Looking to set up an engine building shop.

The milling/boring/lathe/grinding machines will be astronomically priced.

Be a lot cheaper if you just want to slap parts together.

 

I have a buddy with a machine shop in his basement/garage but he's owned it 25-30 years. He's retired now and said he would take 20K for everything the last time I talked with him. He was strictly automotive so I don't know how that plays out with diesel. He use to build race cars so it hasn't had heavy use. But he has everything from a sand blasting machine to a surfacer, drill press, lathe, and all the stuff to rebuild heads and bore blocks, etc. It's all big industrial stuff. Nothing cheap in his shop. I'll call him and ask if he still has it if you're interested.

 

You will need several speciality tools for each differnt large diesel.
First thing, you would want to motor manuals for these engines. These manual list the specific tools needed for rebuilding.
Like liner pullers. Unlike gas engines, rebuilding big diesel you have to pull the liners out and install new liners. You also have to mill the block, set liner heights these take special tools and the right machinest to do short blocks.
You also would need a large hot take and some with right equipment to magnaflux the block, heads, and the cranks and the experience person for this.
All these things are quite different compared to car engines.
You might be better off just setting up a normal garage to pull the engines and have arrangements with a large engine machine shop. This is the normal for serveral garages including most dealerships. Most of your dealerships will pull heads but send out the short blocks to be done by machine shop set up with all the equipment.

 

You will need a shop to pull the engines, and everything associated with that. Air compressor, air guns, air jacks, stands, transmission jacks, etc.

You will also need to get set up as a distributor for whatever company you use their rebuild kits. They will give you a discount on the kits. But beware. You must give a warranty. Any problems and you will be responsible to tear the engine down. If it is mechanic error, you eat it. Sometimes they will reimburse you for parts and labor, sometimes just parts, and sometimes neither.

I agree with flightline. Find a local machine shop that will give you a volume discount, and that will stand behind their work. Get in writing what their warranty is. Again, you will be on the hook for labor tearing the engine apart.

You will also need access to vendors for cranks, cams, and blocks.

At the very least, you will need liner pullers, dial gauges, micrometers, gear pullers, ring collapsing tools, feelers gauges, etc.

I would concentrate on pulling/ installing the engines, and putting them together. Machine shop work is very specific, and the equipment is expensive. Plenty of shops work this way. When you make enough money, you can always expand.

Whatever you don't know, learn. Do not rely on someone else if you do not have the knowledge. They can put you out of business. If you have done gas engines, you can do this, but it requires more knowledge.

And you must have more than one customer. If you only have one customer and you lose them, you have zero. For that reason, keep your start up costs low. Good luck.

 

We don't do any machine work so to speak, but we check things like like protrusion every time. I have always had better luck getting machine work outsourced. Heads I get a reman from dealer. I think the last DDECIV 12.7 head from Detroit was around 1500.00. Saves time going back. I have tried machine shops on big diesel heads and just never had any success.
I grew up in the diesel business never wanted my own shop I was happy working for a contractor. Three to six months at a time away from home pushed me to it. It took me 2 years to find one guy I let work without me right there in the next bay. Got lucky and found another, so I get to go trucking which I love to do. What I'm getting at is running that kind of set-up there is some back ground you may be missing I think is the way to put it. What if your lead man walks out in the middle of a unscheduled machine down failure? What if the guy doing the heads ruins a head and tries to hide it? How ever a business mindset is needed which you do have and I'm sure you will pick up the other part out of necessity. When I'm out on the road and a customer calls me its hard for me to say call and talk to Bobby at the shop unless he already has. When I'm home like now I let him run it I'm just a hand. The one thing to think about is with the needs of this one customer if it was that feasible to do why don't they do it there self strictly in house and truly cut out the middle man?

To answer your original question we have about 60,000.00 in shop tools. That doesn't include my hand tools or thiers, any mechanic worth his sand has his own hand tools. A lot more could be used we turn work out some times due to not having the special tools or being able to make them. It seems its 2 grand every time you turn around for a different tool kit. Just as an example the 3116 cat cost me 2500.00 for the kit to run the overhead on them. My universal liner puller was 800.00 won't work on 14.0 detroit. Cat timing grp 1500.00 from ebay. For what you are gonna do I would say 300000.00 would get the door open. Machine shop I use for small stuff just expanded cost them 200,000.00. But they bought out an existing shop for the equipment and moved it from Kansas.

 

You would have to call around to find out what the short blocks cost.The availability may not be there like auto engines.

My guess would be closer to $10,000 (from the manufacturer), more for Cat.

You may find a local shop that would build and sell you short blocks. Just watch they don't steal your business.