The saga continues...

$3000 budget and mech thought it would be 3 weeks.

9.5 weeks later - $4700 to mech + machine shop and $2500 to Monster Transmissions...

and it is getting ugly.

Car was "ready" on Friday.
- No more powerful than before (even though my engine was trashed before rebuild and 200-4R has deeper 1st & 2nd)
- Automatic shifting not working right - manual shifting OK
- Bottom end noise... wtf?!?!?!?

Drove car for about 10 min and it is back at the mechanic. He thinks the noise was the fuel pump and will be replacing it. If it really is an engine noise, I'm going to lose it. It sounded the same as before the rebuild!


Transmission wise... This has been very frustrating.
200-4R w/torque converter & complete kit is supposed to be fairly plug and play.
- Cross member didn't fit - mech had to cut it down in the middle
- Torque converter 1 didn't fit transmission
- Torque converter 2 didn't fit flywheel
- New flywheel sent - doesn't have the anti-crack plate (they say it is heavy duty and doesn't need it)
- Very loud clanging (not grinding) noise when starting car. Figured this is just a starter/shim thing but mech says something about teeth
- Very improper shifting points, getting stuck in gears, etc. Monster says TV cable needs adjustment. Mechanic says they adjusted it so much that the cable is now worn... and that they believe it is a stuck throttle body, not the cable.
Monster says that is probably not the case and that they probably didn't adjust correctly then drove it too much, destroying parts of the transmission and voiding the warranty on it.



The mix-ups from Monster cost me about $650 in additional labor (all of the trans/tq/flywheel install/remove/install/remove/etc).

Transmission might be busted and not covered by warranty... (it has been in my car less than a week - brand new build! It isn't even being driven)

This, to me, is a situation where monster should consider themselves into me for $650 for the labor costs on their screwups.... and the mechanic is into me for whatever it takes to get the transmission going.

But it's not that simple. Monster folks are being patient and nice - though I have to push them a little bit to get them to be helpful.
My mechanic, however... (who has my car just because of a friend-of-a-friend situation)... is a hot tempered, finger pointing redneck who goes from buddy to enemy when I so much as mention that something may have not been adjusted properly.

Clearly I need to be away from this mechanic. But clearly he is responsible for any damage he may have done...

I think the battle to extract dollars out of this guy would be epic and dangerous. Literally.
The guy brags about stories of violence... then when my girlfriend and I dropped off my new Diamondback red line tires, some guy came in complaining about the ball joints on his truck being "bone dry." The mech and the guy immediately escalated... while a couple of other guys opened drawers for supplies - one drawer had long wrenches and the other had a handgun... and just about ran the guy out of there.

My car is at his shop now. Monster has offered whatever labor is required to get things going again, short of a transmission rebuild if the mech destroyed it.
So hopefully today or tomorrow he'll have completed the fuel pump switch and I can have it towed to monster.

Whether or not the mech has done good work, I'm not comfortable leaving my car there anymore.

Soooo....

Step 1. Tow car from mech to Monster
Step 2. Flywheel/starter noise situation
Step 3. Determine the adjustments required (or extend of damage to transmission)
Step 4. If the transmission or something is damaged and requires work, I'll consider myself as having a $650 tab at monster... If it is a bad piece of equipment, I'll consider that to be Monster warranty. If there are no costs associated, I need to pursue Monster for $$$. If there are costs and they are significant, I need to find a way to pursue the mechanic without endangering the car or humans... If they aren't significant, I'll probably let them come off the 'tab' and not create enemies over it.



Ugh.