Went to Schwalms today

Peterooster

Peterooster

Member
Dropped off my 32 four banger for new babbit in the mains, a little pricey, looks like about $1000.00. I cleaned the stripped block myself. The center main was .002" out of round, any thoughts. Pete
 
In hate to see that $1000 bucks Pete. There is a guy here in Me. that has done alot of As and Bs for me for $650.00 and I think that is high. I just had a 35 engine done by a guy in NH for $475.00 and a beautifull job. When I send a engine, the block is all bored, seat all ground, and crank all ground, and a new shim pack for the mains. Maybe your man has to do more than just pour and line bore. Walt
 
Pour and bore, there is very few shops that are close enough to drive to. This shop was the closet for me at 110 miles. Pete
 
Schwalms (Ora Landis) does nice work but he is pricey. He poured the babbitt and did all the machine work for me on my '35 221 engine in my Avatar fordor sedan. He put the crank in place and I assembled everything else. The engine is running well with about 12k miles to date.
 
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Ora does do really nice work. No babbitt but he did line bore, bore, and valve seat work on the 59AB flathead for my bellytank. Great attention to detail.
 
I had Ora do my 27 T motor a couple of years ago, and I had almost 3K into it before he was done. Now that I'm looking for someone to do my 35 engine, I don't think it will go to him. He does nice work, but as a machinist myself, I truly believe his rates are over priced. Several other prominent engine builders (who unfortunately don't do babbitt) have remarked that there just isn't that much labor into one of these engines. I do appreciate the level of detail that Ora puts into it, but I typically have done a lot of the work myself before I take things to shops like his. I remove studs, re-tap holes, etc. Any other suggestions for rebuilders in the Maryland area?

Thanks,
Bob T
 
Ora does great work, you get what you pay for. Great attention to detail and he stands behind everything he does. He did the Cragar B overhead for my sons car including the insert Mains & Crower rods. That was 15K including the Dan Price Overhead conversion and worth every penny. When we had a problem with the main seal leaking he stood behind it 100% even though the seal was defective from the vendor. This was a $20 seal and Ora replaced the seal & pan gaskets etc. including all the labor for free. Returned the engine to us ready to go. He also did the B in my pick up, another top notch job.
 
I've had him do several engines for our shop over the years and he is expensive. A closer shop to Jersey for you would have been Reds Motor Machine, I believe they are called, in Delaware. Schwalms stands behind most of their work but not all of it.
 
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