Technical How things can go wrong !

I get the craziest stuff here.
This is an insane story of not my job

Maybe you've heard this before.

This is a story about four people named Everybody, Somebody, Anybody and Nobody. There was an important job to be done and Everybody was sure that Somebody would do it. Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it. Somebody got angry about that, because it was Everybody’s job. Everybody thought Anybody could do it, but Nobody realized that Everybody wouldn’t do it. It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anybody could have.

Ok here it is -

A 62 Chevy II nova with a fresh really healthy SBC. My buddy owns it, one guy built the engine and the shop where my buddy used to work at installed it where 5 , at least 5 other skilled mechanics very familiar with high performance and high end cars did something on the car. That's 8 smart cookies involved and I make the number 9 cookie.

So the owner of the car gets called out of state last spring mid project.
The other shop said they would finish the job for him. They installed the engine, buttoned up the odds and ends and fire it up. It quickly raises above 200 and will not cool. This was last fall. My friend, the owner is out of state, the shop could not figure it out and blamed the builder. Then just pushed in in the corner. I don't have all the history from what happens there or payments or anything other than these guys are pretty sharp.

The shop owner gets fed up with it wasting floor space and ships it over to the engine builders for diagnosis. He condemns the radiator, and devises a correction that involves some expensive solutions to cool the high stepping small block he built. It sits at his place for the winter.

This past Friday my friend flys in to put his dog down and get his car out of the builders barn because he's bitching about space. He calls me for help to move the car. When it rains it pours right?

So we trailer the car to my place and I start my normal smart cookie diagnosis. Remember 8 months and 7 paid mechanics and one engine builder and the car owner knows them all quite well. Also paid a bunch of money and no car.

Here's what I did - took me 45 mins including a phone call discussion and text messages while my friend is waiting at the vet.

First thing I do,
Pull the radiator cap and run the engine up to temp. IR says 195 guage says 200 and there is ZERO flow visible at the cap. Top hose is warm bottom of radiator is ice cold.

Second thing I do-
Pull the pet cock and drain the radiator. I dumped 1 gallon of water in the rad and it flowed thru open pet cock without hesitation. Remember the radiator was condemned by the builder.

Third thing I do is pull the thermostat housing and there's still a bit of water in there. WTF ? So I take 16 ounces and fill the intake, I shouldn't be able to do that & I stop watch it to find it takes 4.5 mins for the 16 ounces to drain out.

Fourth thing I do is text the owner with a condemnation of flow thru the block and suspect the gaskets are screwy. I don't know it but He's explains this to the builder and the builder is going nuts thinking I'm an idiot.

5th thing I do is talk with the builder and get some history. It ran on a test stand for an hour and half total without issue. The engine was then dropped off at the shop and out of his hands. His thinking is the only thing different in the cooling system from test stand to car is the radiator. He tells me the radiator has no flow, I say yes it does and plenty but the block has no flow. Again around with the radiator thing.
So I repeated the history back to him as I heard it. I was correct. So then I asked him how long between dropping it off and installation and fire up. He tells me at least 2 months maybe more.
I then said it must be something foreign in there then. Maybe a mouse got in there and got shredded in the water pump. He says he has no idea and can't answer for the shop but he capped it all off, taped exhaust ports and a carb lifting plate.


6th thing I do -
Pull the lower radiator hose off the radiator, then the water pump and I get lots of coolant.

Here's what I found .



This is the cap the builder put on the water pump.

I can't believe these guys didn't bother and ran my friend around with buck passing.

 

shit rolls down hill even in our hobby. Unbelievable

 

Sooo...did ya melt that stuff down, get it all gooey, and proceed with step number 7 in the lonesome confines?

Just l
kidding, almost looked like a wax thing, but see they didn't pull the plastic cap capoff..

Hey, hope you friend has solace he was dealing with
professionals

Does make one wonder if you take a car to a shop, who does the grunt work, and what are they really qualified to do?

 

I left a plastic shopping bag that I wadded up and placed in the water pump inlet once. The rest is history

 

wow, So who installed the hoses?

 

That's crazy, man. I'd be pissed, but at who?

 

Unbelievable....you are a good friend to help him out..
Years ago I bought an old IHC Scout Cheep Cheep Cheep cause it kept overheating..from a city garage..
They had repaired the radiator..one guy took it out, and a different one put it back in....yep left a chunk of burlap in that same spot..
I cleaned house re selling that one..
Basics Basics and more Basics is what I always preached to my kids, and now grandkids...

 

That's a "WTF"moment if I ever saw one!

 

Ironically it was the guy who replaced my friend.

 

Anybody, somebody, everybody and nobody

 

Worked for a guy. He was a jerk as time went on. I wasn't moving as fast as he wanted me to. Over the weekend he installed headers. Added the belts and hoses. Filled with coolant. Told me Tuesday AM. I got all this done over the weekend. Ok so what. I want to crank it today. Well OK let's do it. Turned over a few times and tried. Moved the distributor a bit. Lit off. Saw stuff flying around behind and under the car. SHUT IT OFF! The red crate motor plastic exhaust head plugs were coming out the open headers! He got PO'ed cause I was laughing and giving him hell. I didn't let him forget.

 

Had that happen with an oil line on an airplane. Fortunately, I caught it on run-up before any damage was done. I was not nice to the guy that installed the hose...

 

Remember I don't know shit about electricity but knew that was going to be the answer before I read the whole post. Bob

 

Great you found it before the new engine was damaged...I once bought a very nice 50 chevy fleetline at a swap meet for $425 with an overheating problem.....seller swore he put a fresh radiator in it but didn't help, he said.
I bought the car and immediately sent the radiator to the shop and when I came to pick it up I asked what he found. The radiator guy said "go look out on the lawn" where I saw a big pile of seat stuffing...yep, mice went down the open radiator fill with seat stuffing to make a comfy hole. He charged me 20 bucks.

 

Loved to read this. It seems like a basic blunder and look how many hands it passed through! It makes me feel better about my own mistakes! I'm not a mechanic and rely on help I research/get on here to answer my questions.


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Ah yep...

 

I had a friend (really not me) built a SBC for a guy and dropped into a 57 Chevy. Only problem is that he forgot to install the intermediate shaft. Fired it to lash the valves, ran the first five minutes with no oil at the rockers. Owner of the car told the builder that the oil light went out when the car started.

Shut it down, pulled the dipstick, oil level fine. Fired it again, owner inside again said the oil light went out. Second five minutes, no top end oil. My friend swore that all plugs in the block were in and cam bearings were done by a machine shop and right as he looked at them before assembly.

So he squirts some oil on the rockers and fires it again, still no oil, lifters are clacking, engine up to temperature. Engine also is making a squeaking noise too. Now he's scratching his head. Owner is now standing outside the car looking at the motor. My friend is getting a little tense now. As I went outside the shop for a couple of minutes and reenter now I'm the closest to the front seat.

My friend asks me to start the car. So I get in, depress the clutch, turn the ignition to "start" and look at the dash. Oil light does not light up but the Generator light does! I said loudly "that was the generator light, the oil light isn't working. Did you remember the oil pump shaft?"

He said, probably only one of a handful of times in the 44 years I knew him the word "shit". He hardly ever swore. He then pulls the distributor and finds that, yes, he did forget the shaft.

Well, if all else fails the bearings were probably well "fitted" to the crankshaft......

 

I'm guessing that nobody did it .....

 

Too many cooks spoils the soup!

 

Good job.

 

i have seen a shop owner who would hang a whole bunch of stuff on a project, all finger tight to impress the customer when they came in to view the progress..........hub caps over finger tight lugs.........
i wonder if that is what happened?

 

I've seen that stuff too,
Not the case here as there was no one to impress and no need to try.

I can see it happening as an honest mistake, I really can. what's baffling and beyond excuse, even beyond reason, beyond belief is they didn't bother to even look for a reason.

It's basics, the very basics and I'd bet any kid not quite graduated from trade school could have found the issue. Nope!!! We're going to blame a very talented engine builder and he will reinvent the wheel. How can every one of them skip over the obvious basics.

 

wow - you try to have things done right by people that you think that you can trust, and the whole deal falls apart. there are no true guarantees in life, except shit happens - Thanks for sharing story

 

I'll tell you one, my Dad bought an ot 79 Ford 3/4 ton ex-cab from the guy he worked with. They were both mechanics at Alaska Airlines. His fellow worker spent a ton of money rebuilding and installing a super cobra jet 429, added a cng tank so it was duel fuel. Awesome tow rig except it would over-heat in 10 or 15 minutes, he tried everything to fix it and gave up telling dad he was going to sell it. Dad took me with him to go check it out and after looking under the hood a couple minutes made a deal bought it, cheap! Handed over the money and we left with it. Drove about 5 minutes, pulled over, I stopped behind him thinking it had overheated. He says to me, got a 1/2 inch wrench? I said yea in the trunk, he says get it out and turn the fan around! Turned out they weren't the best of friends so Pops took advantage of him, and yes that's all that was wrong with that rig! Dad towed a 5th wheel with that truck for years, It was a pulling MFer!

 

Good job finding out! That spells a refund from the shop that installed engine


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Ya, most are driveway guarantees ,once you leave the driveway the guarantee is done/over/void...lol

 

Perfect example of too many fingers in the pie. I've seen a lot of stupid shit over the years, especially when a job got handed over from one crew to the next. Like your example, Everybody knew better, but Nobody actually checked it. Face palm.

 

Yes, exactly.
I believe that leaving the plug on was an honest mistake albeit a stupid one. The color of the plug against the Chevy orange engine sorta disappears the plug down in the engine bay. However this entire resulting situation was caused by pride, arrogance and shared high self opinions thinking collectively as a group that no one was capabable of such a rookie mistake. Too high on yourself that no one thinks to visually check for the basics. They all saw the horse tracks and all agreed it must be a some kind of zebra. I'm still baffled how some hint to an issue wasn't caught on initial filling of the coolant system.

My initial observations were certainly a coolant flow blockage within the block. Naturally I suspected gaskets. That was until I was graced with the knowledge that it ran on the test stand without issue. By asking just one simple question it became painfully obvious that it had to be something foreign in the cooling system. Honestly I was expecting to find a rodent because that shop has a issue with mice.

 

Awww Great,
I'm just finishing up my first hot rod build. Now I get the feeling that I forgot something....
nobody to blame though.
Good find... like they say... a second set of eyes may see things the first set don't.

 

Quite the Cluster F**k, lucky for him, you figured it out, I have some stories on warranty work on new vehicles, but your story verifys what I have thought for many years, very few Mr Goodwrench out there. Throughout my lifetime I have learned that all business's including mine can't operate at 100% perfection , IMO it's how the mistakes are handled is what makes for a reputable shop. The biggest trick and hardest part for a business owner is to hire/train/keep the good people as they are a small percentage of employees IMO.