How do you guys find mechanics to even touch your wagoneer ?

[candymancan]

I have three things i need completed on my wagoneer,

Exhaust manifold,
A/C conversion
and rear main seal replaced

The rear main is the main priority right now, and with my pinched nerves in my neck bothering me again i just cant do any work like that. Im trying to find shops who will just do the rear main.. and no one will touch the vehicle.

every mechanic just wants to do 5 year old cars and easy work and easy money, which i get but damn this makes me really hate these guys even more.. Part of the reason i started working on my own vehicle was because of this and shady mechanics not doing the work i paid them to do on my other vehicles.

Ive called 24 shops in my area and no one will even do the rear main..

[bigun]

I hate to say it if you have to depend on someone else to work on your FJ, you're going to have problems unless you can find someone who works out of his back yard

[tgreese]

General location in your sig or profile might help.

Hard if you don't do your own work, or have deep pockets. Your local 4x4 shop might be able to recommend a specialty place that will take it in.

[sirrus]

Sometimes you have to get something done by the shop. I envy folks that have their own shop, backyard or even garage to work on their jeep, but unfortunately that’s not the case for everyone.

For example, I live in apartment complex and work on my Jeep in a parking lot (at least I have a covered spot!). It’s fine for electrics and small things, but definitely adds a challenge for a bigger projects (like my recent pro flo install). Hauling all your tools down and up from 3rd floor doesn’t help either. I’d say I’m balancing on the border of our leasing office patience - technically I’m not allowed to work on a car at all and should have it in driveable state all the time. I made it work so far, mostly by not leaving a mess or disassembled Jeep there and keeping hood relationships with my neighbors so no one has snitched on me yet, but I wouldn’t even think of doing any welding or something like that. That would definitely get me into troubles. So for exhaust work (replacing a manifold, muffler and welding an o2 sensor bung) I took it to the shop. I also had very first tube up done by another shop, as was really inexperienced and later I regretted it (for amount of money they charged me spark plugs could’ve been more than finger tight ). You live and you learn, I guess.

Over past two years I’ve found couple good shops in the area and probably twice as many bad ones. One place tried to charge me 1k for replacing a distributor and ignition module to solve an issue that I fixed later by changing tranny fluid and filter. Experiences like that don’t really help trusting a new place, and I tend to double check all the work that you s done by someone else and ask a lot of questions. It’s probably annoying as hell for them, but I’m more concerned about getting stuff done properly especially if I’m paying for it.

What I’m doing now is any time I get a good experience with a shop and I like their work, I ask them if they can recommend someone else in the area, just with different expertise. So far I have found a guy who’s good with carbs, good exhaust shop and I have couple leads for engine and transmission shops (hopefully I won’t need them anytime soon). I don’t really trust online reviews for these things, as our rigs are far away from mainstream stuff and most of the time 5 star shops don’t have enough expertise with old school stuff. Classic car/hot rod shops are just way out of my budget, so I haven’t considered them.

Long story short, sometimes you have to take your beloved FSJ to the shop and trust them. Yes, it costs money and yes, I’d very much prefer doing everything myself and knowing how it was done and being sure it was done properly, but until I buy a house with garage, that’s not my reality. For me recommendations for good mechanics and couple local FSJ owners worked out well, and shops with 5 star ratings tried to screw me over or overcharge for stuff.

[Xplitive]

You can do the ac conversion yourself.
Rockauto for the condenser, evaporator, expansion valve, dryer, all UAC brand. If you have a York, I think I got the conversion bracket for a Sanden compressor from pitstopauto. Guess what? It was also a UAC part. One of the cheaper priced ones but perfect. Lines locally made. R134 cans $5 from Walmart, vacuum pump borrow or by a cheap one. The 1 flare fitting in the whole thing will slowly leak, I just topped off after 3 years and it’s pulling down to 40F again. Or get the vintage air kit for the in cab stuff, it’s probably worth it and gets rid of that 1 flare fitting too.

[coolhand75]

Go out to the garage and look in the mirror. Watch you tube. And this forum. I don’t trust anyone to touch my truck anymore. Shops use too pull the wool over woman’s eyes now they try to do it to everyone.


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[oregonphil]

Candyman, have you contacted BJs Off Road? Phone: 253.320.7604 Call or Text. I believe you are south of Seattle and they are over in Gig Harbor. They should be able to recommend someone to help you.
I understand where you are coming from with the nerve pain and all that, I also get pinched nerve problems from a once herniated disc in my neck.
It took me a while to find shops I could trust to to do the work on my cars and I still double check, everything I can, that they do. Even the good shops miss things sometimes, a loose bolt or a leak. If you show them the problem they will usually go back and fix it. They are only human, we all make mistakes, even on our own rigs.

[candymancan]

I mean you guys know i do work on my jeep myseof.. how many welding and repair threads have i done in the Last 6 years ? Its just these 3 repairs id like someone else to do.

But f it man. The last shop i went too todsy the guy shops name is Robs custom classic.. outside his shop he had cars from the 50s for crying out loud. And when i asked if he could do the rear main seal he was like well i gatta drain fluids.. and clean the pan up of old gasket and problems might arrise. And yada yada and he acted like this was hard work. I said what problems ? He said it might cause the front crabk shaft sesl to leak ?? Im like how ?? How would dropping the pan cause another gasket to leak..

Then he said my intake gasket is leaking which i obviously knew about.. but it isnt that bad. Not like the puddles my rear main does. So he suggested i buy a new 2500$ engine vs just repairing seals on mine.. I mean these mechabics are all the same. Its like hes talking to someone who doesnt understand anything. So i had to pause him and ask again tell me how dropping the pan will cause a leak outa the front seal lol.

I told him drain fluids ??? You mean drain the fing oil ?? I laughed in his face and drove off. What an idiot. He even said he had to drain coolant.. since when ???

Forget it.. ill just do it myself bunch of panzy ass mechsnics today i sware.

Im in northern va btw

[oregonphil]

Sorry, if I ruffled your feathers. Got your hackles up, did I.
Yea, there are not many competent shops/mechanics that a person an really trust. But I guess it has always been this way.
I was only off by about 2800 miles!

[candymancan]

What ? No im talking about the guys shop i visited yesturday lol

[Stuka]

Could be that I live in California, but there are tons of shops that are fine with working on older vehicles. I rarely needed to bring mine to a shop, but sometimes time crunches required me to do so. Never had any issues. But we also have lots of older vehicles here due to the lack of rust and such.

[Triumph215]

Just had the rear main seal replaced by a very reputable place here that does a lot of older cars. I learned they have a Jeep guy who gets all the Jeep work, so far all is well. I waited months out of fear of taking it to someone but I asked all the old car people I could talk to who they used and these people came out on top. Expensive but they found a leak in the gas line over the gas tank and a bad ball joint. I let them replace the harmonic balancer seal while they had it, I was going to do it but just decided not to.
I have no garage either and while I do most everything, some things I don't want to mess with.

[candymancan]

Well i found a place and got qouted 750$. Seems reasonable i think. I would have expected a little less though but i might go with them.

How much did you get charged for your rear main ?

[Triumph215]

My whole bill which included complete inspection of the vehicle, tightening up a loose wheel bearing, the metal fuel line replacement above the gas tank, balancer seal replaced, balancer snout sleeved to fix the groove in it, the rear main seal replaced and oil change set me back $1400.
BTW-When they got my oil pan off they noticed the oil pump pickup tube was close enough to the pan to have worn a shiny half moon shaped spot inside the pan. They bent the pickup tube just a hair so it wouldn't rub. Mine's a 401, not sure what you have.
The best part is the 90 day warranty period from the shop which if I'd done it myself and botched it and wrecked the motor it would have been all on me. My wife would have shot me. Plus replacing the engine would have been waaaaaay more money spent.

[candymancan]

Well ive had the pan dropped myself.. the cork gasket turned into rock and peices of it blocked 80% of my pickup tube.. good thing i dropped it eh ? And i tried to do my rear main.. but only wasnt able to do the lower half.

But yea eh maybe ill attempt it again.. but this time ill cut the exhaust pipe right there off as last time it was q00% in the way.. couldnt get a punch of any tool there as its directly below it

[sonoraed]

I just sold my auto repair shop Jan 1st this year, back when I started in 1977 most of the work we did were tune ups (remember ignition points) brakes and engine overhauls, most engines lasted 100-125 thousand miles and we sent them out to a local machine shop (used to 3-4 in our small town) and assembled the engine in our shop and installed, most everybody who worked for knew engines, they were mostly high school drop outs that were mechanically inclined.
Then came fuel injection and computers in 1981 (I know some vehicles had this already) and OBD1 lots of guys quit wrenching and trying to diagnose problems was a challenge, no training, no scan tools,blinking codes that were often wrong,I had Sun machine that cost $17k and was as big as two refrigerators to perform smog tests.
Here we are in 2021, OBD11 has been around since 1994, most engines last 250K if the oil gets changed, most techs have never seen the inside of an engine and install rebuilt units from a rebuilder far away,they use a scan tool that tells them what may be wrong with the computer(maybe) or fuel injection, tune ups if you want to call them that are at 100K, needless to say things have changed, because mom and dad told us going to college is a better way to make a living than working on cars,techs are in short supply and make a very good living,the work they do is high tech and complex.
The last engine I built was my AMC 360 in my J10 in 1999, was not impressed with it's performance and installed a cobbled up TBI unit from a 91 chev PU, and drove it for 15 years till we blew my J10 apart down to the frame and of the many things done installed a LM7 (01 Tahoe) everytime I start it up the sweet sound of Gen iii small block chevy is music to my ears, twice the horsepower, good fuel mileage, smog legal.
Cheers!

[deckroid]

I have had the pleasure of being told "uh... we don't work on those" or "sooooo... yeah, we can totally do an LS swap for ya". I dont want an LS swap. I like my loud, over heating, overly vacuum lined 360. That being said, I live in rural Idaho. In my small town, we have 3 places to take things. When I wanted my real main seal done, 1 said "sorry too busy", another I wouldn't take it to and the 3rd said "$500". I went with door number 3. Yeah, it is a small part to replace and doesn't cost that much. However, not having the right tools, no lift, etc etc... it's just nice to take it to someone.

My rear main seal was fixed. As was the oil pan leak. 2 birds, 1 stone kinda thing.

Now... the AC is a totally different thing. An hour away is Boise and there are some shops there that will do a conversion but holy god you would think they are installing pure Platinum for as much as they want.

As for exhaust manifold... ok, I am going to say something really horrible and you can hate me for it if you want. BUT, for most of my exhaust issues, I have found that the little guy shops that look run down and have crappy cars out in front all the time... those are the best places BY FAR for anything exhaust. All the big name stores, places that do exotic stuff, or just the nice places that wash their dang windows... I have found them to be either expensive, dragging their feet, unfriendly or just down right rude. Actually, Meineke can go ... well, go without my business.

[Triumph215]

x2 on the little dirty independent muffler shops. I suspected a plugged muffler and recently went to the described shop (on purpose), told them to go ahead and replace the muffler as I wanted a quieter one anyway, was bracing to be told I need the Cat too. Walked away looking for lunch. Guy calls me 15 minutes later, says he did a back pressure test and the exhaust is fine. Muffler has a tiny hole but there's no point to replace the muffler yet and to come get it, no charge. When I got back we talked old cars and carburetors for 20 minutes. I gave him $40 and thanked him for his honesty.

[ProTouring442]

The trouble with working on old cars is you never really know what you're getting into, and the customer almost never wants to pay.

Been there, done that.

A "simple" job suddenly gets expensive because of a broken bolt, and the customer goes ballistic. Now you have a half-disassembled vehicle, a ticked off customer, and no money.

99% of the time, it just isn't worth the hassle.

Sorry, but that's the way it is.