Thread: Roadster pickup getting closer

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I'm with you Ken!

It's funny, but I have seen some car part that I am familiar with, repackaged as a marine part, and the price is a couple times higher. Another thing that costs a lot is having a boat pulled from the water for any kind of service. There is a sliding scale depending on the length of the boat, and for example, we charge $9.50 per foot to pull a 40 footer out of the water, which = $ 380.00, and $ 50 to block it up on work stands. In addition, we charge $ 2.00 per foot per day while it is sitting on land, so that is another $ 80.00. Adding that up, if we lift a 40 footer the owner has spent $ 510.00 for the very first day, and that doesn't include our $ 95.00 per hour labor rate.

But the other side of the coin is that one of our travel lifts cost over $ 500,000.00 and the other smaller one cost $ 250,000.00. They also break fairly often and simple repairs on them can run $ 10,000 to $ 15,000.00 pretty fast. Plus, we are right on the water, so property is expensive as are taxes, insurance, and all that stuff. It is also a very tough, strange business to be in, but I have done it for about 20 years now and enjoy it.

Oh, Dan and I got a lot more done tonight on his motor. One more night should have it and the transmission sitting in the frame. We got all the valve train in, the intake and carbs installed, and lots of other parts bolted on for the last (hopefully) time. We will probably go straight to bed tomorrow after work because it is almost 3 am and we just got in, but Friday night we should be able to set it in there. Maybe Saturday we can try to fire it up for the first time.

Here is a picture I took tonight...........starting to look like a real motor, huh?

Don

On the boat thing there's the "ability to pay" quotient as well as somewhat less supply of service providers controlled by the limited availability of waterfront property devoted to repair/storage/maint. I learned about the "ability to pay" thing a few years back when I was in my Porsche period. I was doing a fuel filter change on the Rabbit and when I looked at the Bosch filter it looked familiar. I went over to the 911 looked at that fuel filter, the numbers were the same. Hmmmm. For grins I called the Porsche dealer to price check one from them. Seems that yellow and red box with the Porsche logos almost trippled the price. Expensive cardboard!

BTW Pops, who's job will it be to keep those soft plugs polished?

Looks very cool!