I took my perfectly fine (except for oil cooler efficiency) truck to a guy to have head studs, gaskets, EGR and oil cooler done. Well, now that he's trying to get it back together, he has managed to break several of the plastic clips that retain the rockers, messed up one harness connection for the glow plugs, another harness connection for an injector and has also bent several pushrods.

The plastic clips, as I understand are fairly fragile. The connectors are old with a lot of miles on them. The pushrods though, from what I have read, only get bent if he didn't put something back together right and/or didn't pay attention to detail enough to keep it from happening. I know Cheezit recommends turning the engine over by hand with the valve covers off, before you torque the heads to make sure everything is working properly. Also, he doesn't have the proper tool, so he has loosened the nut on the head stud as he's gone back in to address the bent pushrods. I'm sure it will be fine, but it still kinda tweaks me that my head gaskets may have been slightly compromised by this.

Anyway, I don't mind eating the cost for the plastic clips and the harnesses. The pushrods, to me, seem like his fault. Also, I don't know if he's going to try to charge me extra labor for having to go back in several times, but I don't think I should have to pay that either. Thoughts?

 

Definately his fault on the pushrods. He was doing a job for you and broke something in the process, he should have to pay

 

Okay, thanks. Now that he has had my truck for over 2 months, I wanted to make sure I wasn't way off base simply because I'm frustrated with the whole process.

 

The harness really depends on what shape the harness is/was in prior to repairs. possible offer to split the cost, if the just the connector is not avaiable for repair.
if the harness was in poor shape and brittle then its something in wich you would need to buy to begain with.
The rocker arm clips break when you look at them there cheep enugh. simply removing the rockers can cause worn clips to break.
bent push tubes are normally not a result of misinstall as the way the drop in its very hard to mess that up. what cause it 99% of the time is lifters that stay pumped up or 100% bleed off and the push tube drops to one side and gets bound up. not really the guys fault and not really your fault. its a case of it is what it is.
so far as removing the bolys to remove the tubes... as long as they were done one at a time on a new gasket you will be fine.

 

Thanks for your input Cheezit. Is there anyway to keep them from bleeding off?
Will turning it over by hand pump them back up if they have bled off?

 

no real way to stop it. but the longer an engine is apart the greater the odds for an issue.
truning it over by hand will help one that has stayed pumped up bleed down. getting one to fill up is a little harder to do. but can be done by using the starter to spin the engine over till you see all the rockers moving the correctly

 

Well that may be part of the problem. He only work on it on weekends and has been making a habit of not doing that extra little bit to figure the problem out until the next weekend, then he sits most of that weekend idle, because we don't have parts.

So, for the clips, I have no problem paying for those. The harnesses too. I'm sure they were old and brittle. I'll pay for the pushrods too. I'm undecided about the labor. We did agree to a price before he started. I don't want to try to get something for free. Jus frustrated. Thanks everyone.

 

I wouldn't pay labor to do the same work multiple times. If he found other problems that he fixed, that would be a different story.