallowed valve, so I decided to go through the records...and lo and behold, I had remembered it wrong.

This dates back to when my uncle's step-father still had the truck...but, based on the receipt, in 1991 he took the truck to Gaudin Ford in Lost Wages complaining about an engine knock. It looks like three glow plug tips had broken off in the cylinders...the end result was, they had to replace all three of the affected pistons, three exhaust valves, two intake valves, the rocker arms for those three (looks like they went ahead and did all 8 rocker arm assemblies, which would explain why the truck has the 7.3l style rockers), and related parts...the total came out to $1130 (which would be $1888 today) $550 for labor (11 hours at $50/hour, which seems cheap by current-day standards) and $546 in parts.

After seeing some of the carnage from dropped glow plug tips, I'd say that my uncle's step-father got lucky, but even still...it's a good reminder of why you need to be careful about what brand of glow plugs are used and to be especially careful when removing them

 

[reklund]

Considering the customer-pay door rate for diesel work is well over $100/hr these days, thats a pretty cheap repair- especially for that amount of work!

 

[vegas39]

Yeah, that does seem pretty cheap. My brother just spent 5,000 bucks for 2 new batteries, a HPOP, 2 new injectors and a couple of other odd ball items on his 6.uh oh. 3,000 of that was labor.

 

[The Warden]

I was surprised by the labor cost also...the paperwork I have doesn't say what the labor rate was, so I just divided $550 by 11 hours...and thought that my math was wrong at first (I'm a historian, not a mathematician ). With that said, I don't know what the going rate for labor was in 1991...was that on par, or was that below the standards even then?

 

[itsacrazyasian]

Thats on par. You wanna know something scary? My wholesale fleet rate is 65 dollars an hour.... ****** but it keeps my guys really really busy. Make on parts to.

 

[DOE-SST]

Thats on par. You wanna know something scary? My wholesale fleet rate is 65 dollars an hour.... ****** but it keeps my guys really really busy. Make on parts to.

you wanna know something sad?

Our retail shop rate for maintaining $40-million dollar business jets is $80/hr. And almost every customer argues every bill, and since these companies all have big legal departments, they sic their bored lawyers on the shop just for fun. Many shops never collect all of their original bill. In this economy, Chief Pilots will walk into a shop, request a quote, and start haggling over costs like they're at a Turkish bazaar. The costs for shop and test equipment is astronomical, as is maintaining half a BILLION dollars in insurance coverage. We make next to no profit on parts.

We refuse to let an aircraft leave the shop until the (negotiated) bill is paid. Did that to a USAF bird and they threatened to send in armed troops. We told them we wouldn't resist, and they could take the aircraft, minus a few expensive, critical parts.

 

[SparkandFire]

Thanks for the reminder, Tim. I just pulled out 8 junk-o-lites on the black truck this past weekend. All had burnt out and slightly swelled but came out without too much of a fight. The guy I bought the truck from put them in and the old controller stuck on. Then he replaced the controller then threw in the towel.

8 beru plugs and a push button and now it starts right up no problem!

 

[sassyrel]

We refuse to let an aircraft leave the shop until the (negotiated) bill is paid. Did that to a USAF bird and they threatened to send in armed troops. We told them we wouldn't resist, and they could take the aircraft, minus a few expensive, critical parts.[/QUOTE]

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