Troubles in paradise..
 

These are the times that try men's souls... the ending stretch of a project.

Been working hard to get the car done by the Good Guys Del Mar show and things were looking good. To help get stuff done I decided to trade cash for time and hire an electrician to tidy up the wiring in the car.

Now keep in mind that things like the headlights, turn signals and such worked before the rebuild and mainly required the reconnection of wires. I also wanted a 12v plug added (for a cell phone, etc), the wire ran to the switch for the electric trunk latch, horn button on the dash, wires ran to the various (already installed) sensors, and the gauge wiring cleaned up. Found a guy that charged a very reasonable $30 and hour to do the work and got him busy. That was three weeks ago.

He would come into the shop for a few hours each day, skipping some days. After awhile I got a bill for $405 (13.5 hours). At this point nothing worked, but I did see some new wires and I know electrical can be a pain. Last friday, when I was on vacation, I got a call from him saying that "I'm trying to hook up the speedo and the instructions reference a yellow wire, I can't find one??". I suggest he call Stewart Warner's tech line and ask (what am I supposed to do, he's the electrician and I'm not even there..) Turns out he didn't read all the instructions and there was an addendum about the yellow wire. hmmm.

So Friday he tells the guys at the shop that he want's to be paid again. How much? How about another $900 (30 hours). **** goes out to inspect the work for me and NOTHING works except the gauge lights. No turn signals, no brake lights, the headlights come one in high beam only and are very dim, no horn and worst of all not even the trunk latch was finished (it's a one wire deal, not even a ground wire). **** tells the guy that he needs to speak to me and that I'm not going to be happy. He was right.

Met the guy at the shop yesterday and proceeds to tell me I need to give him $900 more. I say "so, I supposed to give you $1300 and almost nothing works???" He says "well, that's the hours I have in it" and I ask "so how much more $$$ to finish, $1000? $2000?" and he says "I don't know"

So after 43 hours of working on my car he not only hasn't finished anything he doesn't even have a clue what more needs to be done. I asked why the easiest thing on the car, the trunk latch, doesn't even work and he says "It has a bad ground".. that's BS since we tested it during install by toucing the red wire to the battery.. was grounded fine. Then the excuses started (all my fault of course)

"It's wrong to ground the battery to the roll cage, the ground need to be ran to the starter"

"The switch panel is all wrong" (even though it worked fine before.. It's just switches)

"I was just doing what you wanted"

Uh, no... I told him how the car was wired and gave him carte blanch to do whatever he needed to make it work. If an old way to sound the horn was bad then he could come up with a better way. I'm NOT the electrician, I leave technical decisions to the "professionals". I should make it clear that the guy didn't work for Best Of Show, I hired him independently.

So, I'm mad and now behind schedual. I was going to pay him $600 but the more I looked at the work the madder I got. The final straw was later in the day when we started the car. I noticed the speedometer was acting erratic (car sitting still, engine running). When I reved the car the speedo moved! The guy hooked the tach wire to the speedo!!! Those wires even came marked from Speartech.. lol

Anyways, I hate being a jerk and not paying but I hate shelling out tons of cash for nothing. He has $405 and I might pay him another $200 or $400. I know the guy was there "putting in the time", but I think it was just over his head and he was unorganized. My angry side tells me to say "bite me, sue me in court if you want anymore $" but I hate being like that. I think I will have another electrician assess his work and give me an opinion. If it's all junk that needs to be redone he gets nothing, if there was good and proper work done he will get some. I want to be fair without getting screwed. Oh the drama...

So here I am, a week and a half to get my car done enough for Good Guys and I am missing basic fuctions like working fans, brake lights and head lights. argh!!!!!!!

Anyone know a GOOD electrician in SoCal? lol -- seriously, I need to find someone ASAP. I think I'm going to call some of the bigger shops and ask who they use.

The only good news is that he guys at Best Of Show had been doing great work on thier projects and I did make some progress when I worked on the car yesterday.

this is a long shot, but try scott, he use to live here but live sout there and works for spectre. worth a shot. 402 680 8853. tell him brian refured him.

Thanks, will call tomorrow.. I can do it but I just don't have the time off work to take and next weekend I am covering the Super Chevy show in Fontucky..

Super chevy show in Fontucky? Where? When? Im bored I want to go. 5 miles from Fontucky.

If you want it done right... the first time...

E&J Wireworks
14045 Kirkham Way, Suite 102
Poway, CA 92064

Phone: 858-748-3494

They are about 15 minutes south of Coachworks.

Thanks, will call them tomorrow.. the shop needs to find a good local source as well. :)

I put two tenths on my odometer with the car ideling.. my speedotachometer is the newest and latest craze!!

Wow that sucks. I would have someone else do it, and ask them if this other guy should be paid. Don't feel too bad, my car is not going to make the deadline either. Just found out I have wrong supercharger parts and some stuff had not been sent yet.

That sucks.. I was going to arrange for your car to be parked by my old '69.. that would have looked super cool :)

Going to come down and check out the event anyways?

The sad part is that I have a whole new American Autowire rear loom, he could have just spliced it in.

It should be noted that my car doesn't have the stock wiring, there is no OEM fuse panel, so it's a bit trickier.. but it all worked before the rebuild.

My car has a new wiring system as well, and had a few light issues with it, (ie horn, fuel pump, head light door) but other then that everything is neat and works fine. I doubt that I will be down there if the car cannot be finished. I will be there for the next major show whenever that is, let me know and Ill make plans for it. I'm an electrician and I would not touch the wiring in these cars either, and I charge a lot more then $30 per hour. Having your car and my done would be the reason why I went down in the first place, and now both cars won't be there. At least mine won't. Sorry to hear that Steve.

Just to give you an idea of the quality of the work they do, here are some pictures of their typical work. These pictures are of McMillans prerunner for M&M PRO truck. You can also find more on their web site, http://www.enjwireworks.com/

During:
http://www.enjwireworks.com/photo/ph..._MMtruck03.jpg

And what it looks like when completed:

Finished:
http://www.enjwireworks.com/photo/ph..._MMtruck05.jpg