I usually don't post a lot of personal business stuff........but.........I would like some opinions. For me or against me, that's ok. I am just looking for input.
Alright, here's the story.
Bout a month or so ago, I was approached at work by a fairly regular customer and pretty cool old dude. Been out to his house before to check out his cars and all. He's a Chevy guy, but that's ok, he has some cool stuff.
Anyway, he asks me if I wouldnt mind takin a look at an old 396 he has to see if it;s any good. SO I said sure. I went to get it and this thing is a rolling pile of rust. So much so that the old cool Erson valve covers are rusted slam through and you can see the rusted valve train. I told him I would not charge him my going rate (50 an hour) but I would go 20 an hour since he's a good customer and I consider him a friend. He agreed.
So I take the thing home. First thing I notice is the intake bolts are so rusted, a socket or wrench will not fit. I had to remove the heads and intake as one piece. I later chiseled the intake bolts out one flat at the time. Very time consuming.
Once I got the heads off, I realized this was a very rusted up engine. So much so, I decided it was the worst one I had ever seen. So I called him and let him know. He said "go ahead and get it apart". So I proceeded.
I propped up each deck surface level and poured Evaporust in the cylinders and let it sit in each bank for about four days each. I didn't charge him for the time it sat. I took turns pounding the pistons with a whittled 4x4 alternating between the very rusted ones.
Slowly, I began to get one piston out here and one out there. I finally got it all apart. I need to back up and say when I removed the drain plug from the oil pan, I got almost a gallon of coolant and maybe one quart of oil, so I knew I was in for trouble.
I honestly have about 15 hours on and off working on tearing this thing down, but decided to only charge for 10. I swear yall, this thing any machine shop would have told him to come get it and never bring it back. It was that bad.
So, I got it completely disassembled. I called him up and gave him the verdict. He wanted to know if it would be worth building that one, OR one he found locally, fresh, ready to go for 2800. I told him "it's a no brainer, go for the 2800". He asked what he owed me. I told him what I had in it. 200 bucks. 10 hours times my cut rate of 20 per hour labor.......which I think is a deal. He agreed to let me just have the engine in trade, so I agreed.
Yesterday, he called me and said he wanted his engine back. He said he couldn't believe I had ten hours getting it apart. I let him know I actually have more than that and that I cut my rate by 30 an hour because he is such a good customer at work. I also let him know that I have purchased a few parts planning on a future 396 build and that put me even more into it than the labor that we both agreed to trade the engine itself for. He got mad and hung up.
I called him back and told him he did not need to call me at work talking to me like a child and he apologized. But I know he still has hard feelings about this. So what would yall do? Did I do something wrong here? I don't think so. I gave him a deal. He agreed to it. He agreed to let me have the engine for the labor and now he wants the engine back without giving me a dime. So what say you?
