I am a little overdue with this due to the rally shake down jitters being worked out but here is my review of working with Mel at Conestoga diesel. If you want to skip over the long part just jump to the bottom sentence 
we have a hall of shame but I do not see an area for good business reviews so I put it in the meat and potatoes of this site the 6.9 and 7.3 IDI section. Mods feel free to move.
I think most of us have known or been helped by Mel, Agnem on this board at one time or another. He is not as active on Oilburners as he used to be but for good reason. In recent history he has taken over the Conestoga Diesel shop. He has moved him and his family completely over into the diesel world specializing in our IDI trucks.
Some of you may know but my truck was sluggish since I have bought it. When I first joined 7 years ago in 2006 Mel was the first “internet friend” that I met to time my truck. The timing was way out and bringing it in helped a good bit and I was happy for a while. My truck continued to go down in power though over time which I contributed to an old injection pump with 180k on it. Since then I have changed the injectors, IP twice checked all sorts of things and my truck was still a hot running slug. Nothing seemed to help it much so finally after getting out of debt for the first time in my 33 years I handed my vehicle over to someone else and said “fix it please”.
Mel was great to work with and even offered to pick the truck up from my house since he was camping close to my area. Now that is service, since I live about an hour from the shop! Mel himself drove my truck back sending me texts along the way to let me know that my truck had arrived safe at the campground, then his house, then to the shop where the fun began. He completely agreed it ran “poochy”
.
After some diagnostic work Mel found several minor things that needed some attention and the big one. Apparently the low mileage pump that I was able to score from Ron in a 2 am pump swap (that’s a whole other story Ron, dsl_dog_chatcher, is one helleva guy who will give the shirt off his back or pump off his shelf to save a friends bacon!) to replace the defective U-haul pump I had just put in, had a completely out of spec timing curve. That’s why it felt like my truck was chocking up when I revved the engine and the pyro would rocket even unloaded.
Mel was quick to answer any of my questions offer advice and give me clear quotes before pulling the trigger on any work. Once he had the IP problem in his sights I gave the ok after talking with the wifey. Mel then moved forward with installing a Bull Moose pump in my truck. Several days past and I got the call that it was ready, that the truck had new life and he thought I would be satisfied. We set up plans to have a nice dinner at a mutual location between the both of us where we could talk and I could pick up my truck.
The evening went well where I got to have a nice dinner with Mel, his wife Suzy and his son Graham. It was nice to be able to sit down and get a real review on the work done and catch up with friends. After dinner Mel took me out to see me take a test drive and make sure I was satisfied. My truck started right up and pulling out I could already tell it was a different animal. I am not a fan of “blowing smoke” but wow that first take off put a perma-grin on my face! My truck ran better than it should after all these years! I gave the truck a good run up and down the road. Afterward I pulled back in and we parted ways to beat the storm moving into the area.
Now having said that sometimes a company is as good as the work it stands behind and of course with my luck I put this to the test. I noticed my truck was leaking diesel after I got it back, I gave Mel a call and he promptly said that if I would bring it in he would take care of it right away. I decided to take a look over it myself and soon found the leaking, one was completely on me. It just so happened that my fuel lines from the fuel select valve to engine were giving way to PA salt and seeping. I took care of that quickly by bending up and replacing all the steel lines in that section. The second was two of the caps on the return lines that were installed were leaking. I let Mel know and a new kit was sent my way. I thought that was very generous, anyone who has had to work on these return lines knows they can be tricky to seal sometimes. One a side not it was immediately apparent that Mel had done some “clean up” work under my hood. The engine looked so much cleaner and was much nicer to work with.
In the end I now have a truck that performs and can tow my new to me 5th wheel like it should. It was fixed for a very reasonable price and the customer service was top notch. Thanks Mel, Suzy, Graham and any others behind the scenes I missed at Conestoga Diesel.
we have a hall of shame but I do not see an area for good business reviews so I put it in the meat and potatoes of this site the 6.9 and 7.3 IDI section. Mods feel free to move.I think most of us have known or been helped by Mel, Agnem on this board at one time or another. He is not as active on Oilburners as he used to be but for good reason. In recent history he has taken over the Conestoga Diesel shop. He has moved him and his family completely over into the diesel world specializing in our IDI trucks.
Some of you may know but my truck was sluggish since I have bought it. When I first joined 7 years ago in 2006 Mel was the first “internet friend” that I met to time my truck. The timing was way out and bringing it in helped a good bit and I was happy for a while. My truck continued to go down in power though over time which I contributed to an old injection pump with 180k on it. Since then I have changed the injectors, IP twice checked all sorts of things and my truck was still a hot running slug. Nothing seemed to help it much so finally after getting out of debt for the first time in my 33 years I handed my vehicle over to someone else and said “fix it please”.
Mel was great to work with and even offered to pick the truck up from my house since he was camping close to my area. Now that is service, since I live about an hour from the shop! Mel himself drove my truck back sending me texts along the way to let me know that my truck had arrived safe at the campground, then his house, then to the shop where the fun began. He completely agreed it ran “poochy”
.After some diagnostic work Mel found several minor things that needed some attention and the big one. Apparently the low mileage pump that I was able to score from Ron in a 2 am pump swap (that’s a whole other story Ron, dsl_dog_chatcher, is one helleva guy who will give the shirt off his back or pump off his shelf to save a friends bacon!) to replace the defective U-haul pump I had just put in, had a completely out of spec timing curve. That’s why it felt like my truck was chocking up when I revved the engine and the pyro would rocket even unloaded.
Mel was quick to answer any of my questions offer advice and give me clear quotes before pulling the trigger on any work. Once he had the IP problem in his sights I gave the ok after talking with the wifey. Mel then moved forward with installing a Bull Moose pump in my truck. Several days past and I got the call that it was ready, that the truck had new life and he thought I would be satisfied. We set up plans to have a nice dinner at a mutual location between the both of us where we could talk and I could pick up my truck.
The evening went well where I got to have a nice dinner with Mel, his wife Suzy and his son Graham. It was nice to be able to sit down and get a real review on the work done and catch up with friends. After dinner Mel took me out to see me take a test drive and make sure I was satisfied. My truck started right up and pulling out I could already tell it was a different animal. I am not a fan of “blowing smoke” but wow that first take off put a perma-grin on my face! My truck ran better than it should after all these years! I gave the truck a good run up and down the road. Afterward I pulled back in and we parted ways to beat the storm moving into the area.
Now having said that sometimes a company is as good as the work it stands behind and of course with my luck I put this to the test. I noticed my truck was leaking diesel after I got it back, I gave Mel a call and he promptly said that if I would bring it in he would take care of it right away. I decided to take a look over it myself and soon found the leaking, one was completely on me. It just so happened that my fuel lines from the fuel select valve to engine were giving way to PA salt and seeping. I took care of that quickly by bending up and replacing all the steel lines in that section. The second was two of the caps on the return lines that were installed were leaking. I let Mel know and a new kit was sent my way. I thought that was very generous, anyone who has had to work on these return lines knows they can be tricky to seal sometimes. One a side not it was immediately apparent that Mel had done some “clean up” work under my hood. The engine looked so much cleaner and was much nicer to work with.
In the end I now have a truck that performs and can tow my new to me 5th wheel like it should. It was fixed for a very reasonable price and the customer service was top notch. Thanks Mel, Suzy, Graham and any others behind the scenes I missed at Conestoga Diesel.
both on your experience with Mel and how your truck now runs.
