Da Groj

I have a fairly well equipped garage and some free time and would like to generate some money to pay for events and tires and stuff.
I would charge $25.00 and hour for things like

-swapping shocks
-springs
-bushings
-basic alignments, I have a quality camber gauge and toe plates, no $10k platform with lasers though.
-welding, TIG (not aluminum) and MIG
-corner balance
-and other minor repairs and enthusiast improvements on cars.
No clutches, engines or transmissions to start with.

Prefer if you can do most of the wrenching and heavy-lifting, but I'll be 100% over your shoulder making sure everything is done right!

I'm tired of working in the summer heat! So, I'm limiting availability to October through March.

PM me for details and availability.

Joe

Man your cheap!
I have a few things I need tig welded. Nothing that will kill me if it breaks.

jmdoc66 wrote:Man your cheap!
I have a few things I need tig welded. Nothing that will kill me if it breaks.

I will see how it goes at this rate, if I need to raise it I will.

I envy your free time....

Cheap shop time for a licensed mechanic is $65/hour.

PM sent. I need an alignment on the Mustang!

Ok, everyone is telling me I am tooo cheap, I am unable to edit the original posts for some reason so I will bump the price a little to $25.00/hr unless I have already communicated with you. We will see how that works.

Are you charging by "book hours", or by how long it takes ?

Solar wrote:Are you charging by "book hours", or by how long it takes ?

Actual time.

jbrannon7 wrote:Ok, everyone is telling me I am tooo cheap, I am unable to edit the original posts for some reason so I will bump the price a little to $25.00/hr

Fixed the original post for you.

Stopped by Joe's today for the alignment on the Mustang. Joe does an excellent job and absolutely takes care to make sure you are 100% satisfied in his work.

Thanks again Joe!

I sent you PM, my Miata needs an alignment.

Joe did a great job with my car. fixed my toe problem in the rear and a tiny bit more camber in the front. Most importantly, the steering wheel is now perfectly straight! I'm sure I'll be back again.

Actually this thread probably would be easier to find in the Vendor's section?

Joe has a lift in his garage and nice clean tools. His rates are so fair and results so good I bought him dinner with FAST afterwards Monday nite.

It's great to have someone actually explain the voodoo of wheel alignment bolts without lasers vs unstandardized non- zeroed alignment machines with green and red zones.
Needless to say the car tracks straight without hands on the wheel so it's a Tesla? Get your tires mounted/balanced at Carl McKim's and then aligned/repaired at Joe Brannon's.

Joe will do lots of other stuff too but it's hard to MIG weld plastic on a vette Get your scary quotes from the big box and then call or pm Joe.

Joe, thanks for the afternoon well spent - was a pleasure to find an ounce of inner motivation to get a bit of work done on the german princess.

With those new mounts in place, idle and low speed are world's better. Unfortunately, during the ride home it appears my fix didn't solve the acceleration shudder... need to go back to the drawing board; probably CV's or... hopefully not the trans!

Never the less - great setup, great time and some great ideas!

While I've been farting around with the FASTiva, I sent the S10 over to Joe for some love. Joe did front brakes and wheel bearings, flushed the brake fluid, did a front wheel alignment, and a couple other little odds and ends. I like having someone I can trust to take care of things like that, and Joe's labor rates are more than reasonable.

After driving it around a bit, I can say that the brakes definitely feel better (combination of better pads, and fresh fluid with good bleed) and the steering feels much better in transitions (had too much toe-in and not enough caster before). Best of all, I didn't have to put too much thought or time into it!

Thanks, Joe!

Joe did my eccentric bolts and alignment. After a bit of tweaking the car feels great. Thanks again Joe!

twistedwankel wrote:Get your tires mounted/balanced at Carl McKim's and then aligned/repaired at Joe Brannon's.

I did just that! I already gave a s/o to Carl and the tires, so here's my $0.02 for Joe. Great guy and well equipped! I am super happy with the alignment on the Corolla. No more sloppy toe-out, and a bit of camber on the front. Glad to have spent the time there with him; I learned a lot. Thanks again!

Maybe I'll try to adjust the toe on the MR myself when it needs it, screw it up and send it over to Joe's .

Amphoteric88 wrote:

twistedwankel wrote:Get your tires mounted/balanced at Carl McKim's and then aligned/repaired at Joe Brannon's.

I did just that! I already gave a s/o to Carl and the tires, so here's my $0.02 for Joe. Great guy and well equipped! I am super happy with the alignment on the Corolla. No more sloppy toe-out, and a bit of camber on the front. Glad to have spent the time there with him; I learned a lot. Thanks again!

Maybe I'll try to adjust the toe on the MR myself when it needs it, screw it up and send it over to Joe's .

Thanks, was a nice morning.

Took the Evo to Joe's install new adjustable front sway bar end links(already have rear ones) so he could do a corner balanced.

The initial corner weights me not being in the car were...
LF 1103 RF 897
LR 509 RR 711

Very left front heavy without me even being in it!

After some hours of adjusting the ride heights(lots of lowering the car, get in car, weighing it, raising it back up, take wheel off, adjust ride height here and there, put wheels back on, lowering it, and then weighing it again). The car's final corner weights were, with me in it...
LF 1088 RF 1031
LR 684 RR 645

He was able to get it damn close to 50% cross weights with me in the car(car weigh'd 3448 with me in it )

Out with the old


In with the new


At Joe's and got it level'd


Initial corner weights(me not in it)


Up and down, and up and down, and up and down.... couple hours later.... up and down


Final corner weights(me in it)


Finally, all done


I will def go back to Joe's if/when I need some tinkering done with the car. Places charge 4, 500 bucks when doing a corner balance. To get the car leveled, swapping front end links(took longer than expected since one would not come off) and corner balance, it took 4 hours. He is very helpful and knows so much about suspension tuning and autocross(well anything motorsports related). I had a bunch of random questions for him about car setup, autocross, and driving related things. Very easy to talk to and very informative!

Thanks Joe!