Engine swap.

[The MaDDeSTMaN]

This is a request for some help with LuvinmyEBs EB series II Falcon.

As many of you know, the last time it ran was much earlier this year when Melbourne and some of the areas near Melbourne had those nasty floods.

Since then, we have discovered that the mechanic we took it too tried to rip her off by saying she needed a new engine without even investigating properly what might have been wrong. "It's dry as a bone" when the intake manifold was over 1/2 full of water. He also claimed he tried to crank over the engine with a metal pole, which seems like an incredibly stupid thing to do to an engine which has stalled after being driven during floods without first checking to ensure the intake and cylinders aren't full of water. He also claims he did other work to check to see what the problem was, which was clearly never done.

Anyway.

Realistically, we have next to no chance of getting the mechanic to admit fault, and the ACCC doesn't want to know about it because no money changed hands for the assessment of what was wrong, which I suspect is because he did nothing and thought because he was dealing with a female he could rip her off by waiting a day, saying "I did this, this and this, your engine is dry and it would have happened anyway, you need a replacement engine" and expecting her to just say "ok, do it".

We also contacted the company (the mechanic works for a largish company), and they basically called us liars and aren't interested, despite us having proof that the work that was claimed to be done to discover the problem was NOT done. I would have thought they would have wanted to prevent the possible negative publicity that would arise if we went to the media, but it doesn't seem to bother them, probably because they have deep pockets and would possibly just attempt to take US to court or something, I don't know.

The only avenue we realistically have now is to bring the story to the media, but then it could come down to a case of their word against ours - with them claiming that the engine was stuffed when it arrived at their workshop and that they never said there was no water in it. Not a situation in which we have anywhere near 100% chance of things ending up any better.

Meanwhile, Nikkis beloved Falcon has been sitting, not going anywhere, and as each day goes by, it upsets her more and more. To some people it might "just" be a EB GLi Falcon, but to her it's the nicest, best, most reliable car she has ever owned. It means a lot to her, and it is breaking her heart each and every day it sits waiting for the old engine to be removed and a new one put in it's place.

Before we discovered the water inside the cylinders (5th and 6th) and intake manifold, we got a replacement engine and were planning on swapping it over. When we discovered that the mechanic had told us lies like that, and that the engine could possibly still be ok if he'd actually checked if there was water inside the cylinders and intake, and removed the water that was there, we decided to try and take some sort of legal action, because it seemed a clear case of a mechanic trying to rip off a customer. As I wrote above, it seems that the ACCC are not interested, and that we have no real options - the fu%ker has got away with it and will no doubt try and rip off other people - I know of a few other people he has tried to rip off in the same way by telling them their engine is stuffed when it was not beyond repair.

So, to the point of this post and thread.

Seeing as it seems we have no real options when it comes to getting any help or money out of the mechanic, I can't do an engine swap myself, the fact that we have an engine ready to go in and me being sick of seeing my girlfriend getting upset at not having her pride and joy running, I'm willing to give anyone $200 (it's all I can afford, being unemployed means that is the absolute limit) to come over, rip the old engine out, put the new engine in and get the EB back on the road.

Any questions or offers of interest/help please feel free to either reply to this thread or contact me via PM.

Thanks in advance, and I hope someone with the required knowledge and tools who sees this can please help us out.

Yours Sincerely,
Troy (aka The MaDDeSTMaN)