I've been thinking about getting rims for my '68 I6 for a while now. Yesterday I went down to the vintage mustang shop we have in town. The mechanic there I've worked with before and seems to be trustworthy. He said he's got a mustang that was just sideswiped and thrown into a pole. They're parting the car out now, and the mechanic offered to do a five lug conversion on my car, for about $600 for the parts from the crashed car, and said it would take 4-5 hours to do the conversion on my car at $90 an hour. The mechanic says he's checked out the car, and he had done a lot of resto on the car in the weeks before the crash, and he says it looks good. He also said that if any of the parts needed for this conversion turned out to be bad he would replace them and it wouldn't add to the $600.
What do you think? Is $600 for used parts good? $90 and hour is steep but he works on these cars for a living, and finding a mechanic that knows what they're doing can be hard around here.
I feel guilty because I just spent $1000 on brakes, but I know i'd feel more guilty if some day i want to do a V8 conversion and I had spent $1200 on semi-custom rims for my 4 lug pattern, that would have to be changed with the V8.

 

Sounds good to me if he is a trustworthy mechanic and replaces any bad parts as he said.

(Sits back and gets ready for the arguments)

 

Take him up on the offer, you'll live to regret it if you don't. That is a sweet deal.

 

Get the price in writing and what you will get for it. When it comes to good deals and “sounding to good to be true� it just may be, until you get the bill for a lot more. All reliable mechanics are great people until they bone ya the first time. Then it's to late.

Good luck

 

I couldn't have said that any better myself!

 

The $600 includes the labor? or just the parts? If it is both that's a good deal!

 

I agree with the others. It sounds like a good deal.

 

Granted, the parts can be bought at a cheaper price by robbing a Granada or Monarch, then refurbish any worn parts, but the 600 dollars is a fair price.....not a bargain. The 270 bucks of labor may sound a bit steep, but not really when you figure he will be guaranteeing his work. So, for around 900 bux, you will have a used set of disk brakes. For around a grand, you can have a brand new set-up, and all you have to do is do the work yourself. Tough choice. I think I would either go with the Granada swap, or buy a new system and do the work myself. My 2c