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charofire said:
Having personally wired several different engines into different chassis (302 EFI into 69 Bronco and '66 Mustang; b35 into an e28; ls3 into an e28), it is ridiculous to see this shop's line items. Over 10 years ago, my car was wired by Terry Conners - a 535is with a 745i turbo swap - keeping intact the 745i ecu, which was not common at the time. The wiring was completed in under a day, but that's because Terry is a professional, and knows exactly what wires interface. It doesn't take 30+ hours to wire and engine swap. If someone is learning on the job, that's a different story. The shop could have easily told Alan that "Hey, I've never wired a Links into an e9 with an s38." Gary is right - Alan has been taken for a ride.
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Again I think this reinforces what I said. I think that $1,000 to $1,500 is about right for a very nice custom wiring harness. So using your 1-day number, that is $1,000 in labor at $130 / hr. Add in all of the special colored wire, and the factory connections and $1,500 seems about right to me. My point isn't a woulda-could-shoulda retrospective for Alan. He is a DIY guy but ran into some trouble. That is a risk that us DIY'ers take. However, this thread can serve as a learning opportunity for those whom might think that they can pickup a painless wiring kit for $300 and call it a day, or that a custom harness should cost less than $1,000.
 
No doubt, a custom harness can cost $1000, but that misses the bigger point (in my humble opinion). To take a year, to get to this point, is not cool, unless the owner communicated, "Alan, I'm going to have no time for your coupe, and I've never wired a Links with an s38 into an e9." I get it -- a lot of people hear wiring something custom and just assume it's going to be a massive project -- but for those who have wired in different engines into different chassis, and have schematics, it's not awfully hard. P.s. Line item on valve adjustment. I have a 93 m5. I had a race shop adjust my valves earlier this year. 12 shims were changed. Not a big job.
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well im givin up but holy toledo
said he would call a week ago
so i sent amessage how do you expect me to pay u when you dont even
call back when you say.
what amess!1
he probably being a baby as i sent him the above comments
 
he wantds a payment
ill send today to get him off his ass!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
at least its in a closed shop at the race track
 
Keshav said:
Id go personally with the payment and hand it over only after being convinced of the progress. Not a cent before.
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He's about an hour away from you without traffic.

At this point I'd be showing up unannounced every chance I get.

Do you have the time to visit him each week and take pictures?
 
that sound like a great advice ill go over tomorrow
i just called hi and raised heck
telling him i always have to chase him down
he never initiates a call
also he tells me hes fixing the dawm alternator pulley cuase ididnt have akey
I WENT FRIGGIN BALASTIC
told him his job iis to START THE ENGINE
anybody with 3rd grade skills can fix a pulley
NUTTTS
so i really put himin place and demaned he start it or im picking up at the end of the week
 
Alan,

In the final stages of my 2 year sad story regarding the e-Type restoration, I traveled to Portland and spent a weekend 'camped' in the shop with the owner/thief every minute the doors were open.. I wasn't disruptive or argumentative. After about 16 hours of observation, I informed him our 'cordial' relationship was over, and told him of my conclusions regarding what he had done. Upon returning back to PA, I filed a lawsuit against him personally and his business. Within about a week of receiving the lawsuit, he declared personal and business bankruptcy. Won the suit in absentia, but never collected a penny. I did get a deduction for un-collectible debt on on my next years IRS return. I'd much rather have had the e-Type!

Gary
 
Gary Knox said:
Alan,

In the final stages of my 2 year sad story regarding the e-Type restoration, I traveled to Portland and spent a weekend 'camped' in the shop with the owner/thief every minute the doors were open.. I wasn't disruptive or argumentative. After about 16 hours of observation, I informed him our 'cordial' relationship was over, and told him of my conclusions regarding what he had done. Upon returning back to PA, I filed a lawsuit against him personally and his business. Within about a week of receiving the lawsuit, he declared personal and business bankruptcy. Won the suit in absentia, but never collected a penny. I did get a deduction for un-collectible debt on on my next years IRS return. I'd much rather have had the e-Type!

Gary
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Gary, did you lose the car all together through that process? Or was it just returned incomplete and/or worse off than it started? I am not advocating that this is a good answer for anyone - but just curious about the hind sight outcome.

Alan, I'd think your best bet is to be as present as you can be at this shop. Polite, cordial (to use Gary's word), and supportive, but steadfast in your desire for completion and quality. Take the higher road. Regardless, good luck!!!
 
Stephen,

The shop owner had bought the '64 e-type roadster from a guy in central WA state. It was a one owner car, and had left front damage from a crash. Repairable, and NO RUST due to the dry climate east of the Cascades. That was rare for e-types even then. Anyway, I wrote up a contract to purchase the car and for him to do the restoration that we both signed. He and his business seemed small, but OK, based on other work he was doing. Being 3K miles away was not a good thing, and apparently some of the employees and parts of the business 'went south' (downhill, not to California!) over the next 18 months. I made a reasonable down payment at the time of the contract, then subsequent payments after receiving pictures of the work on the car over that time.

By about 2 years, the pictures stopped coming. There was a pretty 'hot dealer' in Jag e-types in Portland at that time (whom he seemed to know), and I've always felt he sold the partially completed car to that dealer, so when I showed up for those 2 days - there was nothing to see. Values for these Jags had started to go up 15-20% per year during that time. Never found any trace of the VIN.

I actually felt sorry for him and his wife, as it seemed fairly clear to me that they were close to destitute. But, business is business, and I didn't intend to have a significant portion of my charitable contributions over that 2 year period end up in Oregon. Thus, the lawsuit.

I believe this contract in the early-mid '80's was somewhere in the 25-30K range. He absconded with something over half of that. The e-type roadsters were less valuable then!! BUT - so were e9's!!

Gary--

PS: I've often thought in retrospect that perhaps in my desire to have an e-type roadster, I dismissed a red flag or two that I should have paid more attention to.
 
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Losing that is no small chunk of change (then or now). Sorry to hear it, but thank you for sharing your story. I think it is good information for others considering a similar situation.
 
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