I have a '95 F-150 SWB 2WD 4.9L 5-spd. It developed a pretty bad exhaust leak upstream of the O2 sensor which was causing it to run rich and seriously give up gas mileage, etc. I elected to install a header rather than attempt to fix all the factory stuff. It took a while but I finally got it going.

About 500 miles after I installed my header, it decided to start knocking and smoking like a train, and lost oil pressure below 1400 RPM. It had all kinds of hot start issues, etc. Bad luck for me but that engine was toast. 200k wasn't great for a 300 six, but oh well. The truck is in too good a shape otherwise to just junk it.

Since technically my dad still owns the truck he decided to take it to a guy who has done some work for him in the past. He seemed reasonably competent, at least up until this point. He quickly diagnosed very poor compression and suggested that it would probably be just as cost effective and faster to find a donor engine rather than to rebuild it.

He found a donor with 60k on the clock that was in good shape so dad told him to do it. Shortly thereafter I got my truck back. The day I got the truck back, the first thing I noticed was a 6" puddle of oil underneath it. Inspection found that the block was wet with oil right around the oil pressure sending unit. I couldn't easily determine if it was coming from around the sending unit itself or the lifter cover. I needed to replace the sending unit anyway with the one that allows the oil pressure gauge to actually work (as I had bypassed the resistor on the cluster the gauge was pegged, but the mechanic apparently didn't question this).

I replaced the sending unit and cleaned up as much oil as I could. Turns out the leak was a little bit of both. The guy claims he put a new inspection cover gasket on it, but it's still leaking. In any case the leak is slow enough to be bearable until I have time to address that.

While I was under the hood I noticed the following:

1. only 2 of the hood bolts were tight, others were about to fall out.
2. I found his snap-on flashlight
3. none of the vacuum lines were connected properly (most not at all)
4. my ceramic coated header was rusted, as if the coating had been blasted off.
5. my brand new $40 gates belt had been replaced with a $20 Dayco piece of crap that squeaks at anything cooler than 60 degrees.

I also noticed the truck seemed to be down on power, it didn't really run very well. The hot start issues were gone but it really seemed to want to buck and chug. I could see that my distributor cap and wires were not changed. I pulled the plugs and found them in absolutely miserable shape. How anybody could have looked at them and considered them "OK" is beyond me. I checked the resistance on the wires and they were all OK, so I saved a few pennies there and got by with just putting new plugs, cap & rotor on it. All of this helped but it still just didn't feel right, still felt down on power. This was confirmed by the fact that I got about 12mpg!

On a hunch I borrowed a very nice timing light from my friend. I got the truck up to full operating temp, pulled the plug to keep the computer from playing with the timing, and took a look. Spec for this truck is supposed to be between 8 & 12 deg advanced. Dude had it set at 8 deg retarded!!!!

I set the timing at 12 degrees advanced, tightened the distributor, and put the control plug back in place. I took it for a spin and low and behold it runs absolutely perfectly! I am thrilled that my truck is finally working the way it is supposed to, but I am truly dismayed by the performance of the mechanic.

The guy has a 4th gen Camaro that he drag races nearly every week. The fuel injection is gone in favor of a carb and a distributor. Being that this car runs deep 9 second quarter miles, I would have assumed he would know at least SOMETHING about setting timing. Guess I was wrong.

Needless to say, I won't be taking anything else to this guy!

 

Just cause he has a nice car don't mean he's a good professional mechanic. Those guys get paid piecework... on a per-job basis, and unfortunately there are a lot of them that will cut every possible corner to beat the labor rate. His car, he can take his time on. I had a transmission shop replace a trans for me. Just a simple remove and reinstall, I brought them everything they needed except new fluid and the tools to do it. Got it back missing a bellhousing bolt, found another one loose, and was missing a clip for the cooler hardlines.

Not all of them are like that, but there's a few hacks in every bunch and they make a bad name for the ones out there that really do care about doing it right.

All I would do is take his Snap-off flashlight (probably a re-branded Streamlight with a jacked-up price tag) back to him, and demand your new belt back if he has it. No belt = no flashlight.

 

Well since technically it's my dad's truck and he paid for the repair, I don't have a lot of recourse personally. As far as that sort of thing goes my dad is absolutely loyal (very much to a fault). Doesn't matter how bad somebody obviously screws something up, he for whatever reason still trusts them. It was worth it to see his jaw hit the floor when I told him the timing was 20* out.

The guy told dad he'd fix the oil leak but I'm about half tempted to do it myself. It's a $20 gasket and who knows what the guy will screw up that will cost me more than $20!

Much truth to the idea that if you want it done right you have to do it yourself.

 

Perhaps it's because he's a Chevy guy? Joking everyone no need to get sensitive! when I was younger I had a guy do a brake job for me on a F150 I owned. Drums/shoes, rotors/pads I brought him everything including a tub of grease to repack my bearings and the hardware. I paid him with 4 loads of split and seasoned firewood.

He installed the rear shoes wrong, messed up something in the front end, and failed to adjust the e-brake. He has several Nova's he raced on the weekends and was a mechanic. Hmm...perhaps its sabotage!

 

Could be I guess.... But I don't think an i-6 F-150 would be much trouble for much any Camaro though so dunno why he would feel the need to sabotage it....... I talked to the guy when we dropped it off, he didn't seem like a total moron at the time.

I know even the best mechanics screw up stuff from time to time. Sure was a "you gotta be @#$@#^@# kidding me" situation for me though. I'd say the look on MY face was pretty good when I discovered the timing issue!

 

Yup. That's why nobody works on anything I own (vehicles or otherwise) except me.
If I have something I don't know how to troubleshoot or fix, I read up on it, ask around, and make it a learning experience.

Just learned how the high voltage side of a microwave oven works actually. Dead simple, and all it needed was a HV capacitor... all of $16 online vs. $100+ for a decent new one or having it repaired at a shop.

 

I brought my truck into a shop for a manifold leak on the passenger side, a new center bearing, and asked them to check a couple little things and let me know before replacing them. I went to pick my truck up THREE WEEKS LATER and they had done brakes, rotars, hubs, every u-joint on the truck, and tried fixing a non-existant manifold leak on the driver's side. An $800 job turned into a $3,000 job with parts and labor.

I went to start my truck up and it ran really rough for a minute then started to cough and literally buck. I shut it down when it started freaking the frig out. I called a friend and he came and picked it up with his flat bed tow truck, brought it to his shop, and started it. It ran for about 3 minutes before dying. Now, I had JUST driven this truck 1400 miles in 2 1/2 days and I didn't have a single issue other than a blown tire, so it didn't make sense that she suddenly wouldn't stay running. Turns out they never plugged in the spark plug wires on that side. And they never even touched the side with the leak. On further inspection I found that they drilled the holes for the manifold bolts on the driver's side too big, so my bolts have maybe 1/2" of thread to grab onto. Now I need to replace my manifolds and heads.

Only reason I brought it to someone in the first place was because it was my neighbor's shop, and I needed the manifold leak fixed ASAP to pass inspection. I figured he wouldn't screw me over but I was wrong.

Last time I let someone else touch my truck.

 

They can't charge you for work you did not authorize. I would have paid the agreed upon amount of $800.

Jim