The Pass Pub: The High-End Off Topic Thread

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Melon Head

Melon Head

Banned
Joined 2006
The shop was a different scene from the ones I remembered. The mechanics, who had once all seemed like ancient veterans, now looked like children. A radio was going full blast and they were clowning around and talking and seemed not to notice me. When one of them finally came over he barely listened to the piston slap before saying, "Oh yeah. Tappets."
Tappets? I should have known then what was coming.
Two weeks later I paid their bill for 140 dollars, rode the cycle carefully at varying low speeds to wear it in and then after one thousand miles opened it up. At about seventy-five it seized again and freed at thirty, the same as before. When I brought it back they accused me of not breaking it in properly, but after much argument agreed to look into it. They overhauled it again and this time took it out themselves for a high-speed road test.
It seized on them this time.
After the third overhaul two months later they replaced the cylinders, put in oversize main carburetor jets, retarded the timing to make it run as coolly as possible and told me, "Don't run it fast."
It was covered with grease and did not start. I found the plugs were disconnected, connected them and started it, and now there really was a tappet noise. They hadn't adjusted them. I pointed this out and the kid came with an open-end adjustable wrench, set wrong, and swiftly rounded both of the sheet aluminum tappet covers, ruining both of them.
"I hope we've got some more of those in stock," he said.
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Why does this not surprise me
 
DaveM

DaveM

Member
Joined 2003
This is why I try and do all my car repairs myslef. Nothing like finding lug nuts put on with an impact when you have a flat. Not to mention the damage done by most. The last time I had work done at a friends shop, when I showed up to pick up the car, they were super gluing a critical piece of the radiator shroud back together and they had broken the inlet barb on the expansion tank which they had epoxied together. They still had the balls to charge me $800 for a water pump change. ($400 in labor) Next time I needed work, I used his shop and did the work myself, so we are still friends.
 
Gyuri

Gyuri

Member
Joined 2003
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