Art & Inspiration Shortage of Shops to work on Hot Rods

"Usta be, there was a vet who would make house calls no matter what time. Man's gotta have a horse or he's gotta walk"
"Usta be, you could go to the local store and they had a selection of vacuum tubes in a box right out front."

www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcsYa6jFRoY

 

And just to add to this no more old car mechanics my local NAPA dealer been in business same building 55 years was told many of his gaskets will soon be obsolete due to the EPA import ban on asbestos going to hit the exhaust and some head gaskets hard.

 

my neighbor is a mechanic and works on old cars all the time. had the most perfect 50 Chevrolet wagon in there a week or so ago. real nice 55 Chevy a few weeks before that. 55 Buick, 63 corvette, 47 Plymouth, 65 Riviera, he must have some Bomb connection as there have been several 40's bombs go through there. bunch more over the last 10 years I can't remember

 

Then there are people like the vintage Buick guys, and other marques, who do not do a single thing to their cars. They pay to have everything done. They also only want to buy parts that are perfect parts that don't need any work toake work.

 

...it's kinda funny that virtually every car/truck featured in just about any auto magazine today, is built by a professional shop.

 

Quite a few top end shops in Phoenix, and all booked up for at least a year.

 

There’s a shortage because of two things already stated: A lack of people wanting to cruise around in old cars and a lack of people willing to pay big money for the work. I think the market is there but it’s a small niche market for sure. There’s not enough sustainable business for every town to have one of these dedicated shops but perhaps enough for a thousand square mile region but then people won’t take their car long distances for work.

Now that I’m retired and still young enough to turn wrenches, I’ve considered opening my own small business, working out of my shop. With practically no overhead, I could charge very little. I have the skills to do most things and the wisdom to pick my customers rather than letting them pick me. You can set up a corporation and get good insurance to protect yourself but I just don’t know if I want to be answerable to anyone now that I managed to retire early. Particularly when I don’t need the money.

 

All the bigger shops and most small shops around here are booked solid
With waiting lists.
The back yard guys are busy
I’m working on my junk now. Hope to keep it that way for a while.
Thought about doing sheet metal/ structure work later when I finish a project or two.

 

The partial ban of asbestos started in 1989.

 

When I was working in repair shops, I felt it to be a three-way.
The boss ( es ) always wanted quick, fast, in a hurry.
The customer needed it cheap.
The automobile was unsypathetic. and kept getting smaller-tinyer, more complex, and
Specific to the particular model base.

 

@Tow Truck Tom you got that right. Radiator cap. Standard until they all decided that they had a better idea. This applies to everything. Gotta design a new part that does the same job but is not universal, and has to be redone every few years, but not retrofit.

 

There are several professional repair shops here in town, but only one that wants to work on anything with a carburetor, and their success rate isn't very high. There are a couple that will work on them if they don't have anything else to do, which isn't often. There are a couple "race car shops" that will mess with Holley carbs, if you are dirt track racing or drag racing, but not much good for street driven stuff.

All of those shops get the deer in the headlight look if you start talking about points and condensers, most no longer even have dwell meters.

Two shops in town can do a wheel alignment on an older car, both seem to always need to replace parts themselves before the alignment, or blame bad parts (or more bad parts) for a crappy alignment job.

If you have a carb and points and want a tune up and a wheel alignment, you going to end up at at least two different places, and the final outcome may or may not be good. The labor rate for this substandard work is going to be 2x the shop rate of "normal" cars, because working on older cars is more difficult (translated to: our mechanic has to do a U-tube search to find out what to do, and there are few other options locally so we can charge more).

There are a few "hobbyist" guys around that can do the work, but most of them have been burnt by the "That wasn't bad until you worked on my car, so you got to fix it for free" enough they no longer want to do much for others.

Motor, transmission, brake work, or oil changes are much more simple.

If your area is better then ours, you are fortunate. I still have a few connections because of being in the automotive business here for many years, the general public isn't as lucky.

 

That's because the magazine is advertising for those shops ...

 

You need to broaden your outlook , nobody " doesn't need more money" LOL

 

The reason shops don’t want to work on projects is because insurance work pays much better no matter what a shop owner says. An experienced body man or painter can produce 60 + hours a week without breaking a sweat. The best thing is there’s a check for you at the end of a job.
Now with a project car especially one that is going to be hundreds of hours and you are charging for time and materials. Body man works forty hours on it every week and every week he and the shop louses twenty hours pay.
On top of that if the body man was doing insurance work there would be cash coming in continuously. I personally have had projects where I would get forty hours in advance and when that was gone I would get another forty. The biggest job I ever got into was a 55 Chevy, 1800 hours.
So there it is why shops don’t want project cars and why it’s hard to make a living owning a shop that only works on old cars.

 

I think a lot of the unreliability of cars from the 60s, 70s and earlier was that people worked on them themselves!

 

I graduated from Father Flanagan's Boystown
In Omaha Nebraska.
The trade school had an autoshop,printing shop, Bakery shop,sheetmetal shop,barbershop ,radio and TV repair,shoe shop, dairy farm.
What we need is more trade schools.

 

I’ve got plenty of work, can’t find any help none.
I can find the help that actually create “double Job” , the ones who are more helpful if they aren’t there, get lost on a part run, distract from tasks, break stuff, run the lawnmower over rocks.

Can’t find the semi retired guys,
Can’t find the bull mechanic
Can’t find the talented welder
Can’t find a bodyman
Can’t find the OCD guy that loves to sand door jambs and organize the tool boxes.
Can’t find someone to teach
Can’t find someone to take care of all the dumb stuff that happens in a shop so I can stay focused on the tasks.
I can’t even find an illegal

This was not an issue in 2018.

I can’t get a simple valve job out and back from a machine shop in a timely fashion. Let alone real engine work. 4-6 weeks on a valve job, “ but the guy is walking and his vehicle is clogging up my shop” “sorry I’m by myself and can’t find any good help.”
I can’t find a general machine shop to do any manual work, small jigs, custom bushings. Just CNC shops.
Also not an issue in 2018-19.

Myself and several other people I know around here are in the same boat. There’s been some casual discussion about all of us teaming up into a group. The issue is that in a group the “problems also get into a group and are a bigger pile”.

There’s generally not an issue getting parts with realistic expectations on time for the rarity and obscurity.

My buddy had is 2019 truck stuck at the dealership under warranty in 2023 from March to September. A fully equipped service truck that needed to be on the Job. Unheard of in 2018 -19 But almost common now.

What I do see is piles and piles of used equipment, machines and tooling for sale. Complete shop liquidation auctions, complete farm liquidation auctions. Some talented guys with buildings packed and piled full of great equipment they’ve recently hoarded and re selling. Too busy selling and to full hoarding to actually work in the shop.

 

I don't know where this is coming from.
Yes people in there 20s don't seem to be interested in hot rods but if you go to vintage hot rod/racing events most people with vintage style cars and racing are in their 30s and 40s.

Look at the Race of Gentlemen most of the guys in the Oiler's are in there 40s.

The Northeast Vintage Drag and The Pinetree Jamboree and put on by people who are in there early 50s at the oldest.

I am involved a vintage drag race/reliability run.

The young guys who are building these style cars don't come to the H.A.M.B. much anymore they are mostly Instagram and don't go to fairgrounds type events, they go to swapmeets, events for period correct cars only, and vintage racing events.

 

I think it's awesome that these shops can make dreams come true and make a living at the same time. $95 an hour sounds dirt cheap to me.

With the economy, I hope these shops weather the storm. My neighbor across the street had to close down his business of 15 years last month. He customized golf carts. Lift kits, stereos, wheels, paint and interiors. Had many pro ball players as clients. Toys are the first thing that takes a hit when people are hurting.

Even if I had the money I don't think I'd pay it (except for interior) because I like to learn new things, but I'm also getting tired of laying on my back so I get the draw of paying someone else if they're not able.

 

Don't look now, but more and more new car dealers refuse to work on anything more than 10 years old. It's even worse if you need work done on a 15 year old RV. And don't even ask how long it's going to take or what it will cost to put a lower unit on a 50 HP Mercury outboard.

Somewhere down the line, educators decided that everyone should go to college and vocational arts classes were eliminated at the high school level in the eighties. Finally, it's going to take another 10 years before be truly understand the societal damage that COVID really cost us.

 

Associated Tire in Ventura is a great place for alignment and tires for our "old cars".

 

When I visit shops around here, the number of younger folks is surprising.
Especially the custom shops.
The majority is under 50
A large part of that group is under 30.

and yes, education screwd over technical education.
Why? Because busy people, especially businesses didn’t pay attention when the school board shut em down.
we’ve been fighting to keep ours open for a while. The power that be will be will eventually win.

 

The societal damage is Not covid,but college

 

Keep the overhead down. If you want to make a TV show with your showpiece shop, good luck.
Charge by the hour, unless you're really good at shocking people with an estimate high enough to make money. This is where shoddy shortcuts usually begin.
Know your customers, and don't be afraid to turn Richard heads away. There are people you are better off NOT working for, and that is another huge incentive for keeping overhead down.
No offense to Richard's intended.

 

Nobody wants to work and the one that shows up doesn’t give a shit except when payday is.

 

Wrong.

 

There are some shops I can’t send students to.
They are the ones that always say I can’t find paint help. I can’t find a body tech. I can’t find ……….
The common denominator in that equation is “I”
If there is no help out there why do some shops have multiple students from our school? What are those shops doing differently.
One dealership has multiple student grads. The dealership across from them has zero.
The one with multiple has an apprenticeship program.
The other is so bad the apprenticeship program can’t work with them.
The common denominator for not finding good help is management

 

Also wrong.

 

Time and material is to going plan for most shops. See a lot of guys will fork over big $$$ for massive cubic inch monster motors but will will whine to high heaven to pay for a decent paint job. Price a gallon of a good quality of clear. This is why we are seeing more amd more of the young guys into our class of cars going after the rat rod scene.