I wanted to share a recent experience I had taking my bus to a shop for repairs.
The shop I used is ToJo's Bus repair- Augusta, Ga.
In my area I couldn't find a shop or mechanic with good experience on the 2 strokes so...
It wasn't that far away only 90 miles.
My choice was based on the shop's reputation & is also the shop Byron Pigg had do a change out on his drop box a couple of years ago right after the Santee Rally.
My Issue- Excessive black smoke in exhaust.
Took the bus there on Monday, Jan. 9th.
It was the following week before the bus made it into the rotation.
First find- Bad Turbo. Will take 4 weeks to get one from Detroit.
I got in touch with Clifford who recommended Tom at Turbo Resource in Arizona. Tom had one ready to go so I had it shipped in. Exhaust pipe leading to turbo on passenger side of engine needed replacing. While the shop was trying unsuccessfully to get an exhaust shop to make one I got one from Jefferson's & had it shipped in.
At this point week after week is slipping by really getting into my working on the bus time. Finally resolved these two items didn't fix the black smoke.
Was told blower has issues. Overhauled blower, steam cleaned after cooler which needed some attention. Still black smoke. Now onto the injectors. Pulled all injectors & sent out to have checked. One injector cracked.
replaced the injector & reinstalled all & ran the rack. Changed out anti freeze.
Yaayyy! Excessive black smoke no more!
As a matter of info found out later the turbo was in fact bad.
2 & a half months at the shop.
Final cost- $2600 plus $600 for turbo & $200 plus for exhaust pipe.
Final personal analysis of shop experience. I would recommend ToJo's for the honesty & professional attitude I experienced. I would however also recommend that you be patient due to the large amount of ongoing work this shop does.
I got a bit nervous and began to question the scenario because of the amount of time it took. But I now understand better how busy they are. On the morning I picked up the bus 2 Coaches were checked in, 2 School Buses, & 2 Charter Buses. All that in 1 1/2 hours. I counted over 30 units in the parking area to be worked on. Don't know the degree of what was being done but this is ONE busy shop.
Would I use ToJo's again? Probably but only if there's no other option. This answer based mostly on the time it took to get her done :)
It sounds to me like they started with the most obvious and went in from there. The bad turbo could well have been the main problem, as could the blower - oil from the turbo would have made the blower look bad for sure. Running the engine with the exhaust piping disconnected from the manifolds and the turbo off could have been a step that could have diagnosed the problem to only one bank - leading to a piston or injector diagnosis - but they didn't try that, I guess. It's hard to differentiate between oil smoke and fuel smoke sometimes. Probably if you had been running commercially and they had known that, they might have been a little more urgent - it seems they fit you in between other jobs, maybe with a discount on labour to match, I don't know. But $2600 sounds more than fair to me for changing the turbo, the exhaust, re and re'ing the blower and aftercooler, pulling and testing all the injectors, and running the rack. To be honest, it sounds like half price fair! I have an invoice in my file to just change a blower - no aftercooler - and run the rack, for $3500 in labour, from 8 years ago!
Brian
Price sounds fair enough, and the time frame does also.
Most shops that have a regular commercial customers will do as Brian said and do what they have to to get the commercial guy in and out (that includes the schoolies) as fast as possible, while still doing work for the private sector as "filler".
Also when you are talking about 2 stroke work not everyone in the shop is experienced or qualified to work on those so you got one or two guys who are having to do those repairs specifically, while also keeping up with what ever else comes in the door.
I have no experience or knowledge of the shop you used, but from what I see they treated fair and inline with other shops general practices.
Had you specified that you needed the work done ASAP they probably would have accommodated you there too, both time and bill wise. (the bill would have been higher for making yours priority over their regular commercial accts. because someone would have had to put in overtime on yours or the commercial ones to get them done on time as well)
All that said many shops will go out of their way to assist and work in broke down travelers from out of town much in the same matter as the commercial customers.
Now as far as Augusta, GA goes there is or used to be a place called Lewis Bus Lines
http://www.lewisbus.com/ (http://www.lewisbus.com/)
Talmadge Lewis is/was a highly respected and honest man in the bus industry for yrs.
;D BK ;D
In my original post I forgot to mention that the shop owner "ToJo" was always available by phone & always curtious & energetic to converse with. He's the type of person you enjoy being around in person or on the phone. I'm really glad now at the performance of the engine & no more SMUT on the Toad ;)