Things do not always go right

No this stuff is a fight to the end. It has never been a wam bam deal and done for me. An old guy once told me, "If it goes smooth, it'll blow later." That guy was right on the money too. If you want perfection, it's not easy one bit. You guys do outstanding work and I haven't seen a (cut corner) on anything.

This is so true, the magic of TV is never showing the actual honest time to do these repairs. Thanks for this video.

More learning and innovation happens when things go wrong than when they go right!

I fully understand what you mean. Whether a technician or mechanic things rarely go right or easy. So it takes time and patience to get it right. Also I enjoy your humor thrown in from time to time!! The man bun does not sit well with me either!! I work for a college an see way to many of those daily! Take care!!

A good lesson for the end of the year.

Excellent points. What block was that?

Enjoyed

The important thing here is that you do care. Your work quality speaks for itself. Do you know how many shops wold not have cared about the noise you found and would have continued the engine assembly. That's the difference in the hours that some customers do not appreciate. Thanks for a very informative video. Have a Happy New Year. Take care.

The flash photo was hilarious.

Great vidio you can see were the money go's with the time it can take to do the job.

Hallelujah! At last a video clip with which I can relate! Easy to watch YouTube videos, but go and actually do it, complete different kettle of fish !

So true.....Murphy turns up...lol

As you might have guessed, I am a car-restoration show junkie, and the one thing that amuses me is the unrealistic expectation so many customers have. I know you don't have this luxury, Mr. Clayton, but I would love to tell them: "if your pockets are deep enough to buy one of these cars in the first place, why are you griping about a piddling few thousand dollars in unforeseen labor expenses here and there? GET REAL! if this project isn't a labor of love, don't even start it! if you're looking at it as a business investment and expecting a profit down the road, you're in it for the WRONG reason." I suppose having spent my life as a machinist has given me a greater insight into the reality of life than I might have acquired from sitting in an office pushing papers around.... if I ever hit the lottery, I will be your dream customer. "damn the torpedos, do it right, money is not an object!" will be my mantra.

Ain't that the truth

Almost every decades old car has been the victim sometime in its life of either lack of maintenance or improper maintenance and repair. Then there are the new parts that are poor quality or don't fit right. It's ALWAYS something unexpected, and many times something that you've never seen or encountered before. And you just go "Huh?"

It looks to me that at this point in your life's journey... That you have already earned enough of your customer's trust/loyalty that you can charge for these unexpected things? That is all good for you... What about the little guys like myself, that "EAT" labor on a daily basis because it "NEVER" works out to be "PERFECT" unless we stop the clock and make it so... What can we do??? Frank Parks @ Mopar Restos Summerville Ga.

If you think of the expressions one uses in daily life... right off the bat? Did that only start when baseball became a national sport? Did Babe Ruth always get it right off the bat? I don't think you screwed up here, it's just making things work, I just had a 1978 Eldorado shipped from Washington, and it took hours on the phone to get the car here. Things just don't go according to plan because sometimes. People just don't want to make an extra effort, there's also the issue of trust, so I can understand that because I just caught a guy stealing from me that I trusted

Many people/customers who can well afford to pay you to do this work will feel that you having  these "problems" means that you are not credible at your skill. Simply because they have never even tried doing anything mechanical so they have never had any personal experience with "Murphy's law" or any of the other circumstances, conditions, latent results of other people's lack of caring, that leads to these results. From your reply below that "you can only charge for 85-90% of what your employees do", you obviously have to "factor that in" to your hourly rate. If you can't pay the bills, pay your employees, and support yourself from your billing at the end of the month , you have become a "philanthropist" instead of a "business man".

By the time we learn ALL of the tricks of our trade, it's time to retire.

Who pays for those mistakes?