My Bad?.Tractor Repair Job

Back in the mid seventies I was still living at home and worked for My Dad's construction company. Did the mechanic work plus what ever else that needed to be done if everything thing was running.
One day a friend of Dad's brought a 601 Ford tractor to the house. The tractor had four speed with a gear that had seized to the bottom shaft and had broken a couple of teeth off that gear and nicked the corresponding gear. Dad said fix it. His friend just wanted to fix it good enough to sell. Pulled it down and told them I needed both gears and the bottom shaft and misc. gaskets. They brought me a new gear and a tube of silicon and told Me to reuse the scuffed shaft and nicked gear.I told them it would not work. Dad said to file and sand the parts the best I could the man was not going to buy the parts.I balked, Dad said do it. I did and sent the tractor back to the guy working fine. Later I asked about Dad about getting paid for the work. He called his friend and I was told that the transmission had torn up just like before and the Man said He had to carry it to REAL mechanic to get it fixed. I don't know why I tell this but after 35 years it still sticks in my craw.
Ron

I'm sure you have figured out by now where the fault lay, and it wasn't you. Now I bet you get paid before the work leaves the shop.

KEH

im not laughing at ya, im laughing with ya. this type of attitude is everywhere. fix it cheap n blame ya for what goes wrong. nothing wrong with what you did, but thats always the end result from their bad decision making.

I found out years ago that a rigged up fix will get blamed on YOU when you do one. Had a Great Uncle that was a tight wad that had zero common sense on what the true cost of things was. HE just always shopped for the "Cheapest" fix. He junked more starters, generators and alternators with junk batteries than anyone around.

When I was just out of the service he had his Ferguson 30 tractor starter go bad. He brought it to me. He had burnt the brushes up in it. I turned the armature and put new brushes in it. I told him to buy a new battery for it. HE was using an old small 6 Volt car battery he would have to jump start it every time it was cold at all. Well he did not get a new battery an burnt the new brushes up in less than a month.

He told every one that I could not fix things very well as it has only lasted a month. I refused to ever work on any of his stuff again. He was PO about that.

Maybe I should have thanked him for "educating" me. After that I NEVER would do a half a$$ed repair. Either it is done right or it is not done by me. I have had complaints from guys over the years because of not cutting corners but not that my work was not quality.

I will gladly use good used parts. I have had many parts re-machined or reworked to usable condition but I am not going to glue something back together.

I have found that you can never make any profit off of the guys wanting rigged up repairs. So you lose two ways: 1) zero money 2) getting bad mouthed for shoddy repairs. So life is much better if they go elsewhere with their headaches.

Yup,we've all learned(the hard way) those kind of 'bandaids' dont work.You (the mechanic) will get blamed ,and its NOT your fault it failed!OK to cut a corner on your own stuff,NOT OK to on a customer.Its thier problem.IF you 'bandaid',then it becomes YOUR problem,too.Tell em to go somewhere else.Those kind of 'customers'will complain/b!+ch/badmouth you no matter the outcome.You cant win...

I run into the same thing with my customers, even on several hundred thousand dollar jobs. I put it in writing, and have them sign it. They usually do not want their bosses to know that they made an unwise decision, and say go ahead and do it right.

Go visit your Dad's grave and tell him this story.
Tell him you're still feeling sore about it after all these years.
Cuss him out if you feel like it.
Then let it go.
A wise woman once told me that the only person my resentment hurts is me.

I rebuild a 2.3 engine for one BIL right after I retired from service. He drove that car 8,000 miles with no problems. The he got a pin hole leak in a heater hose and limped it 90 miles in the summer to my place. Then claimed him burning up a piston was my fault. I told him I wanted to put new hoses on it when I did the rebuild. He didn't want to pay for it. I told him to fix his own stuff.

Rick[/code]

Thanks for sharing.
Here's one that sticks in my craw: It was the early 80s, and I was fresh out of automotive mechanic school. I (temporarily) hired in at a local service station to do light mechanic work. This was in a town of about 750. Our local newspaper editor (who knew NOTHING about engines) brought me his car that would barely idle and didn't have much power. The car was owned by the newspaper and every month he would settle his bill with all the people that he owed money to, an important fact that I will explain later. I recall that it was a Chevy with a 350 V8 and was carbureted. A few minutes of troubleshooting told me that he he needed a carb kit, as pulling every-other spark plug wire made no difference in the idle speed. I told him what he needed and I could tell that he didn't believe the skill of some kid fresh out of school. He told me he would think about it and call us when (or IF) he needed the work done. The next day, he brought his car back running like a top. He proudly told me that he had taken it to the seasoned veteran mechanic up the street and the other mechanic had told him that all he needed was a fuel filter. I told the guy to pop the hood, as I wanted to take a look at the engine. Sure enough, the carb had been freshly rebuilt and was as clean as a whistle. Not only did I point that out to the owner, but the other mechanic had forgot the old carb base gasket under the hood and it was lying on top of the battery. I picked it up and put it in his hand as the poor guy realized that the other mechanic had just lied to him.
Now you might ask why the other mechanic had lied to him when he would eventually find out the truth when he paid his bill. It's because the newspaper editor paid all of his bills once a month and before he went to pay his bill, he would be telling everybody at the downtown gossip center, er...I mean...COFFEE SHOP that the young mechanic up the street made a big error and didn't know how to properly fix cars and the seasoned mechanic would reap the rewards.
They buried the old mechanic about a month ago. To this day, whenever his name is mentioned, I think about the stunt that he pulled on me.
Not really a rant anymore. I just had to get that off my chest.

If it is your it is different. I have welded brake parts on a tractor I use. I wouldn't do it on someone elses, but I always know that when I stomp on the brakes don't stomp on the right one. It will last forever if I keep that in mind.

I have learned that when working on other people's stuff you put all new parts in it. They are going to leave and treat it like it was when it was new. If you don't have new parts to match their use it will never last.

I do all the mechanic work for a neighbor. I always buy the parts from Deere. I would use aftermarket on mine, but I treat my stuff different once I have been inside it

The lift on their 8 year old a gator went out. The new parts were $900. I gave them options - I can go through it and shim the shaft and drill this cover out or put in new parts. They went for the modified repairs. When it was done I put it on and showed them how to work it (DON'T hold down the switch after it reaches full up or down!). It should last another 10 years. If it doesn't it isn't my fault.

One of my favorite memories from my gas station days(side note; Herman put me to work sweeping the driveway when I was in the 6th grade for .50 an hour)I was 14 and a car pulled in and the water pump was screeching and dripping water out of the weep hole. I told the guy he needed a water pump, and he went straight to Herman and wanted a mechanic to look at his car. The best part,Herman told him I knew more about his car than he did.

I have one of those in my past too. I was fresh out of diesel school and got a job at ryder rent a race truck. I was hired as a reefer mechanic but always worked on trucks as the reefers we had were new just needed pm's. Well a old INT came in with a shift lever snapped off at the threads for the knob! I was thinking what kinda animal was driving this thing. So I pulled the shift tower off and replaced the shift rod. Fast forward 36hrs here it is again with a broke shifter! I said well pizz on this guy , so I welded a bolt to the top of the rod. Here we are at 24hrs later broke again! Service manager was calling me every thing but free,white,and 21. I proceeded to tell him what I thought and asked him in his 30+yrs how many has he seen broke off. He said none and I loaded my toolbox and said goodbye. Went the next week for my check and there the truck was again with the trans out on the ground and all the teeth sheared off in the trans. I just smiled and laughed and walked out.

My gripe is people that don't want to trust your diagnosis of a problem. had one guy real bad about that. one thing I remember was case backhoe BW shuttle trans. business was slow at their place, so the boss had operator replace front pump seal, etc.[I knew the guy, was fairly good working on equip.] still leaked. brought to me, I tear down. pump seal/bushing job was perfect. problem was torque convertor weld leaking. The boss wouldn't believe this, called in equip salesman,[used to be tech]that he knew, looked everything over. said those pumps were tricky'' would repair & send back. Fine, I agreed, but if it doesn't work, I've got charge again,and pull off anyway as I have to clear shop for another job. it leaked. I suggest take it to dealer, he got more humble & waited til I worked it back in.

I don't think it was his dads fault. It was the tractor owner who was too cheap to but the parts.Stan

A machine shop I use has a sign at the door......
We can do fast work. we do quality work and we can do cheap work but we can not do all three!
We can do a fast job cheaply but it will not be quality work
We can do quality work fast but it will not be cheap
We can also do a cheap job to a good quality but it will not be fast!!!
Sam

I'm thinking that his dad didn't pass the info about the needed parts on to the owner and made the call on re-using the parts instead.

Sounds like something my dad would do. Save the guy a couple hundred bucks and be the hero, then when it doesn't work, blame it on someone else. Both my parents liked to do things like that with our own stuff. Once I got a car I found it was worth the time off work to go have it worked on myself. I never got a straight answer when mom took it in for me, and it never got fixed.

I see people do that with things all the time. Save $50 by buying this tool set over that tool set (in the same brand), it has the same number and size of wrenches, but for the extra $50, you are getting 6 pt vs 12pt, stronger ratchets, etc, and the actual value might be $200-$300 more than the $50 you saved.

I wrench on all my old tractors and I will help friends with theirs.
I don't charge them for my help and with a low speed, not required,
parade tractor etc, we may get by with "good enough".
I've stopped working on vehicles for people outside my family.
Not worth the hassle to me.
So when I fix one my family rides in it. I don't cut corners.