NYC Craiglist Mecanic - Dr Motor1 (Haym)

Anyone familiar with him? Or have any thoughts?


http://www.drmotor1.com/

 

Thoughts?

The guy gets $75 an hour.

The basic budget to properly and safely "recommission" an XJ is in the $600 ~ $800 range; assuming YOU DO ALL THE WORK. And not counting cosmetics.

It took me, personally, 4 months (of spare time, admittedly) to get the first one rideable and 11 months for the second one.

How much money you got?

 

Like fitz was saying if you have any type of mechanical skills your best off doing the work yourself. The only way you know something is done and done right is to do it yourself. If you do not have the skills you should probably be riding a much newer bike. Most of us enjoy working on them as well as riding them. Not saying the guy is this way. I have herd horror stories about a lot of cl mechanics. Lets say you took your bike to him to get the valves adjusted he could change the valve cover gasket and say he did the valves and you would never know the difference. Take it back to him next time he does the same thing your valves get so tight they start burning and wearing cams out. Its different if you know someone that knows what they are doing. Most backyard mechanics charge between 20 and 40 an hour.

 

Maybe i missed something but what's the issue your bike? There are a lot of very knowledgeable people here (me not being one) that probably have a lot more experience with these bikes than a cl guy who probably at some point went to school for bikes but learned about new ones. You have to think of it like this " You will never, find anyone who is willing to do as thorough of a job as you will" ( From the church of clean). "You can pay me now, or you can pay me (a lot more) Later....."

 

If you are like a fried of mine (fixing involves breaking it more, then calling someone (me) to do the work), that sounds like a good rate for what looks to be good service. Mobil repair, at your home, for $75/hr is cheap. It looks like he can work on anything from the early 70's up. See if you can get him to hook you up with four or five of his past customers so you can visit with them, or send him a small job (say an oil change, or checking the valve lash if you know that they are in spec) and see what he does.

 

Well I live in NYC. In a apartment building so up to now hadn't really been keeping up with tools... gave many away.. so just now starting to get some new tools.

I am not the most mecanically inclined person but I can follow instructions.

I just dont have alot of time and wanted to get the bike rideable for this summer... once the season is over I will bring it into my apartment and work on it over the winter.

As to money... The bike was almost a gift... so if i had to drop 600-700 to ride it for this summer I'd be happy.

I had a shop inspect it for me and they gave me a list of things to do on it.. PDF is some where around here and alot of it i cand o myself.

Anyone in the NYC area?

 

Ok. So in short order.

I tried for 4 days to get this guy to come out to see my bike. He was too busy had some kind of show this weekend I guess.

So I had the bike towed home.
Changed oil, oil filter, sparkplugs, cables and put the battery to charge with 2amp charger. Tested it.. was at 14 volt when I put it into the bike. Click the start button... bang... starts right away. Drove it to my friends tire shop. Where I will be able to use his tools to fix up what ever I need.

Best part is.. as I drive into my friends tire shop he says... hey. I dont like those lights on the back, and that color sucks... Want me to do something about it... and I said sure. So he changed the lights in the back right there and will be painting my bike from a light blue to all black. Then he looked at the engine said... that could use some work too. I guess going to have to buy him more whiskey.

 

Here's my first set of photos.