Got a couple Hemi blocks to have magnafluxed, sonic checked and cleaned. Also a stripped pair of heads (only the guides are still in), a crank and a set of rods. What should someone pay to have this stuff cleaned, magged and inspected? I just got a quote from a guy and here's what he said: "We charge $125.00 per block to thermal clean, blast, magnaflux, and inspect cast iron V-8 blocks. This does not include any dis***embly but it does require and include removing the cam bearings and all plugs if necessary. The same procedure is $47.50 per cast iron head but with cylinder heads we also include a pressure test in that $47.50 price. This requires and includes removing valves, springs, and plugs if necessary. I usually don’t charge to clean and inspect cranks and rods if I’m doing a block and heads. However, if you want the crank Wet Mag’d that is $37.50 per crank. To Wet Mag a set of V-8 rods is also $37.50 for the set of 8. To sonic test a block we charge $47.50. The sonic test is performed on each cylinder at the top, center, and bottom in 4 places all 90 degrees from one another. That’s 12 spots checked in each cylinder." That seems sorta' high to me. $515 for two blocks, a pair of heads, a crank and a set of rods... What do you guys think?? Is that a reasonable deal for all that work?? Man! If this is how much it costs just to get these checked out, I can only imagine how much the machining is going to be!! YIKES!
Just paid 60.00 for hot tank and maganaflux on a v-8 block and 40.00 for a pair of heads. But I know the machine shop so that might make a difference. well that and this is KC. I'm sure there is some varience from one region to the next just the cost of living.
Sounds reasonable. If you don' think so, get a job as the teardown/cleaning guy at a machine shop for a year or two....of course, you won't make but a fraction of what the shop charges for the work!
That's actually a little less than what we pay our machine shop. Of course they wont even start on it for at least a week. They are good though and usually have all the work they can handle and then some.
welcome to Hemiland!! I paid $3000 in machining and parts (Only the heads were dis***embled/***embled by the machine shop) alone for my '56 Desoto block. Nothing special, just bored .040 over.
Yeah, I've braced myself for the parts. I'm actually expecting the worst for that. A little scared about the machining... I guess I should have been a little more prepared for the cleaning and inspection part... I think I'll do one block at a time.
sounds reasonable to me I had 1 BBC head pressure checked and it cost me $45 - But I didn't have to diss***emble it. Also cost me $150 to have my block ShotBlasted & Jet washed as well as have the Cam Bearings Removed/Installed and Freeze Plugs Removed/Installed Sonic Check a block for $47.50!! - that sounds really cheap! is that average?
sounds like good prices to me also...... shops around here usually charge 60 to 70 to sonic check if you want do***entation, some shops do include it in the boring price if you are going to have the block bored its nice that he indicated what type of magnaflux you would be getting rather than just saying "clean and mag" Fred
I don't know who you are using but my dad uses Skull Performance engines in Boulder City for our 392 hemi work. Fair and honest guy ask for Denny.
Is Skull just off the main drag (95/93) at the turn off for the Dam? I'll check into them. I'm just sort of pricing around right now. The place the quote came from was called Motor Mission in North Las Vegas. A friend of the family has had tons of motors done there. I've also heard good things about Kel's automotive and Universal Automotive Machining (heard bad about them also). There has been a couple other places here in Vegas mentioned to me as well, but can't remember who they were. Just going off of one's I've heard are good. Snap too... if you're reading, who did you say you used?
Scoot , I've used them all !! after the 59 years I've been in Vegas . oops, just dated myself! IMO , Jack's does well on cleaning as do most of them . As for prices that depends on how much work you bring them and how busy they are .One of the biggest problems they all face is the EPA; as some of the chemicals and residues are considered hazardous waste . Hot tanking in strong caustic soda solutions used to be the norm and did a great job but few use it today. Oven baking does a good job after a good pre-cleaning in a wash cabinet but some say the temperatures will distort the bores , makes me wonder what else? A fellow HAMBer , Fuel Roadster just had a hemi block done in So. Cal and they used an acid dip process which left the block spotless .----dunno the cost though. I would look for well equipped ,clean shop with personnel that are interested in your project and be willing to have all the cleaning,inspection,machining and ***embly done in one place rather than ****tering parts all over town . I think you'll find it more cost effective in the long haul.
LOL,,,you think machine work and parts are high for a hemi. You should try doing a MEL engine. Most shops never even heard of them, much l*** know what one looke like. I have over $3,000.00 in cleaning and machining in mine thus far and have not even ***embled it yet. Next time I'll do a sbc. They are free.
Any bad things to say about Motor Mission? I was thinking of going down there and checking out their shop before I take anything to them. I was going to also check out Kel's as recommend by another HAMBer and Universal since they've been around. Not familiar with Jacks. Where are they located? I'll check them out also.
Id say that sounds like a good deal for some good insurance. Imagine spending thousands on a junk motor only to find out it ****s out on you 500 miles down the road. Id pay that.
Okay... I just got some more prices for additional work from these guys. Tell me what you think about what they've said. Here is a list of all the machine work that may or may not need to be done. When we do the thermal cleaning, blasting, magnafluxing and inspection I will be able to tell you what you need to do and what we recommend needs to be done but might not be absolutely required. The thermal cleaning and blasting is a system that few shops are actually capable of doing because it involves basically baking the parts in an oven. The oven is an expensive piece of equipment and rather costly to operate. However, when the thermal cleaning is performed, it bakes everything in the casting inside and out. Therefore any sludge buildup in the internal oil galleys is baked to dust and then blasted out during the blasting process. Many shops have a blaster of some sort but if the part isn’t baked first the internal sludge or oil buildup will cause the blasting media to stick inside of the oil galleys and eventually cause engine failure if not completely removed. When we do machine work and the customer performs their own ***embly the parts will simply need to be rinsed with warm soapy water to remove any dust that may have collected on the parts. It is always good practice for an engine ***embler to run a galley brush through all oil galleys and then look with a flashlight just to make sure nothing is lodged inside an oil galley. Block: 1. Bore & Hone V-8 $125.00 2. Surface/Square Decks of Block $95.00 3. Align Hone Mains of Block $175.00 4. Install Cam Bearings (Labor Only) $37.50 Heads: a) 3-Angle Valve Job & Surface (Pair) $150.00 plus parts & seals b) 16 Bronze Valve Guide Liners $125.00 c) 8 Hardened Exhaust Seats (For unleaded Fuel use) $145.00 Rotating ***embly: a) Resize/Recondition 8 Connecting Rods $120.00 b) Grind/Polish Crankshaft $125.00 c) Polish Only on Crankshaft $47.50 d) Balance Rotating ***embly $175.00 Again, once we perform the initial cleaning and inspection process I will be able to tell you what needs to be done and give you an estimate for total machine shop costs. I don't know if this guy is just generally quoting, but I was thinking that Hemi heads already had hardened seats. What do you guys think about that?
Prices look in line to me. Some are higher in this part of the country on some of the operations and cheaper on others. Kind of averages out. If the work is good and you get it back on time I'd say that it probably about right.
Thanks for your input guys! Much appreciated! I actually expected the machining prices to be higher, so I guess between the checking and the actual machine work it balances out for me mentally and lands right about where I expected.
With the prices I see posted here I damn wish I could have my engines machined in the US for those costs. If only shipping heavy engineparts back and forth wasn't so expensive these days, it would have almost been smarter to have stuff done in the US. On average, one can easily double the amount of money for each process mentioned earlier and put an Euro €-sign in front of it. That's what we have to cough up here in the Netherlands for machining, and I'm fairly sure in a great part of the rest of western Europe also. I just got a rough quote today from a local machine-shop overhere for welding up a badly worn rod-journal on my 392-crank, grinding all the journals to one oversize bearing and then nitriding the crank again... rough estimate: about 8 to 900 Euros. Crank welding is not really done here in these parts, so they have to outsource the work again to a specialized welding-company. Below is their online pricelist just for comparison. These prices are fairly common around here with other companies aswell; http://www.dymotrack.nl/pricelist_cars.htm Multiply these numbers by about 1.37, the current exchange rate as of july 2007, and you have the cost in Dollars.
If I recall correctly, it is around 800degF... much like your self-cleaning oven. I recommend staying away from the thermal cleaning process most engine shops have been forced to switch to - the baking process removes the heat treatment of any hardened parts (i.e. crankshaft, valve seats, etc...) and the blasting process requires otherwise unnecessary machining to restore the surface finish (steel shot blast).
Stay away from the oven cleaning process. It will warp anything that was streight when you took it in to the machine shop. I had a local machine shop that used this oven process and they kept telling me my heads and blocks were warped I thought they were just milking money out of me....So on my last head I took down I checked the streightness first and when they called and said it was warped, I went down and found that the head was at least .040 warped and that was after their oven process. Needless to say, I never took another head there. The old-fashoned hot tank is much better!
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