Re: Help!!!!!!! Need to test fuel injectors !!!!!
Once you do your work and explain it all to them, and hand them the bill and leave... you know you've done well they call you 3 or 4 months later and they are having trouble with something else and they say to you... "this is acting up, i need it fixed by ##day, there's a blank check under the seats in the cuddy, just call me when your all set so I know how much it was". That's when you know you've made a customer.
The last bill "shock" i got went something like this. I have this customer who runs a kayak/sailboat business. He has 3 locations. At all 3 he needs to have a running powerboat to bring people back in, do rescues etc. At this point he is not the "check is in the cuddy" type customer. Often, I am called out to 1 location, when he is at another location.
The last job I did for him was a starter on a johnson outboard (a 150 to be exact) For him, the work needs to be done immediately, because he cannot run his business without a working boat.
The complaint was the motor turns over but does not start. I killed the batterys (boat has 2), bought 2 new ones, still turns over but does not start.
So I get out there, he meets me in a hurry and say's i have to run, do what you have to do to fix it, if you can't get ahold of me tell my manager what's wrong with the boat but just get it fixed.
The first thing I do is hook up my handy dandy steven's spark checkers. No spark. I dissconect the harness... still no spark. I open my handy dandy rapair marine technician ignition system bible (a must for everyone) and flip to the approriate section and dva charts. This johnson has an OIS (optical) ignition system and it's about a 27 step process to troubleshoot. I'm doing my tests and everything is coming back ok then I notice the cranking rpm is really slowing down fast on this thing for what is supposed to have a new battery. So I stop at about step 12 to check the battery.
I put my load tester on the battery, comes back good. Then i throw my amp clamp around the starter cable, 250amps.
Uh-oh I thought, mission control we have a bad starter.
But here is where going through the entire system is necessary. The boat has 2 batteries and a battery switch. The bats are located under center console and the switch is tucked up under there as well. When doing a starter job it is imperative that you do a point to point voltage drop test across the ENTIRE starting system. That includes the battery, all cables, the battery switch, the solenoid, and all grounds. In a boat like this it takes more than 10 minutes to do. Especially when it is on the water and bouncing around. Turns out his main battery cables (both) and 1 of the jumpers going to the switch were bad. If you know ohms law (E=I/R), you'd see that the voltage drop in the cables was causing the starter to draw extra current. since current = heat, heat causes insulation breakdown in the starter, insulation breakdown causes shorts to ground, which draws more current, which generates more heat. It's a downward spiral.
Now this is the starting system. The igniton system, is a seperate issue, or so it may seem. Before I went ahead with the starter, I continued reading the ignition system troubleshooting chart. In this motor, the optical sensor needs to see 11+ volts (seems high, but thats what the manual says) in order to function. I test the wire and it's not even close. And it's not close because the starter is eating all the the current (causing more of a voltage drop) in the system.
I grab the manager (as the owner was not available) and I explain the situation. I tell her that the starter/cables are bad. I also tell her that this may or may not fix the actual starting issue. I tell her (in the least amount of techno jargon possible) about everything, but the fact of the matter is, is that I can not troubleshoot an ignition system without a fully funtioning starting system. She agree's to the repair and I get to work.
I pull the starter (to send off to the rebuild shop) and on the way back I stop at wests (ughhh retail pricing times 100... but they have cable). I drop the starter off at the shop and they call me about an hour later. They say sorry, this one is toast, non-rebuildable. They can have me a new one (aftermarket, but new) the next day. I ask to make sure it's not some chineese knockoff, becuase the price of the aftermarket was the same as the dealer. They say it's an arco, and i know they are ok. With the price from the shop being the close as factory, just a few bucks higher for shipping, and the fact that they can have it next day, and the dealer says probably a week. I go ahead and order it.
I get it the next moring, go back to the boat and install it. I also make up, and install the new cables. That was a bit of a pain. It was an aluminum boat and all the cables where run under the floor. I had to undo the console, tilt it back. And take up 3 of the floor panels to access the cables. Before you say "just pull the cables through". I would in a glass boat, but never in an aluminum boat. As the hull is grounded 1 little nick in the 4 gauge cable would turn the entire wire into a 20ft long, 600amp fusable link... causing death to all on board.
As Murphy would have it... half the stainless steel screws heads where stripped out, and they had to be drilled. Stainless is very particular on the torque you apply to it.
After it was all said and done, I pulled back out my handy dandy spark checker and voila, spark had returned. (screw you Murphy!!) I re-did the voltage drop test and it all checked out. Amp clamped the starter 1 more time and it was at a healthy 130 amps. I give the motor a push of the key then a twist, start her up, then take it for a 5 minute spin around the lake. When I get back I flip the amp clamp over and make sure she's charging.. (as bad cables can kill a regulator as well)
Well... i'm satisfied at this point. So i pick up everything, get it all back in the truck, grab my invoice book and get to getting paid. I write everthing out. Bring the slip to the manager. Explain how everything went back together, and explain how the ignition system not functioning was caused by the bad starter. I then hand her the slip and explain every little note and line item i wrote down on it. Then I get to the total, and I haven't seen a jaw drop so fast since the last time an adulterous queen was sent to the guillotine.
As the acronym b.o.a.t. stands for "bring on another thousand" The bill was about a thousand bucks.... before your jaw drops here's the rough breakdown.
330 bucks for the starter
260 for 45 feet of battery cable, and crimps
360 for labor @ 60hr x 6 hours
it took an hour to diagnose
about 1/2hr to pull the starter
about 1/2hr to install it
2 hours to pull up the floor... because 1/2 the screws were stripped out and needed to be drilled
an hour to make up the battery cables, and install them
and about an hour to put the floor and console back together, retest the starting system, check the charging system and a quick water test.
and I have a flat fee of $50 per job for drive time, which also covers my commute and also drive time to and from getting parts.
Now when gary got word of the bill he damm near sh!t a brick. He was quick to mention that the starter on his chevy tahoe went out last year and that that repair was less than 200 total. So I had to explain it all over again to him. I had to connect the dots from how when a starter is run with bad cables it will eventually destroy itself, i had to explain that just replacing that starter withought cables will only cause the new starter to eat itself as well. So on, and so forth. I then showed him the PM chart for his engine, I pointed out the part about having clean terminals and cables and noted as how it was stated by johnson to be checked every 3 months (could be 6, i forget at this point) and I asked him the last time he had done that. He obviously never had himself, and didn't know if it was ever done by previous mechanics. (as bad mechanics are notorious for skipping PM checks)
The moral of this story is that I know I did my job and I did it well. I hardly ever at this point have to explain anything to gary. He calls and says there's a check on the boat, go fix it, and just let me know how much it is. Now not only do i do his repair work. But I also do his spring commisioning, a mid season check up, and winterizing on all his boats. And I do so 99% of the time without a question from him. I'll never take advantage of that, because any potential headache is worth no amount of money to me. On top of that I get paid to do the work, not to talk about justifying bills. Time is money.
Pay me now, or pay me later, but either way your going to pay me.
