Copied from another page,but is spot-on. Due to the dwindling supply of quality machine shops and very poor quality aftermarket parts as well as a lack of people interested in learning the engine building and machine shop trades, I regret to inform our many followers and current as well as past customers that we will no longer be taking on any new engine build orders unless it is for a car we are restoring. Since Covid, we have had to do rework on multiple engine builds due to poorly manufactured parts that failed during break in or machine work that was below our standards due to all the old farts like me dying off with no younger workers interested in taking their place. For example, rod bearings are now made too thin resulting in 390 and 401 crank grinds needing to be ground .0085, .0185 or .0285 under standard rod journal size yet all but one machine shop in the entire Phoenix area refused to do anything other than the standard .010, .020 or .030 grinds. Even worse, when the one shop that will grind the cranks the way we tell them we need them loses their crank grinder to retirement in another year or two, they do not plan to replace him. Machine work that used to have a turnaround of 2-3 weeks now takes a minimum of 2-4 months due to an acute lack of people interested in learning machine work and doing manual physical labor. In fact, one engine block was at a machine shop for a year and when we got it back hey did such a poor sleeve job in one cylinder that it was not even useable so it is now a 250 lb paper weight. About 15 years ago I nearly bought out an aging gentlemen's machine shop and continue to regret not doing so due to the lack of availability of places to get the work done. As for poor quality parts, Edelbrock aluminum heads are now such poor quality and filled with so much manufacturing machining slag that we have to completely disassemble them, reset the valve stem and spring heights and even sometimes have them resurfaced because the slag scratched the head gasket surface. Similarly, there are only a couple of camshaft manufacturers remaining that harden their cams correctly and nearly all flat tappet lifters are now such terrible quality and inconsistent hardness that we are no longer willing to risk losing a cam due to poorly made cams and lifters. In fact, we now only use either rollers or custom ground flat tappets with Johnson made lifters from Howard or Herbert. For example, we have probably used 50 or more Summit cams over the past 15 years but the last 4 we used did not even make it through break in so they too are now off the list of acceptable quality parts as well. So what does all of this mean? We will honor whatever engines builds that are not part of a full restoration that we already have in the queue however we must warn all those who have been patiently waiting for their engines to be built that supply chain constraints in addition to rapidly declining parts quality along with a lack of qualified machine shop workers is resulting in our anticipated wait times to get an engine built often doubling in duration. And if anyone is tired of waiting and thinks they can do better elsewhere, we will fully refund their deposit and wish them well. What used to take a couple of weeks to get back from a machine shop can easily now take 2-4 months or more resulting in our overall engine backlog now being 15-18 months. The bottom line is that custom engine building is on its way to becoming extinct and it won't be too many more years before all of us old farts that currently do this work either retire and/or die off resulting in engine building within the collector car hobby becoming nearly impossible to find And when you do find someone, don't be surprised if they are backed out 2+ years or more and that they only want to do Chevy builds and know zero about our beloved AMC engines. "The times they are a changin'." And any know it all's that are not in this business who try to show everyone how smart they think they are by declaring that these conditions do not exist, despite literally hundreds of others saying they are experiencing the exact same thing, will have their comments deleted because they are clearly talking out of their ass.
Brian, you are dead on 100% correct in your assessment of the current situation. As you know this situation has been going downhill for years. Why is that? Several reasons: (1) Pay for a quality machinist is way too low. This is a major reason why no young person wants to work in a Professional trade. (2) Lack of a good Vocational Trade teaching system in the United States. Seems our educational system puts more emphases on a college Degree. (3) Do to the above, there is a major lack of good quality Vocational Instructors in our machining manufacturing trades. How do I know all this? I'm a retired Machinist & Tool & Die Maker with over 48 years of experience. I'm 75 years old. I retired when I was 64 years old. I started in the machining industry when I was in High School at 16 years old. After graduation, I joined the U.S. Navy (4 years) and worked as a Machinist Repairman. After my enlistment in the Navy, in worked in private industry for 8 years. Now read the following and you will get a clearer picture WHY the United States is in the situation it's currently in. After 8 years in private machining industry, I got married (at 28 years old). I quickly realized that my salary and benefits (lack of benefits, pension, mainly) could not support my family nor afford a retirement I could live on. 3 Years later I left my private industry job for a Federal Government Career (notice I said career NOT job). That was in 1980 and I was 31 years old. During my 32-year Federal career, I also became a machine shop foreman and head machine shop Instructor. Why did I become an Instructor you ask? After I left the U.S. Navy, I went to night school for 4 years in a Vocational sponsored County machine shop training program. It was the worst training I ever attended, but I stayed with it so I could get my Certification as a Journeyman Machinist. Why did you not get training at your place of employment? In my State of Virginia, in 1972, in-house machining programs were dead and too costly for machine shops to keep doing AND NOT every excellent machinist wants to be a training instructor (most don't). You can see the start of the down-hill progression even in the 1970's. Back to the 80's now when I went into Federal service. The Government isn't the smartest when it comes to identifying what they need in the way of machining skills. My workplace Management (located in Washington DC) decided we needed to hire Mechanical engineers for our machine shop. What the hell for??? Two reasons for that, my Branch was called Mechanical Engineering, uptown Management liked the sound of the name. The reality is, we are a Quick Reaction machine shop that was on call 24/7 to fix mechanical issues that were of top priority to get repaired as quickly as possible. I worked for a Special Unit geared to respond to immediate Federal requirements that could affect the United States security. You can imagine my delima when kids right out of Collage with ME degrees showed up at the shop and didn't even know how to turn-on a drill press. Not to mention, they were getting paid more because they had a college degree that had nothing to do with knowing how to machine products. The only solution was to start-up an inhouse machining program. This was my problem and so I reintroduced the OLD in-house vocational training program. And it worked. Why didn't you send your employees to a Trade school. Good question. I did an investigation for months looking for an up-to-date modern trade school. I found and when to several schools on the East Coast. Of all the schools I went interviewed their Staff and inspected their machinery, ONLY one was modern enough to teach CNC machining and I interviewed all the instructors too and found them to be very qualified. So where does this lead us to. Think about when the U.S. stared farming their manufacturing products overseas, that did two things that hurt the U.S. machining industry. (1) Why would anybody take up the machining trade when the machining industry is dying? No job growth, low pay and lack of a good pension. (2) No one in the U.S. educational system wanted to take up the fight to fund money for Trades schools. Why, the machining industry is dying and most of our mechanical and automotive parts are being manufactured overseas. Sorry for this long rant, I think most can see I'm passionate about my TRADE, and why we need to do everything possible to turn around this situation around. I'm I upset that it's dying? You bet I am. Not every young person wants or needs a college degree and it's VERY detrimental for America to not have a top-tier manufacturing capability. This is one of the reasons that made America Great. We are already witnessing the poor products we are receiving from overseas, and worst, we have lost most of our machining capability America used to process. Vet (Navy)
Brian, i agree The machine shops that are still going are" All In" The parts availability and Quality is the real killer, Don
It’s too easy today to build a “poser” car. Yeah you got all the latest dodads on/in the engine, trans. rear end, but how is that stuff gonna hold up? Who did the machine work and assembly? I think that’s what is jarring my ass today, parts (garbage ones) are available for near any make, but they don’t fit correctly or function properly, COMPLETE GARBAGE! I like a car that has EARNED its status, like my GS, I can hop in it, drive it to work, drive it to the race track, drive it ANYWHERE and it’s reliable. A lot of people’s collector cars are just an image, “yeah I got one” “Cool let’s cruise it” “Nah, it runs hot if you idle too long” “The rear end makes noise” “It’s too hot out, I get vapor lock”
The specific reason I'm having Jim/Tri-shield put together my short block. Two local shops have closed, and a third one that is good is very backed up. Last short block I had them do it took 3 months longer than the 3 months they quoted me and they had all the parts in hand! Just had to do the machine work! The local car groups often recommend driving 3-4 hours out of town to other shops that are bigger or less busy. If I'm going to wait a long long time for machine work, may as well wait in line for someone with a Buick torque plate and knows the nuances of the Buick blocks to do the work and assembly.
Yep, that’s the trick, don’t be in a hurry for quality work, and if it’s running/driving now, don’t blow it up
When I was at high school they got rid of the machine shop after my junior year in 74 The school was a vocational trade school but they got rid of machine shop then all those guys had to do something else or go to another school. Some had transferred to my school so they could go to the trade school that was available. All those people would be 65 plus now and probably almost retired or are.
^^^ Only problem with this is you'd be doing all or most of the close tolerance machining & grinding yourself. I thought of that myself before I retired abt 11 years ago. . . I have another spare crank to offset grind and I better get it into the one crank grinder that I trust before he retires...
I work in aerospace, and we are having a tough time finding good machine shops. Most of our current suppliers are struggling to find good staff to work in their shops.
Here is a perfect example of what i'am talking regarding obtaining a Machinist Vocational education. Almost non-existent in most States. Just pulled this off a Internet search. Best tech degrees for high-paying jobs Information technology. Information technology (IT) is the study of how people use technology and computing systems to manage data and information. ... Computer science. ... Web development. ... Web design. ... Computer networking. ... System administration. ... Database management. ... Cybersecurity. Don't see any machinist related career fields do you. Yes, I know there are Tech schools with machinist curriculums. They are few and far between. Note, High-Paying Jobs. That doesn't include the machinist field, because most don't make near the money they deserve. Let me rant a little here. If all the various machining fields that machinist work in, the Engine building machinist is most likely the most difficult to do. Why is that? That person is responsible for building a complete working engine from start to finish. Most production machinist make parts, not entire functioning mechanical devices. Another group of machinist is a Prototype machinist, who can produce very accurate close tolerance parts or mechanisms. Usually in the experimental development stage, that may are not be manufactured in production product. The Engine machinist has to deal with testing the engine block to see if it sound for a rebuild (magaflux) is one course of testing before doing any further work. Squaring a block. Decking a block. Boring cylinders. Honing cylinders. Align boring. Cylinder head work, porting, valve machining (3 angle process). Bronze guide installations. Oil port modifications like are done on the 455 Buick engines. Crankshaft grinding. Knowing what the correct oil pumps to use, especially on high performance engines. This goes for all the other engine components, pistons, conrods, oil pans, dry sump, wet sump. Carburators, sniper FI systems, camshafts, distributors, electrical systems, like MSD. Final engine assembly and run testing. You get my point. WHAT other top of the line machinist has this much responsibilities???? Or during their career have to learn all these technical issues for all types of combustion engines. Plus keep the customer happy and keep the labor rates within reason. Wonder why the Engine machinist and their shops are dying out. Vet
We have a local guy that only grinds cranks $ line hones/bores (he's literally w/in 1-2 mi. of the Washington D.C. border). Need to get my crank/block over to him while he's still around. Just need to bite the bullet on those expensive rod bearings & send a set of mains out for coating.
There are only a handful of guys that I will have do machine work or engine building. Two of them do very well for themselves financially. One-man shows that charge good money,but you won’t find it done any better. They have also invested in the best machines & equipment possible.
That's what Iam talking about, "only a handful of guys" can do quality engine and machine work. There should be Quality guys in every city in the U.S. One day, there won't be any GUYS. Only way to get any engine is buying a crate engine and Buick isn't one of them. Vet
As far as the crate stuff goes,I’ve seen plenty of those failures throughout the years as well,long before Covid or any labor shortages. GM crate enginesJasper,etc. They aren’t immune either.
We are in a sad, sad situation in this country. Instead of relying on our own people doing work, providing services and such. We accept things made inferiorly and buy that. For instance, many are sucked into the WalMart, Dollar General and other cheapie, low cost garbage that are throw away items. I still, frequent many small businesses and places like Ace Hardware, True Value and the sort. It will be a terrible day when places like that are gone and we solely rely on China for everything. I talked to a kid a few weeks ago that is taking trade school courses to be able to work on big engines. He said he was really enjoying it. Already, he has about a dozen jobs and companies willing to pay his education for him to work for them. Bis brother is taking a 5 year behavior sciences course and has 10's of thousands of dollars in loans already. He claims that when he's done, the government will pay his student loans for him. That's what's wrong with our country!
Brian, what do you know about this company that claims to rebuild Buick crate engines, especially the 455 from 1970 to 1976. I've never heard of this company and I'm very curious if they are a reparable company. Has anybody on this forum used this company and if so, what is your opinion? Thanks VET Buick Crate Engines - Precision Engine Physical Address 6835 Harrisburg Blvd. Houston, Texas 77011 Local Phone: 713-864-9999 Toll Free Phone: 800-275-7371 Fax Number: 713-923-7959 Office Hours: Monday - Friday: 8AM until 5:30PM Sat: 9AM until 1:00PM Sun: Closed For immediate assistance please call us toll free at 1-800-275-7371
