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Just grab your TIG welder and drill press and everything will work out. Might need new piston pin.

Rivets said:

Just grab your TIG welder and drill press and everything will work out. Might need new piston pin.

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if that don't work, JB weld

9 year old mower came in for bad drive belt and broken hydro fan. Easy fix. Never touched the engine. Fixed the belt and fan and sharpened the blades. Fired it up and mowed for about a minute and BOOM. Rod, piston and gasket kit $150 and labor. Charged her for the belt and fan and i ate the rest. Some you win and some you lose.

And yes it had oil in it. The bore was fine and the rod didn't seize on the crank.

Did you find cause of failure. Would be nice to see the rest of the broken pieces.

ILENGINE said:

Did you find cause of failure. Would be nice to see the rest of the broken pieces.

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No. Didn't seem to over rev.
Already tossed the rod. There was probably 30 small pieces of rod material. Engine was a 31R777. Lucky it didn't break the block. Did shear the key. I used a 240 grit ball hone to break the glaze and had to file and smooth a ding in the crank journal. Could have been worse.

The rod bearing shows a slight hint of aluminum smear combined with carbonized oil deposits. Don't know if it was enough to cause a loose rod bolt which would of lead to the failure. I think the piston damage is secondary due to the piston canting in the bore after the initial break.

I assumed the rod seized but there was absolutely no aluminum on the crank. Yeah i think the piston got taken out because of the rod.
Interesting, the parts list shows 2 different pistons depending on date code. Either one works. Only difference is one uses 2 wrist pin clips and the other only 1.

You can go broke covering things like this. If not told about the equipment previous problems and the it fails during testing I still charge the customer. I don't try make the customer for a failure that is out of my control. It would had failed if the you didn't test the mower with the customer using it and they would blame you not matter what just to get out paying for the repairs.

The owner is a lady i have known for 25 years and i just decided to fix it on me. Seems to be the right thing to do.

StarTech said:

You can go broke covering things like this. If not told about the equipment previous problems and the it fails during testing I still charge the customer. I don't try make the customer for a failure that is out of my control. It would had failed if the you didn't test the mower with the customer using it and they would blame you not matter what just to get out paying for the repairs.

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It was pure timing. Whether you knew her for 25 years or 25 seconds, it was not your fault. Lots of time, labor and risk involved in a repair like this. Doing the right thing can cause lots of problems in a situation like this. Commendable for you to repair, but I would not have eaten my labor time and costs.

Tiger Small Engine said:

It was pure timing. Whether you knew her for 25 years or 25 seconds, it was not your fault. Lots of time, labor and risk involved in a repair like this. Doing the right thing can cause lots of problems in a situation like this. Commendable for you to repair, but I would not have eaten my labor time and costs.

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Very true but it's just me.

That is what I was trying get across. I do cut a long time customer a break but parts are something I must charge for, Labor cost I can adjust since it is only me here that does the work.

As said thing do happen that is out of our control. Now if you had been in the engine and then it failed I can see covering everything.

Here is one example that I just couldn't the failure. Customer buys an used non running mower, Attempts to work on it themselves and get it running sorta. Then they bring it to my shop and it needed a new camshaft. I replace the camshaft and everything seems fine. He take back and starts mowing his lawn and the majorly blows up. The root cause was the engine was ran without oil and freed up before it came to my shop and I wasn't about this. Not my fault for not looking for such potential failure as the engine has plenty of oil when it came into the shop so no sign of an oil problem.

But as time went by this customer keep bringing his other mower with nearly none existent where simply would not check his oil level. I finally just dumped him. An Kohler engine are not know blowing gaskets causing oil leak usage problems. He was just using the mower commercially.

Every person and every situation is different. Each time you ask yourself “What do I do now and still get a go nights sleep tonight?” If you tell us you’ve never given away a job at no or extremely no cost, you’re lying to all of us. We’ve all lost $$$$ doing what is the right thing. Don’t make judgments if you’re not standing there.

I not trying to judge as it is his business what wants to do. I just putting it as how I handle the problems here.

Sorry Rivets but just can't do it. That making a customer whole, I had one here that put on $300 of parts and then the mower comes into my shop for a fifty cent wire terminal problem. He expected me to reimburse him for all the parts he had brought from another shop.

Rivets the reason I don't give away parts is that I must at least break even or I simply have close down the shop do not having operating funds. And I do have currently an Ahole that basically rip me off for over a $1000 in parts as he stop payment a check. What worst I was doing him a flavor by only charging a couple hours labor for a two day job. I going the DA next week and file charges. He can either pay what is owed or serve 2-12 years for a class D felony. I going to hold his Bobcat Skid loader until things are resolved.

As I tell my customers even warranty repairs will be bill for the additional parts. It either that or close the shop.

As I said each person and each situation is different. Each of us does what we feel is best for us individually and our business. I’ve done both, given it away and gotten my attorney involved. Being a retired instructor I’ve learned a long time ago, that you can’t fix stupid, so I charge for trying. Best one I had was a landscaper who brought in 5 pieces for me to get ready for the season. When he got the bill, he said right to my face, “I can have the oil on my truck changed for less than what you charge for a Z-turn.” in front of three other customers. I asked him for the bill back and wrote on it, “PAID IN FULL” and gave it back to him, with instructions to find a different mechanic. He started to apologize, but I would have nothing to do with him, plus would inform the other shops in the area my experience with him. He is still in business, but now has to drive 25 miles one way to get his equipment fixed. Even the guy I wouldn’t recommend to anyone won’t do business with him. It cost me money that day, but I would do the same thing next time.

Rivets said:

As I said each person and each situation is different. Each of us does what we feel is best for us individually and our business. I’ve done both, given it away and gotten my attorney involved. Being a retired instructor I’ve learned a long time ago, that you can’t fix stupid, so I charge for trying. Best one I had was a landscaper who brought in 5 pieces for me to get ready for the season. When he got the bill, he said right to my face, “I can have the oil on my truck changed for less than what you charge for a Z-turn.” in front of three other customers. I asked him for the bill back and wrote on it, “PAID IN FULL” and gave it back to him, with instructions to find a different mechanic. He started to apologize, but I would have nothing to do with him, plus would inform the other shops in the area my experience with him. He is still in business, but now has to drive 25 miles one way to get his equipment fixed. Even the guy I wouldn’t recommend to anyone won’t do business with him. It cost me money that day, but I would do the same thing next time.

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I eat labor costs all the time. A little here, a little there. After a while you realize that your time, experience, and skills have value. Why should I be giving away my time for free. You can’t get back time. The big shops don’t eat blocks of time and charge for everything. I try to keep all this in mind.

Hammermechanicman said:

The owner is a lady i have known for 25 years and i just decided to fix it on me. Seems to be the right thing to do.

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That took dignity to eat that, even tho it wasn't your fault.. Sleep well.

You did the right thing...I would have done the same. Reputation is everything to a successful business, and mine is a perfect 5 stars—not even one 4-star review. It pays off in word of mouth. That minor cost might bring in five new customers.

Sometimes the only luck you get is bad. You went above and beyond doing the repair at no additional. It was going to happen, and you were just lucky enough that more, unfixable damage was not done. The rod bearing bit shown does not look 'good' to my old eyes.
It is possible you were running at rpms the engine normally did not experience as some are reluctant to push the throttle 'that far' as they are trying to baby their machine. Not necessarily doing it any favors in truth.
tom

In my opinion you did the right thing by not charging her. Now you have a happy customer which is better than a complaining customer.

When i took it back she refused to let me eat the blown engine repair. We haggled and i said just pay for the parts and labor for the original repair and the parts for the blown engine. She said OK and then wrote the check for $50 more than that and gave me a hug. She lost her husband 8 years ago and is retired on a fixed income.

You’ve got a customer for life and she has a mechanic for life. Hope you used the extra $$$ to buy bigger shirts, as I know your heart just doubled in size. Great ending.

Thanks. A very long time ago my father told me that something you have is worth what someone else will pay for it and you are worth what other people think of you. Took a while for it to sink in.

Hammermechanicman said:

9 year old mower came in for bad drive belt and broken hydro fan. Easy fix. Never touched the engine. Fixed the belt and fan and sharpened the blades. Fired it up and mowed for about a minute and BOOM. Rod, piston and gasket kit $150 and labor. Charged her for the belt and fan and i ate the rest. Some you win and some you lose.

And yes it had oil in it. The bore was fine and the rod didn't seize on the crank.

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Did you drop the engine pulley to get the drive belt on?

Only time I had ever seen something like this happen was on a Craftsman lawn tractor in the late 80's - it was fairly new at the time, so guessing a '87-'88 model. Think it had a Briggs, but that was 10's of thousands of gallons of beer, whiskey, rum, gin, and who-knows-what-else, ago ... the mind is a little "pickled" ...

The reason it blew up? After my buddy melted the engine down on his '85 KTM 125MX running wide-open down the street in the rain with me on the back, we were bored ... so why not BOTH of us hop on his dad's tractor and see how many wheelies and burnouts we could do!

Every day after school for about 3 weeks straight, I'd head to his house, we'd push the tractor out, I'd hop on the fender and we'd go to a section of his driveway that was on a hill, and let 'er rip! Almost flipped it over backwards a few times, so I started sitting on the hood. Front end would STILL pop up! This was after years of mowing commercially with it at some condos his dad built, with he and I freewheeling it down those hills at 40 MPH, throwing it in reverse and doing a smokeshow in the street, etc., etc. ...

You have NO IDEA the amount of abuse this thing took! I can't even put it into words. Nothing built in the last 30 years could withstand this!

One day his dad was mowing, and BAM! Rod came out the side of the block! I'll never forget walking into that one day. We go down the basement from outside, and there's his dad holding the mangled rod and piston in his hand, engine parts scattered all over the bench, he hears us come in, he turns around and stares at us with what I thought was a red glow in his eyes ... "SEE WHAT YOU ASSHOLES DID??" He was NOT happy!

Ahh, the good ol' days!!

Hammermechanicman said:

9 year old mower came in for bad drive belt and broken hydro fan. Easy fix. Never touched the engine. Fixed the belt and fan and sharpened the blades. Fired it up and mowed for about a minute and BOOM. Rod, piston and gasket kit $150 and labor. Charged her for the belt and fan and i ate the rest. Some you win and some you lose.

And yes it had oil in it. The bore was fine and the rod didn't seize on the crank.

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For this reason i always get them to start the mower & show me the problem
About 1 in 50 look real sheepish and find a reason why it will not start , usually claiming the battery is flat so I grab the jump pack and they suddenly remember it started to shake bad

My Dad always said, do the right thing, & your customers will be your advertising