Only thing worse is chassis work.

I do manual transmission and rear end set-up for a side hustle and engines for some people. I don't see how shop owners can get anything done while answering phone calls.

Gus

Here the better shops are backed up months with customer parts stacked up all over the place. When you call if your lucky enough to get someone to answer the phone they tell you they are way too busy and to take your parts elsewhere. These shops don't have physical floor space for more machines, or people to run them to get the work done faster. To be fair there is not a whole bunch of youth even wanting anything to do with this line of work anyways so finding workers is a challenge. One guy I know who used to work for a machine shop that closed went back to work at the grocery store job he had before as the pay was basically the same.

Yep, keep hearing this. No one wants to do this stuff anymore.

You must have a pretty rigorous vetting process. How many you say "no thanks" to before they become a customer?

The conversation usually begins with "can you", "will you" or "how much". The guy who starts with the last one is usually better told no. Guys who aren't stupid or squirrels know what stuff costs. Or they don't care and just want it done.

To be honest very few. I would say daily driver stuff is more headache. Somebody calls, if it’s something I don’t want to do I’m honest and say no. I’m at a point in my life I do what I like. And when I want. When it’s race season a customer can wait, or go elsewhere. It would be easy to be busy every day. But my full time days are over.
Doug