<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 9pt">Hello all. I wanted to get your feedback &amp; thoughts on who you use for engine repair, tuning, maintenance.

</span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 9pt">I have been in the hobby for 15 years+ and started with the ol' cox engines. Like many, I have moved away from CL to .40s 61setc.Along with a variety of Saitos. Lately I am migrating into 20 to 50cc gassers.
As for independent shops not affiliated with the Hobbico &amp; Horizon giants - there aren't many. </span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt"></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 9pt">A Google search shows basically two names. BJ's and Andy's. I understand that BJ's is looking to retire or sell (or both). I am interested in starting my own shop for our hobby. I have been tinkering, rebuilding, and modifying engines since Iwas a teen. I am a mechanic with an engineer heart~ with a background in professional aviation.</span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt"></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 9pt">My questions to you are:</span></div><ul type="disc" style="margin-top: 0in">[*]<span style="font-size: 9pt">Would an independent shop be someone you would do business with? </span>[*]<span style="font-size: 9pt">What types of repair/services would make the top 5 list?</span>[*]<span style="font-size: 9pt">Who would be the best wholesaler for parts? </span>[*]<span style="font-size: 9pt">Do most people just repair it themselves?</span>[*]<span style="font-size: 9pt">The move away from glow ~ is it a dying era?</span>[*]<span style="font-size: 9pt">Are Li-pos taking over leaving the gas engines in demand?</span>[/list]<span><span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman'"></span></span><span style="font-size: 9pt">Is it worth it?!?!?!?!

My goal is to have quality work at a fair price backed up with great customer service. Asmall business that understands the hobbyist. I want to get involved with the various manufactures tohandle warranty work and repair center for my region (</span><span style="font-size: 9pt">Colorado</span><span style="font-size: 9pt">). Customers can use an interactive website to submit work orders, track progress, as well as secure payments.</span>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt"></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 9pt">I envision most guys sending in their engines that need cleaning;bearings replaced; crash repairs (from teardown inspection to replacing bodies/components) and even breaking in and setups.With today&rsquo;s busy life, we just want to get out there &amp; get airborne!
After chatting with a couple of fellow hobbyist that started smalldoing their own hardware and exhaust building... now theyare busy running their largercompany taking care of many orderswithencouraging success.</span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt"></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 9pt">What are your thoughts and observations? I welcome your feedback &ndash; positive or negative.</span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt"></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 9pt">Best regards,</span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt"></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 9pt">Jay</span></div>

Ben there tried that. I will say this please DON'T DO IT. If you are a family man.

All the best,
Konrad

Jay, i rebuild my own engines. Like you, I've been a mechanic, fix it guy for all my life. I've also ran my own business.Some questions you have to ask yourself and give an honest answer. How much would you be willing to pay to say, have new bearings put in an engine. How long is it going to take you to do that job. Now divide the amount you would pay by the time you would spend on the task. Now knock off for lights, tools, cleaning solutions, ultra sonics, the engine you damage that you have to buy the parts for and then see how all this stacks up to a living wage.

Iused to dorepairs and modifications on gemstone faceting machines. I probably made $2.00 an hour for my time. I still have stainless steel stock I bought to make parts from, Worn out tool bits and none of that was paid for out of the two bucks I made.

Someone like Clarence Lee, who has been in the business of fixing engines for decades, can make a go of it because 1, he is well known and well respected in his field , and 2. he does stuff no one else would want to do. IEhelicoil a glow plug thread, or repair a stripped exhaust port thread on a four stroke. These are task that while they are not difficult to do, require special tooling. It will cost me about $25 bucks to get the threads restored in a 4 stroke head. It would cost about $150 for the tooling to do it. You have to do a bunch to just pay for the tooling, let alone your time. If you can do 50 a month, the cost of tooling isn't bad, but if you do one a month, the job is eating your lunch.

Now, if you already have the special tooling, lathe, mill and such, time is the issue and if it isa hobby, then every thing works.

One last point, there are fewer and fewer stinky noisy engines at the field anymore. More and more electrics.

Don

Everyone I personally new that turned this hobby into a business no longer flies RC anymore, and also closed the business after about 5 to 8 years. Same thing happened to my wife when she opened up a photography business, she just doesnt have the heart in it anymore to just have fun. I know some that make it work but the ones I personally know threw the towel in, too much trouble and customers expect a lot of freebies. I do my own repairs and occasionally help guys at the club and fix their engines. Even after retirement, I wouldnt be interested in doing it as a business. Just from what I've seen here on RCU, some of these problems are manufactoring issues and defects with poor quality from the factory. I would bet that you would see a lot of those. Examples would be miss adjusted walbro regulator diaphrams, timing not set right, crankshaft end play and the list goes on. I think parts would be a problem on those engines. I'm sure guys would be sending you those chinese rejects that end up on the market they bought for a good deal, that turned into lemons.
I'm sure there is a need, but what a hassel.
Edwin

And another thing, I wouldnt do warrenty work.

Overhead is a big issue, even with a good buiness plan, the hiden cost can blind side you. You'll need to advertise, most customers use the internet, so you'll need a website and someone who knows how to set it up so it's not listed last in a search with a million hits.
If your going to be a one person shop, that means you have also handle parts, inventory, the phone, e-mails, etc, plus do the repairs. Are you going to test run each repair ? If so you now have more timeand add fuel cost. Then add a unhappy customer or two, and you have your hands full.
I'm a retired aircraft mech also, and no matter how good you are at wrenching, there well be that one engine that was sent to you straight from he11, that well burn up huge amounts of time and money. And the owner well get POed and slam your name/buiness all over the internet. It may not happen very often, but once is enough to shoot you down in the age of the www.
I built a 351 C for a 70 Mark 1 a while back. Ran awesome when it left the shop, by the time he got home , it was barely limping. Had to have the car towed back to the shop . I had done several performance mods on the engine.Roller rockers pushrod guides and hardend pushrods. The pushrodswere flawed, as they had not been heat treated right and the guide worn right thru some of the pushrods. It was an easy fix, but it cost me lots of time and money in thelong runfor a mistake that I didn't make. It's the stuff you shouldn't have to deal with , that well get you.

Trying to make a profit from something you like to do can suck the fun right out of it.

I think the trend these days is that if you're adventurous enough to learn and master internal combustion motors, then you're more likely to perform your own maintenance/rebuilds, etc.

At least this is how it turned out for me.

One of the hardest lessons you'll have to learn is that time is money. Fix it and ship it out the door. No cleaning up or tinkering around to get it perfect. It's hard to work on engines that way when you have to turn a profit every day.

There are people that don't work on their own engines????

I would tend to discourage it myself too. But maybe if you were in an area where you could repair the utlility engines also. making house calls to perform minor maintenance on lawn tractors might be good if the local area homeowners are affluent enough.
As I see it, there are many small engine repair shops all around, they are barely hanging in there already. But they can repair most any of the small gasoline engines already. So you would be competing with someone who works on the small utlility engines already. Now if there aren't any small engine repair shops in your area, then you might have something to go on. But you'll be repairing weedeaters, lawnmowers, leaf blowers, lawn tractors, and so on. But even then, people will choke gag and puke at the cost. usually it winds up being cheaper to go and buy a new one. But if someone doesn't know how to change the oil on their spiffy lawn tractor they deserve to pay what it costs to have a shop do it for them.
For the guys that had trouble with their model airplane gas engine, I usually suggest the local small engine repair shop anyway. The shop usually has all the parts to rebuild the pumper carbs on the engines anyway. usually the owner screwed up the carb somehow. The inexpensive gas engines tend to be throw away items just like the inexpensive Asian glow engines, so repairing them is a iffy proposition as parts are hard to get.

Case in point, have you ever priced a NIKASIL cylinder , piston and rings? Throw away engines[] too true. A friend brought me a polaris ATV to tune up. He paid $1000. for it used. When it was started you could hear the piston slap at idle, ting, ting, ting. Lower skirt was excessively worn. I priced a new NIKASIL cylinder, piston and rings and it was over $400.00 not including my labor.[] he brought the thing to the scrap yard.

I've also turned a hobby into a business. Best way to ruin a good hobby. I do fix engines for friends but only as part of the hobby. I don't charge except for parts. Occasionally someone will give me a can of fuel.

Denis

I do the same thing, just like to help out. But every once and awhile a case beer shows up on the shop doorstep. Just easier to play it forward than try to charge for it.

If there was something I would have you do for me it would be pull the cam bearings on OS 4 stroke engines that had been in there for years of use with castor based fuel. I always have a problem with that.

Now to give you something different to think about. Are you ready to work with the general public? The general public is not as nice as all of us on RCU. And they will balme you when something unrelated to what you did on the engine goes wrong with the engine. If you want to know how I know this I could tell you many stories from when I was doing RC radio work and was a gold sticker station for the AMA.

I will repair my own engines as long as it only involves replacing parts, anything that involves actual machine work and I will send it to Clarence Lee.


I'm sure there is a market for engine repair service, but dealing with cranky old modelers and the public in general, no thanks............ It might work for you though, good luck sir.

Keep it a hobby.

I'm also a ham radio operator. I worked full time selling two-way 800 MHz trunked business radio systems in the eighties. The owners also owned an internationally known ham radio shop where I worked Friday evenings and most Saturdays for hobby money. Instead of talking with hams on the radio, I was selling them radio gear and accessories. It ruined the hobby for me, just working in the hobby and not owning the business. I'm back to ham radio, but it has never been the same since I worked in the field. Had I a chance to do it all over again - I wouldn't. I'm sure that working in the R/C engine repair business would suck even worse than clerking in a ham radio store.


Ed Cregger

I think we see a common theme here.
Edwin

Well guys,
Thank you for your bold honesty and perspective.  Some very good points along with some thoughts I didn't consider.  That's what I love about this forum- you get the answers you seek.  People on here are indeed nice and helpful.

I am reevaluating my idea.  I sure don't want to kill the fun out of this hobby.  I will most likely just continue to help out my fellow modelers when needed ( beer is good!)  and take on a project or two when needed.  The comments about the poor quality from the engine companies is a sure fact.  Not built in Italy anymore!    I don't want a headache with all of it considered.

Thanks again for your time and input!  Keep'em coming.

Have a safe 2011.

</p>

Don't quit your day job

Thanks... never planned on it! 

At the risk of hijacking this thread, the cam bearings on the O.S and Mag engines are not a problem if you approach them right. Well now that I think about it, it isn't hijacking the thread after all. The bearings are a good example of time related issues with your own shop. It take me about 30 minutes per bearing to remove them and the only special tool is a short length of 5mm drill rod polished down about 0.1MM, and a small hammer and a bit of jewelers sprue wax. It is slow and tedious, so if your shop rate is $40 an hour, you have $40 of time just in removing the bearings, let alone the work on the rest of the engine. Say you can get the bearings for $5 each, you will put in at least 1.5 hours in the project, Remember the job isn't done until the paper work is done. Not many people are willing to contribute $70 to have the bearings replaced.

The paper work end is another issue. Unless you are doing everything under the counter, you have all kinds of paper work to contend with. Your Fed and State income tax, Sales Tax, Business License, and as soon as you advertise as Engine Repair, the hazardous waste stuff kicks in, not just the paper work but the extra cost of disposal of oily stuff. You can get by with the small amount of waste generated doing the hobby, but once it is a business a lot of people get interested.

As pointed out before, the hidden cost are killers. When I opened my store, Ifound I had to get a building permit to finish out the box I was renting. The Ifound I had to have a Neon sign of a specific size and I had to have a permit for that. That lousy sign that Ihad to pay to have fixed every time it rained and then pay to have it taken down when I closed the store cost me over $6K, and that was 1994 money. By the time Iturned on the OPENsign, Iwas having serious questions about what I had done to myself and my retirement fund. The 5 year lease didn't leave me many options other than tough it out.

As stated before a hobby that becomes a job is not something you will enjoy for long, and you can't just quit and go find another job.

Keep it fun and maybe a case of barley pop will show up on your door step and you and who ever brought it can drink some and share stories. More fun that chasing down bounced checks.

Don

<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 9pt">One company that comes to mind is BME. They went through up's and down's, health, family problems
and so on for years but always had great engines. I am still flying BME's ,, love them.

As BME found out, all the above posts are true, but if you have the guts for it, I hope you
create an even better engine so I can buy one.

Are you thinking of starting a new engine line or just fixing other peoples stuff?

Tim</span></div>

8 months ago I started a small buiness,nothing huge, just making andsellingnatural healthcare products made at home. Buget for the project was $1500.00 to get the buisness where we were ready to take on line orders. and have product in stock. Now keep in mind, I'm the one designing and building the website, products, etc. Anything and everything has been done inhouse. and before I had any product in stock to sale,I had spent$3500.00. And this is just a small little MA and Pa operation, with a small customer base.
Luckily my mother inlaw is a Corp. Lawyer and her counsel was free, but there fee's and Lic's and things you never thought of before, thatneed to be done. You need to protect yourself and become an LLC or something that covers your butt. And paperwork out the wazzoo !!! I don't want to get on a rank here, but for something so small and simple to start with, really got big fast. Shipping, tracking, account keeping,staying square with uncle sam and state and local taxes , the list just goes on and on.
So bottom line? Beer is always good, and makes me a jolly good fellow. ,and a small buiness will drive you to drinking. Hmmm put that way, it don't sound so bad!

I wonder what hurdles Aeroworks had to overcome to make his company as well known as it is. I know he uses a chinese factory to produce the airplanes, but they are solid!