I was wondering what you all think a fair labor rate would be for doing the injector o rings on a truck that's got banks intercooler piping and everything else in the way.

I can't remember what the book calls for in hours. I just want to make sure I'm not charging too much.

That truck runs like a scalded dog now though! It had problems with all the injectors o rings. All but one was leaking oil out the top and at least two were letting oil into the fuel. I used to tell the owner it was pretty weak considering it's got probably everything BD and banks makes installed on the engine. It will definitely outhaul both of my trucks now.
Now, after running the tar out of it for about 20 miles, it idles perfect, starts right up, and has enough power to get sideways in any gear. That's scary from a dually!

 

seeing as how the local dealers in my area are 97 an hour and the local independent shops are in the 60's i charge 35 an hour. if i recall the book pays around 4 hours to do injectors in a 7.3. i may be wrong though. by the way, thats remove and install. replaceing o-rings should add an additional hour for the whole set

 

5.5 hours book time per Mitchel

 

That's good. So if I add time for the junk in the way and the o rings I'm right in there. I feel better now.
I only charge 40 an hour but I only work on trucks for people I like too. It's nice having your own shop and own rules isn't it? I never go by flat rate but I really try to not charge more than flat rate unless there is a good reason for it. I do a lot of diesel and propane powered farm tractors too here, besides working on guns as my main thing and nothing ever seems to be just by the book.

That labor rate at the dealers has really gotten high. When I quit the last one, I was doing transmissions, ABS repairs, chassis and alignments and Air conditioning. I also got all the strange noise and vibration diagnosis jobs even though my ears are shot out from the military. I was the only one that could ever track down those noises. I used to teach that course for one of the big three. That dealer was at 76 bucks an hour but that was 4 years ago. Most customer pay jobs that I diagnosed either got towed away or driven home after I figured them out if they could. Noone around here has that kind of money. I hear they are at 90 an hour now.

At the first Ford dealer I worked at I was THE diesel mechanic there. I don't remember exactly what the labor rate for this job was but I did a LOT of them. The problem was my shop foreman wouldn't let me take them out on the required long test drive needed to properly purge all the air and get rid of the smoke. It took nearly 2 hours or hard driving and mountain climbing before this one settled out completely yesterday.
You wouldn't believe how many customers I had come back on me at Ford complaining about it smoking and being hard to start after doing the injectors. I remember my bosses response was well, if you want to pay another 2 hours of labor then the mechanic can go fix that real easy. Very few people took him up on it.
I hated that place. I must have quit a dozen times because the boss tried yelling at me about going over book time on something. I was just concerned about doing it right.

 

I forgot to add that I looked up the times for an 01 so it would include the intercooler pipes you will have to deal with. Thats the only difference in the job between and OBS and SD and since you said it had an intercooler it should be able right.

My dads shop (independant Rural) is $79 an hour.

 

I've done SD injectors once, and OBS many times. IMO SD are much easier, quicker than OBS, even with the pipes.

 

I agree Jim. Easier to get to the bolts on the VC on the SD.

 

Those bolts aren't that bad. I used a 3/8 inch matco swivel socket with about a 2 foot extension for most of them and a 3/8 drive snap on U joint swivel to get to the back ones. Getting those back injectors to come free was a chore though! I even have the proper ford tools for it and let the air out of the front tires but they still tried to get the best of me. I'm 6'4" and just had a heck of a time getting back there without dislocating my shoulders or something. Her cow catcher on the front prevented me from leaning over that way.

I'll be doing the job on my 94 next week probably. I'm just waiting on a day when the wind comes below 60 mph. I don't want all that blowing dirt getting in my engine!

My sons 93 Ford IDI only took me about 3 hours to pull all the injectors, glow plugs, rebuild the injectors, test and set them and reinstall everything. That one was easy!

 

350$ thats all I charge. You all know how quickly a valve cover comes off a 7.3.....1 hour a side. 2 and half hours tops. Still make money doing it at 350

 

Really?^^? Yyyyyyyyyy bring that up?

 

Last time I removed my VC's after all IC piping, both were off in minutes.

Cordless impact, extensions and universals. Takes me longer to get that dumb black box off above the passenger side

 

Yea why would someone do a search on something just to be like hey! I do it cheaper than you hahaha.... bye.

 

Yeah, that's crazy expensive....