How Many Hours of Labor for an Engine Rebuild?

[Joris Koning]

Jacques,

I have been through the experience with a well known Florida shop charging me close to the time quoted by you. We are currently re-doing the complete engine. When fired up on the run in stand for the first time it produced a terrible whine. When we opened the engine up we found a penny in the intake cover (mechanic forgot to take it out) and some terrible oversights and mistakes. They refused to stand behind their work and pretty much told me to go F@ck myself.....

J>

[C J Murray]

I'll bite, what purpose does a penny have in the rebuilding of a 4-cam?

[Joris Koning]

Attached a picture of the flat rate books. I have some earlier versions also from the 50's which are quite different but am to lazy to dig them out.

@Edwin, time given for an engine rebuild is 24 hours. This is assuming the engine is out of the car and all required parts are at hand. Quick note here, this is an important thing to keep in mind. The time it takes to source missing and or worn out or broken parts is substantial these days. Your mechanic will charge for time spend doing this, as he should!

@Jacques, the book mentions it only deals with standard engines, so no 4-cam times in there

[C J Murray]

Representing 6 manufacturers at this time, it has been my experience that the factory flat rate manuals today set times that even the best mechanics cannot achieve until they have done the job many times. You can put that down to the fact that the factory does not want to be generous when paying warranty claims. When I was in the auto parts business most of my garages used aftermarket flat rate manuals that were quite a bit more generous.

Having never seen or heard of 356 factory flat rate manuals I assumed they were too small volume a company then to develop one. Thanks for sharing.

[C J Murray]

24 hours seems fair if you have completely original in every way parts and you therefore do not need to check every clearance, just disassemble, clean, and assemble. That's easy.

[Joris Koning]

I'll bite, what purpose does a penny have in the rebuilding of a 4-cam?

CJ, it is used to lock the gears when taking off a head. Old school trick. You just don't leave the penny in there when closing up the intake cover.....

[Edwin Ek]

Joris, many thanks! That's what I am looking for.

CJ, what you describe is what I have. NOS heads, crank, and p&c, standard case already prepared, etc.

[C J Murray]

Joris, many thanks! That hits the spot.

CJ, what you describe is what I have. NOS heads, crank, and p&c, standard case already prepared, etc.

When I worked as a mechanic in the early '70s I rebuilt many engines with stock parts and we never checked anything after the machinist returned what he had done. We "knew" everything fit and it always did so slam bam it just got put together. I can't trust these old 356 engines now because they have seen so much abuse for the past 50 years. If you know your stuff is primo and all is stock you can just put it together. Non-stock pistons and camshafts, even with all other parts perfect, require some clearance checking though.

[Joris Koning]

The reason my 4-cam whined so much was that the grinder, the Florida shop who rebuild the engine send the lay shaft out to, ground it off center. The result was that the backlash between the crank gear and layshaft would go from positive to negative creating tight spots and a whine. The engine builder never figured it out and just told me to run the engine and it would go away........... yup that's the work you pay close to 40K for.

Anyway, excuse my rant. Always check outside work, no matter how good the reputation of the shop doing the work is. We all know what they say about assuming

[Edwin Ek]

Joris, that is an amazing, disappointing story. Did you ever call the Florida shop and say this is what you screwed up? Curious what their reaction would be.

[Jacques Lefriant]

Hi Joris
i had to train the machine shop that would hard chrome the journals to redo the centers so the journals would be ground concentric to the C/L the usual problem is at the A-D gears. the center at the big gear usually is ok unless you have a bent shaft then it gets tricky. The builder should have caught it since i am sure he had the repair done many times. they probably used a different shop than they had used previously.
i had a visitor from across the pond yesterday that told me his new Capricorn engine makes terrible noise when it is warmed up so with 4-Cams it not easy to build unless you check everything and have the experience. So the flat rate today would not be applicable since the mechanics/engine builders are not old school.
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[Martin Benade]

Joris, you are extremely (too?) polite to not name the shop that did your engine. I hope they have learned how to do better, or stopped doing 4-cams.

[Vic Skirmants]

"new Capricorn engine makes terrible noise when it is warmed up so with 4-Cams"

And then blame the transmission.