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My name is Jeff, and I'd like to welcome you on a journey of reflection and insight into the tolls and triumphs of a career in automotive repair.
After more than 20 years of skinned knuckles and tool debt, I want to share my perspective and hear other people's thoughts about our industry.
So pour yourself a strong coffee or grab a cold Canadian beer and get ready for some great conversation.
Zeb Beard [00:00:05]:
He busted a radiator hose on the way home, but he won't know why I didn't put radiator hoses on it. But he told me he was broke. That was all the money that he had, and he had spent a lot of money on it. He really did. He spent way more than what he should have. Truck need to be still sitting in the weeds. That's Zeb beard on this week's episode of the JD Mechanic podcast. Thanks for listening.
Zeb Beard [00:00:24]:
This is part two of a conversation that Jeff and Zeb started last week. Wrapping it up today. If you haven't listened to last week's episode, make sure you go back and do that as well. But right back where we left off, here's Zeb beard on this week's episode of Jaded Mechanic.
Jeff Compton [00:00:46]:
We had that 84 Dodge camper van, and when it came in, it was initially just a safety. And then, of course, it gets into the whole, well, what do you want to do with this thing? Well, we want to drive it across country. You want to drive what? This thing across country? Like, a 1984 Dodge Ram B 250 van, carbureted. And it's one of those, like, I've messed with enough carburetors, and, you know, but, like, it's got a two barrel holley on it, which I don't remember, uh, ever being put on a ram. Ever dodged a two barrel holley.
Zeb Beard [00:01:24]:
I don't remember, like, Carter's or some.
Jeff Compton [00:01:26]:
Carters or, you know, but whatever. So I'm like, okay, cool. But it's. I didn't work on a lot of the. The after emissions carburation on Chrysler.
Zeb Beard [00:01:34]:
Right?
Jeff Compton [00:01:34]:
Like, all my friends, I had a friend with a. He's got a 440 and a little red express, essentially a warlock, but a little, you know, it's a warlock, so don't have the side pipes, but he had a 440 and that. And I remember we were in high school, started thrashing on that thing, right? So I didn't work on a lot of the eighties stuff, but I know I can. I can set up a carburetor to make it work. And you know how you get into one of these, and it's like all the vacuum lines to everything are plugged off, and there's no electric choke, and the heat riser that's supposed to. Has been plugged, and it's just like, where do you start? So we get into this, and we safety it, and we go for a drive, and it's like, won't stay running. And this is after we changed the fuel sender in the tank because they said this fuel center doesn't work. So I did the diagonal.
Jeff Compton [00:02:22]:
I'm like, that center is bad. Put a sender in it. Then they said all that. It ran fine when we got here. Well, I can tell you, when I took the tank down to take the sender, that gas was terrible. Like, I don't. I didn't bother to pour it on the floor and see if I could light it on fire, right, that test. But it stunk.
Jeff Compton [00:02:38]:
Like, it was like three year old gas. He's like, no, we just. We just filled that up last week. So we kept going through this thing, and it would, like, it would load up, and if it's sitting idle, it would start to load up. And then you couldn't get it to stay running. And then you had to kind of like. Like it was boiling the gas or something. Aeration or whatever, ended up being whatever.
Jeff Compton [00:02:59]:
Took off. Return line. Return line. Plugged, messed with it. Finally got it good. So we got it running really good or better. So we stay running. Pissed around with a carburetor, pissed around with the ignition system on it.
Jeff Compton [00:03:12]:
Got it good. Give it back to the guy named, like, you need to go fill that up with gas. Like, your fuel shot. Well, he brought it back a week later for some more work and had fresh gas in it. Holy crap. Did it ever run better with just the fuel? But he argued with us that that gas is, like, only a week old, and it can't be. I'm like, I don't care if it's a week old. People get bad gas from stations all the time.
Jeff Compton [00:03:35]:
Like, he went to the reservation and got it, which, I'm nothing. I do that, too, because I don't pay tax on it, but, you know. But the way they argue with you is just like, listen, I don't even want to be working on this thing, man. Like, it's really, you know, I mean.
Zeb Beard [00:03:50]:
I offended him right away, but he. He was. The whole time, he was like, well, you know, I'm not in a hurry. You know, it was my dad's truck. I'm not in a hurry and all this. So I would just kind of. I'd work on it here, and I'd work on it there, you know, when I. When I had time.
Jeff Compton [00:04:07]:
Yeah.
Zeb Beard [00:04:08]:
And I don't. I'm not in a hurry. So finally he. What he would get. He would kind of get ugly with Susie, but he. When he talked to me, it was. He was cool, you know?
Jeff Compton [00:04:16]:
Yeah.
Zeb Beard [00:04:17]:
So one day he kind of got ugly with Susie. So I texted him back. I was like, look, man, I'm doing the best I can here. I said, but it's like this truck was taken from a shop that had been in business, and it had a long time and had a bunch of parts that they had taken off over the years that were faulty and built a truck out of it. I said, that's what I'm fighting here. Every. Everything.
Jeff Compton [00:04:39]:
Yeah.
Zeb Beard [00:04:39]:
On this truck has got some sort of problem.
Jeff Compton [00:04:41]:
Yeah.
Zeb Beard [00:04:43]:
And he kind of got offended by it, and I mean, rightfully so, but I don't know. It just went from bad to where. I mean, the instrument cluster doesn't even work in this truck.
Jeff Compton [00:04:53]:
Yeah.
Zeb Beard [00:04:54]:
So I told him, I said, this truck's been extremely hot. That's why we're having all these issues. You know, a lot of the issues that we're having. I mean, a lot of the sensors on the engine were bad. The high pressure oil pump was bad. I put one of those on him. On for him for free, as a matter of fact. Didn't charge him anything, of course.
Zeb Beard [00:05:11]:
He claims that there was nothing wrong with it, that, you know, we had to put injectors in it. We charged him for the injectors. He was mad about that. He said it didn't need injectors. And I don't know. It's a big. It's a big old mess. I even offered the day we really got into it, the biggest.
Zeb Beard [00:05:29]:
No, that wasn't the biggest. The day I was about ready to call it quits on the truck, I said, look, you know your bills, like $9,000 right now. I tell you what I'll do. I won't charge you anything. We've already put the cups in. We put a radiator in it. We've done this, we've done that. We've replaced sensors.
Zeb Beard [00:05:49]:
We've done all this stuff. I pull my injectors back out, you can come get the truck, and I won't charge you anything.
Jeff Compton [00:05:58]:
Yep.
Zeb Beard [00:05:59]:
Won't cost you anything. Or if I keep going, I'm gonna put you a high pressure oil pump on this truck. I'm gonna do that, and I'm not gonna charge you anything for that, but you're gonna pay me the other 9000 that you owe me. I said, which do you want to do? He could have got out right then, right? He didn't take it. He had me go ahead. So I go ahead, and here we are. And then I even offered him this. He called back, you know, after the big hose busted deal and all this stuff.
Zeb Beard [00:06:31]:
He claims the truck won't run now, and it may not. It may or may not have anything to do with what I did, but it won't run. He says, and I said, tell you what I'll do. I said, you bring me my injectors and my cups, which if, you know, on a seven three, you have to thread a tool in them and pull them out.
Jeff Compton [00:06:53]:
Yeah.
Zeb Beard [00:06:53]:
I said, you bring me my cups. Because he said it was still getting diesel in the fuel. I didn't put the cups in. Right. I said, you bring me my cups, bring me my injectors and bring me my radiator and I'll give you. I'll refund your whole entire bill. Bill. And he said no.
Zeb Beard [00:07:08]:
And I knew right there. I knew right there that he's. He's pulling some shit on me.
Jeff Compton [00:07:15]:
Yeah, because he doesn't want to do that work. Right. He doesn't want to do that.
Zeb Beard [00:07:19]:
Well, he said he was. That he needed all his money back because he was going to have to take it somewhere else and get them to fix it. Right. And I said, okay, we can do that. I said, I'll give you a full refund. I'll give you a refund right now. I said, but I want my parts back. I want my cups, I want my radiator and I want my injectors.
Zeb Beard [00:07:37]:
And then you get your full refund. You can take it somewhere else.
Jeff Compton [00:07:40]:
Yeah, start over.
Zeb Beard [00:07:41]:
And then you start over.
Jeff Compton [00:07:42]:
Yeah.
Zeb Beard [00:07:43]:
He wouldn't do it. So what does that tell you right there?
Jeff Compton [00:07:46]:
Cuz he don't have another option. He knows.
Zeb Beard [00:07:49]:
Yeah.
Jeff Compton [00:07:49]:
He knows. Nobody else wants to touch that truck.
Zeb Beard [00:07:52]:
Yeah.
Jeff Compton [00:07:52]:
Yeah. So what, when you talk about the traps and be in the hero shop, what was this guy like? Was this his dad's truck? Is. There's emotional attachment mostly for this truck. For him?
Zeb Beard [00:08:05]:
He says it is. Yeah, he says. He says that this truck, it was his dad's and all this stuff.
Jeff Compton [00:08:11]:
And did that kind of tug at your heartstrings and make you break your rule or.
Zeb Beard [00:08:15]:
Well, not really. See, that's how I got started with these people. I got. I worked for his dad and I. His dad called me. I don't know, this was early on. This was back when six zeros were new. I'm gonna say 2008, 2009, something like that.
Zeb Beard [00:08:30]:
His dad's six dad had a 60 at that time. And it had been at the dealership for I don't know what all they had done to it.
Jeff Compton [00:08:38]:
Yeah.
Zeb Beard [00:08:38]:
And they couldn't get it to run. It had been at that dealership for weeks and weeks and weeks and. And his dad called me and said, hey, I hear you're ahead. Great on six o's, and I've got one that dealership can't get running. Would you go get it and get it running? I said, yeah, absolutely. So I went and got it. And it was pretty simple. It needed injectors, is what it needed.
Jeff Compton [00:08:57]:
Yeah.
Zeb Beard [00:08:57]:
Of course, the dealership had done something else to it. I had to straighten out some of the stuff they done, which was typical. Still is. But back in those days, especially on six O's, dealerships were hacking them up left and right. Yeah, I don't know if you remember that. But anyway, I got it and, and straightened it out. And of course, I was the hero then. You know, his dad just really, really taught me up and got me a lot of business, and I'm forever grateful for that.
Zeb Beard [00:09:22]:
Well, this guy never worked on his truck, but he was always sending me messages about this seven three that belonged to his dad that he was going to get me to work on. And seemed like this went on for a long time and I never saw it. And then he got, he got me. He got me to come get it this past winter. And. Yeah, I think it was in February, something like that. And I was expecting something halfway nice because I know his dad's six o was like, really nice.
Jeff Compton [00:09:49]:
Yeah.
Zeb Beard [00:09:49]:
But it was almost new at the time. And I've been to his dad's house and all this stuff's clean and nice, you know, so I didn't think anything about it when I pulled up and saw the thing. I mean, I was like, well, but we work. We work on a lot of junky ass trucks here. I mean, that's just the way trucks are. When you work on trucks, you're going to see some junk. Ones and a seven three usually, even though the body and all may be ragged out, usually you can, you can get him to run. But this one is just one of those.
Zeb Beard [00:10:17]:
It's just got a lot of problems. And he doesn't. He doesn't really want to understand that.
Jeff Compton [00:10:25]:
Yeah.
Zeb Beard [00:10:26]:
That he's got a lot of problems.
Jeff Compton [00:10:27]:
You know, I can't remember the last seven three I saw up here. Like, they just. They pretty much all been just about. I don't say they've all been crushed and rotted away, but, I mean, we're talking. We barely see a 60 anymore. Is that honestly, like, it's. That truck just gets to be so rusted right. Like, we're still seeing six fours and six sevens.
Jeff Compton [00:10:48]:
Six fours. They're. Thank frig they didn't make a bunch of them. Right? Like, they. That was such a pile of junk that, you know, I don't.
Zeb Beard [00:10:58]:
I keep thinking that, but we still. We keep getting them here. I don't know. They only made the damn things from.
Jeff Compton [00:11:03]:
Yeah.
Zeb Beard [00:11:04]:
0809 and ten. And I'm telling you, those things are everywhere. I don't know. I don't know why they sold so many of them.
Jeff Compton [00:11:11]:
Well, because. I don't know why they sold so many of them is because the six liter had such a shit reputation. Everybody had something new, right? They're like, give me that new power stroke and. Yeah, like, out of one frying pan into another. But. And I'm not ripping on. I don't mean to rip on Powerstroke, like when they're done right, they work good. You know, it's just, um.
Jeff Compton [00:11:34]:
I didn't get a lot of experience on, on that. That wasn't my. I touched a few cummins at the dealer when I was there and that was it, you know, and then the rest of time, you know, the occasional IPR once in a while or something like that. Or some. You know, I did a vacuum pump and a 646467. I can't remember. Six four one that leaks oil real bade everybody.
Zeb Beard [00:11:57]:
Oh, that's six seven.
Jeff Compton [00:11:58]:
Yeah.
Zeb Beard [00:11:59]:
Six four don't have a vacuum.
Jeff Compton [00:12:00]:
Yeah, six seven vacuum pump. Because if somebody else said it was a crank seal and I'm like, I don't think that's crank seal. That's a vacuum pump. And easy. Not terribly hard to work on. You know what I mean?
Zeb Beard [00:12:10]:
Once you get no six seven s are really easy to work on compared to the six fours. Yeah, but we tried a deal, you know, I see it a lot in the groups. They cut them off after. So we only work on this year model. And you. We tried that one time and it doesn't really work for us because it. If you set it at a year model, well, then you'll cut off a lot of the stuff that you really could work on and make a profit.
Jeff Compton [00:12:34]:
Yeah.
Zeb Beard [00:12:35]:
And then you're still taking junk that just because you set a year model doesn't mean you're gonna cut out all the junk because there's. I mean, we've got 2016 and 17s that are clapped out so bad that we don't want them.
Jeff Compton [00:12:47]:
Yeah.
Zeb Beard [00:12:48]:
So we. We threw the year rule away and.
Jeff Compton [00:12:51]:
Yeah, I see that all the time. Guys going like, if it's over ten years, I don't. Our shop won't touch it. And I'm thinking ten years is the. Is like the average at my shop of stuff. Honestly, it's. It's ten. I'll say it's closer to twelve, you know?
Zeb Beard [00:13:09]:
And I tried it. I remembered it was like. I think it was in the. I want to say it was 2017 or something. I tried that. I said, I made a post on facebook. I said, we're not going to work on anything older than ten years. Of course, all my current customers freaked the hell out.
Zeb Beard [00:13:31]:
They're like, what the hell am I going to do? I'm like, no, we're going to keep working on the ones that we've already worked on. But it didn't take me long to realize that I couldn't. I couldn't stay with that. It just didn't work because it really didn't cut out any junk because we were still getting junk, that it was just newer junk.
Jeff Compton [00:13:47]:
Yeah.
Zeb Beard [00:13:48]:
And then we had a bunch of older vehicles that we would have liked to have had.
Jeff Compton [00:13:51]:
Yeah.
Zeb Beard [00:13:51]:
So now I don't. I'm not going to work on a carburetor.
Jeff Compton [00:13:55]:
No.
Zeb Beard [00:13:55]:
And I'm not going to work on. I'm not even going to work on anything obd one. Unless it's like. Unless it's a customer that's got, like, a lot of other.
Jeff Compton [00:14:03]:
Yeah.
Zeb Beard [00:14:04]:
Stuff that, you know, that we really like. So, yeah, I would just kind of gonna have to take it as a case cut case by case basis.
Jeff Compton [00:14:10]:
I think the obd one stuff is like, it's too hard to get parts for now. I mean, it's not hard to fix it. Not even close. Right. But it's.
Zeb Beard [00:14:19]:
Well, you can't get quality parts.
Jeff Compton [00:14:21]:
That's it. That's.
Zeb Beard [00:14:22]:
We've got a zero eight. We've got an zero eight. Chevrolet back here. Chevrolet truck with a v six in it, with a 4.3 v six. We can't get a mass. Mass airflow sensor for it. And we've tried to. It had an aftermarket one in when it came in, and we tried another aftermarket one, and they're doing the same thing.
Zeb Beard [00:14:40]:
I don't know. That may not even be what's wrong with it, but the mass airflow numbers are way off, and Zach thinks it's with the mass airflow, and it probably is. But the thing about it, I can't get one from Delco, so I don't really know what the hell I'm gonna do.
Jeff Compton [00:14:55]:
I ran into that with my guy that does my. My outboard stuff. He's got, like, an 0468 v ten and a powerstroke. And it had been at another shop, and I know the shop owner, and because we're in the same kind of fishing circle, right? And that truck had sat there, like, a month, and he'd done oxygen sensors and tune up parts and all this kind of stuff, and it was exactly the same. You'd drive it after a while, and it was, like, down on power. Wouldn't. Didn't want to idle surge the whole thing. And I.
Jeff Compton [00:15:33]:
He says, can you look at my truck one day? I'm like, yeah. Come over and take a look at it. And, um, this is when I was off on Covid. So I grabbed my scanner, and I go over there, and I plug it into the truck, and it. I can't remember what I had for codes. Nothing. I don't. Or maybe the codes weren't.
Jeff Compton [00:15:49]:
Weren't there, cleared. And I go drive it. And I'm like, this mass airflow is, like, that is all screwed up. It's not even close to what a 610 should or a six eight should do. And I said, did he put a mass airflow on this thing? He's like, nope. Like, he'd done tune ups. He'd done all the coils, all the injectors. And I'm like, the maf is completely skewed in this truck now.
Jeff Compton [00:16:13]:
So we pull over on the side of the road, and I unplug the maf and drive it. He goes, holy crap. It hasn't had that power in years. Now, it gave it a different symptom, right, from unplugging it, but it just like, okay, good. So I called up my buddy, and I'm like, do you want to take a look at Mark's truck? Because I said, like, it needs a math. I'm pretty sure. But I said, you got a scope? I didn't have one at the time. I only had a solace.
Jeff Compton [00:16:38]:
And I said, he's a good friend of mine, and I don't want to make the final guess. Can you keep the truck? And he's like, sure. So he puts the truck on his lot, and he calls me, like, three days later, and he's like, yeah, maths bad. I'm like, I thought so. Cool. And he's like, guess what, though? He says, I can't get one local, so he found one at a Ford dealer somewhere in the States, the OE, because it was the same thing he was not going to put anything but a motorcraft oe mass airflow sensor in it. So it's frustrating going back to the parts thing because it's like, I don't know why they think that okay is good enough. You know what I mean? Like, it's okay if we make a hundred of them and 70 of them work.
Jeff Compton [00:17:25]:
That's not okay, right? No, 70% is like, not good. It's, um. It was like the conversation that popped up about air conditioning and fixing it, and the guy was like, well, you know, I. I did the rear evap in that caravan and then the line had a pinhole leak on. Yeah, I think you saw that thing.
Zeb Beard [00:17:44]:
Oh, yeah, yeah. Comment.
Jeff Compton [00:17:45]:
Why is it everybody is so quick to, like, block off ac lines and shit like that and not quote the job the way it's supposed to be quoted? Because, like, you'd never just, like, block off a brake line on a vehicle for a customer. Cause it was too expensive. But why do we do it with air conditioning? It's like, oh, well, one's a safety thing. My point on that was like, the dealership guys, they immediately quote, that's like, yep, it's gonna need the lines, the evap and the TXV. Done hundreds of these. It's always like, if I go in there and I try to do one, it comes back. So that's why. And everybody's like, oh, my God, the dealer's so expensive.
Jeff Compton [00:18:20]:
Betcha that guy, when he changes everything, it doesn't have a comeback. We used to have it saying at the dealer all the time, everything new makes for a good job.
Zeb Beard [00:18:29]:
Well, but you got so many now that don't know how to fix shit, you know? Cause that's what I commented. I said, hey, weld the damn line up.
Jeff Compton [00:18:37]:
Yeah, yeah.
Zeb Beard [00:18:39]:
If you can't weld it, take the line off. Go have somebody weld it. I mean, you got the labor, but at least you paid the welder guide like $40 to weld the lines up. And then you put them back on. You're not out $600 or whatever they are for the lines. Yeah, you know, or in my shop, we know how to weld. So we'd weld that bitch up and.
Jeff Compton [00:18:58]:
Yep.
Zeb Beard [00:18:58]:
Yeah. We'd be pissed off about it because we don't like giving away stuff. That's right. But we would give that away in that, in that instance, we'd say, oh, yeah, shit, we missed a pinhole in a line. We'll weld it up for you and get you back going.
Jeff Compton [00:19:09]:
Yeah.
Zeb Beard [00:19:10]:
And. But they don't know how to fix stuff anymore.
Jeff Compton [00:19:12]:
And, yeah, I don't have a tig welder. Like, I can't. I've never used one in my life, ever. You know, I probably could figure it out. I really probably should learn it because they're on aluminum boat. It'd be handy.
Zeb Beard [00:19:25]:
Yeah, yeah. But you could, you could take them. You could, you would have the sense enough to say, hey, let's pull these lines off, take them down here to.
Jeff Compton [00:19:32]:
Yeah.
Zeb Beard [00:19:33]:
Joe's welding shop. He can weld them up before us right quick. We'll put them back on. I wouldn't do that in every case, but in a case like that, yeah, you could do it.
Jeff Compton [00:19:42]:
Yeah. Air conditioning work, it's this time of year up here for that. And it's. It's a pain in the nuts. It really is, because it's like, you know, well, I had one at a Nissan that was cool. I had a Nissan kicks came in, initial complaint was, um, two complaints. Overheats and air conditioning sucks. Well, the rad fan, like, on a lot of Nissan's is junk.
Zeb Beard [00:20:09]:
Yeah.
Jeff Compton [00:20:09]:
Doesn't work right. So there's your overheat, and there's also why your ac. But we go through the whole thing diag on the, on the air conditioning. It's like it needs a condenser. We were a week before we could get a condenser, and it's only like a 20. I think it's 2017. 2018, they call it a Nissan kicks. Up here, uh, in the US, it's a different version of.
Jeff Compton [00:20:31]:
Just a different version of a rogue. A different designation.
Zeb Beard [00:20:33]:
Yeah.
Jeff Compton [00:20:34]:
But up here we have to, we call them cash guys and kicks, and it's just smaller versions of a rogue. But I mean, that ended up being. It pays good, but it's a lot to it in terms of you're diagnosing, you know, the first complaint, and then you're running through your verification to say. And I said to the boss, I said, how do I accurately get my pressures where they need to be ac wise until we fix this rad fan? Like, and he's like, well, you can't, you know. No, you can't.
Zeb Beard [00:21:04]:
We got, well, air conditioner. Yeah, it pays good, but you're going to have more air comebacks with air conditioner than anything else. That's just a way to find in leaks is. Yeah, I mean, I don't give a damn. All this bullseye and sniffers and all this stuff. None of this stuff really is 100%, so. And the stuff leaks out slow, you know, you're gonna have slow leaks. I mean, we have.
Zeb Beard [00:21:28]:
We have a lot of air conditioner comebacks. That's just the way it is with air conditioner. You just got to be prepared. You got to charge enough on the front end to cover you if you got it, you know, if you have to go back. We do a lot of free air conditioner work as far as comebacks go, because it's just. It's just the way you got to do it.
Jeff Compton [00:21:44]:
So what's your process? Because you mentioned the bullseye thing, and that's something that I've seen the guys at royalty sure would talk about, and I've seen other people. Do you use that tool?
Zeb Beard [00:21:54]:
No, I haven't invested in it. I don't. I'd love to try one, but I just don't have much faith in it. I need to do more research on how it works, but, yeah, we. We just use die most of the time, and we use a lot of instincts. It's a lot of it up here.
Jeff Compton [00:22:12]:
Yeah, yeah.
Zeb Beard [00:22:12]:
Charge it up, and if it comes back in a certain. This amount of time, really look at the compressor. If it comes back in this amount of time, really look at the evaporator. Right. That kind of thing. We use a lot of instinct on that kind of stuff.
Jeff Compton [00:22:27]:
So die is still your go to for finding.
Zeb Beard [00:22:29]:
Yeah. Dye is my go to. I'll charge it up with some dye, and then I'll say, hey, you know, if we can't. If we can't find it right away, I'll say, hey, you go out to go run it. Most people are pretty understanding about it. They'll say, okay, we'll go run it, and then if, you know, if it quits again, we'll bring it back, and then you could see where. Where it comes from, because that.
Jeff Compton [00:22:46]:
That sniffer, it's. It's led me astray numerous times, especially if you've got the vehicle running, trying to find a leak.
Zeb Beard [00:22:53]:
That's a lion. Son of a bitch. We just got a new one. I've had one for years. And you could. I mean, you could make it go off any.
Jeff Compton [00:23:00]:
Yeah.
Zeb Beard [00:23:00]:
Where you want it to. You can just make it go off. And. And so I've had it, and for years, and finally, I traded it in the other day for the newest, greatest snap on model. I've used it a few times. I don't know if it's any better. We'll see. It doesn't seem to lie as much as the other one.
Zeb Beard [00:23:18]:
You can't I can't make it go off. So maybe it's. Maybe it's telling the truth.
Jeff Compton [00:23:23]:
We have a Mac one that's the same thing. Like, you're pointing at something, and it beeps. Like it's got a leak. And you're like, oh, cool, it's got a leak there. And then you walk away, and you go right back to that leak, like, tender. And it's not. This time, it's not leaking. And you're like, what the hell, dude? Like, where do I start over again? Because it's like, we charge it with die, but we're trying to, because you know how sometimes it can be, a customer comes in, and they just want work and air conditioning.
Jeff Compton [00:23:47]:
They don't want you to check it, really, right. So you throw some dye in there with a fresh charge, and you're like, okay, you gotta drive this. You see it back in October when the AC is like. And he's like, okay, I'll get a check now. Right? And then you find a leak, and then it's like, okay, this is the estimate to fix the leak. He's like, oh, I think I'll wait till the springtime.
Zeb Beard [00:24:03]:
Yep.
Jeff Compton [00:24:04]:
Guess what? Come spring, you're gonna have two leaks. Now we gotta go.
Zeb Beard [00:24:07]:
Well, that's a good thing about Arkansas. You still need it even in the wintertime, a lot here. So we.
Jeff Compton [00:24:11]:
We.
Zeb Beard [00:24:12]:
We do air conditioner work all year long.
Jeff Compton [00:24:14]:
Yeah, not here. Not here.
Zeb Beard [00:24:15]:
And it's humid, too, so you need it for the defroster. So, yeah, we do a lot of air conditioner work, but we. We kind of got our own process that we use, and it. It works okay for us. We still have a lot of comebacks, but that's just. That's just the nature of it. You're gonna have it.
Jeff Compton [00:24:29]:
Yeah.
Zeb Beard [00:24:30]:
Compressors are. I don't know that there ever could be a good way to get a compressor leak every time. I mean. Cause some of them leak only when it's running.
Jeff Compton [00:24:40]:
Yep.
Zeb Beard [00:24:40]:
Some of them only leak when they're sitting still. Some of them leak when they get hot. Some of them leak when they get cold. It's just. It's. There's not a. There's not a good way. You just kind of got to use instincts and say that compressor is leaking.
Zeb Beard [00:24:54]:
I know it is.
Jeff Compton [00:24:55]:
Yeah. Do you, um. Do you get, uh. Because it's not so common up here, but do you have, like, do you just assume that every time you guys look at one that somebody's already gone to the autozone and got a can of that stuff and pumped it in.
Zeb Beard [00:25:09]:
Yeah. I don't know that that stuff's as dangerous as what they say.
Jeff Compton [00:25:12]:
Yeah.
Zeb Beard [00:25:13]:
Because, man, I've got two. I've got. I bought one. A matter of fact, I was in the. I was in the snap on catalog with my first one that I bought the. I forget what they call it. Cool care plus or something like that. That thing has been a damn tank.
Zeb Beard [00:25:27]:
I don't know how many thousands of hours is on that thing.
Jeff Compton [00:25:30]:
Right.
Zeb Beard [00:25:31]:
Think it's only broke down maybe once or twice. And. And, I mean, as many as it's done. I know it's come in contact with this sealer.
Jeff Compton [00:25:40]:
Yeah.
Zeb Beard [00:25:40]:
Had to have multiple times.
Jeff Compton [00:25:42]:
Right.
Zeb Beard [00:25:42]:
I don't know that the stuff's as bad as what everybody makes it out to be.
Jeff Compton [00:25:46]:
Right.
Zeb Beard [00:25:47]:
And I ended up. I bought another one of those because that that first one worked so well. And then this new one came out. This. The. Do I got the dual one. The new one that does the.
Jeff Compton [00:25:56]:
Okay.
Zeb Beard [00:25:57]:
The new 134 m 1234. Yeah. And I hated that thing so bad, I called my dealer right then. I said, hey, find me another machine like my old one, and I'll buy it right now. And when you find another one, I'll buy it, too. So I'm gonna gather up those old ones to keep. Keep around for a long time because they work so well.
Jeff Compton [00:26:16]:
Yeah, we. It's. It's like that topic that popped up where everybody was. Their 1234 machine auction sensor was going bad. Ever was. Like, everybody in that one week. Ours, too. At our shop, we were pretty lucky we were able to get one, and I swapped it.
Jeff Compton [00:26:31]:
No big deal. But what I don't like about the new snap on machine, we just got one delivered, is it's like they want. They want a code. So everything's tracking it now, so it knows how many hours, and then it's like it's going to lock the machine down until you change the vacuum pump oil and all that jazz. Right.
Zeb Beard [00:26:48]:
Well, my old ones. My old ones are that way.
Jeff Compton [00:26:50]:
Yeah.
Zeb Beard [00:26:50]:
When you. When you change the filter on it, you have to enter the serial number on the new filter.
Jeff Compton [00:26:54]:
Yeah.
Zeb Beard [00:26:55]:
And it's not a big deal. Um, now, the vacuum pump, I don't think it'll ever lock you out because I think I'm. I stay over on the vacuum pump oil. I don't change the vacuum pump oil like I'm supposed to.
Jeff Compton [00:27:05]:
Right.
Zeb Beard [00:27:05]:
That will lock you out on the filters. You have changed the filters. But we keep four of those in stock. All the time.
Jeff Compton [00:27:10]:
Yeah.
Zeb Beard [00:27:11]:
And it's not a huge deal now. That new damn thing, I hate it because it asks you all these questions, and you have to answer the questions. Right? You just lie to it. You just learn to lie to it. And. Yeah, you know, yes, I did this. Yes, I did that.
Jeff Compton [00:27:25]:
We.
Zeb Beard [00:27:26]:
And what I would say that getting back to what I was talking about, that thing, probably. Some sealer would probably screw that thing up for life, which I think it can test. Its a. It tests sometimes it'll tell you that you the frenz contaminated, even if it's not. I charged one. One time I charged the car with that machine, and it had to pull it back out, and it said the Freon was contaminated. I said, you're the damn machine that put it in there.
Jeff Compton [00:27:52]:
We had one last week, actually, that. The same thing. It says CO2 is sensed in the machine in the refrigerant, and it shuts it down, won't allow you to do it. So I guess that's what most of these blends are, is propane and something else, right? It's sensing the CO2 in it, and it's like, hey, I don't want you going in the machine. But I watch the guys that do mobile, right? And it's just like they whip out a scale and a vacuum pump in the tank, and they get to work, and they. You know, and I'm thinking that's. That's. That's efficient, man.
Jeff Compton [00:28:25]:
Like, if you just.
Zeb Beard [00:28:26]:
Well, I'm gonna tell you, those two old machines I got there can't be any faster than those things. They. We just turn them on and walk away, and they do their thing, and they've been trouble free. I guess the first one I got was in 2010, 2011, something like that. I'm in the catalog. I'll send you a picture of it. It works so well. My snap on man, he's been.
Zeb Beard [00:28:49]:
He's been with them for, I don't know, since the nineties.
Jeff Compton [00:28:51]:
Yeah.
Zeb Beard [00:28:52]:
And, uh, I was going on and on, and I said, man, that machine right there, is that. That thing works? And he said, how would you like. You won't be in the catalog. I said, yeah, I'll be in the catalog with this machine. I said, because I'm telling you, nothing I say about it will be a lie because it'll miss 100% truth. They put me in the catalog.
Jeff Compton [00:29:08]:
That's pretty sweet, eh?
Zeb Beard [00:29:10]:
Yeah. Yeah, they wouldn't. I tried to wear a stroker shirt, but they blacked it out. This was in the. This was a long time ago. You know, before, you know, nowadays, that's not a big deal, but I wore my shirt with strokers on. I was trying to promote myself, and they blacked it all out. I was pretty disappointed about that.
Jeff Compton [00:29:26]:
We had an old snap on machine at the last place I worked, and it was. The vacuum pump was worn out in it, so it was like it would pull a vacuum. But trying to charge the damn thing was where you got into problems. You had to turn the tank upside down, or like, we, most of the time, end up taking the tank out, putting a bucket of hot water right. To get it.
Zeb Beard [00:29:48]:
Oh, yeah. Yeah. I went through all that shit. But the one I had before, it was an old square one.
Jeff Compton [00:29:52]:
Yeah.
Zeb Beard [00:29:53]:
Square made out of steel, steel body and everything. And I fought with that thing. I don't remember what I gave for it. I didn't give much for it, but it got me. It lent me along. I made a lot of money with it. Lost a lot of money, too, because it was. It's.
Zeb Beard [00:30:04]:
Bastard wasted more freon.
Jeff Compton [00:30:06]:
Yeah. Yeah.
Zeb Beard [00:30:08]:
So I finally. I got. I may start making enough money. I bought a new. That new one, man, I should have bought that thing a long time ago. It didn't take long to pay for itself.
Jeff Compton [00:30:17]:
Yeah.
Zeb Beard [00:30:18]:
Air machine. That's something I will not do without. I will have a good air conditioning machine.
Jeff Compton [00:30:24]:
Yeah. You were saying to me, like, you want to have. You want to have four hoists per every tech that's in your shop? You want an ac machine for every tech?
Zeb Beard [00:30:33]:
Yes.
Jeff Compton [00:30:33]:
Yeah.
Zeb Beard [00:30:34]:
And they can use it. I mean, they use them every day.
Jeff Compton [00:30:36]:
Yeah.
Zeb Beard [00:30:37]:
And I do everything backwards. And what most people do, they won't. You know, they want one hoist per tech, and they want a little bitty shot with everybody, you know, jammed up, trying to move around, trying to bump it into one another and all that. I found that a giant shop where nobody even gets close to one another, line up ten vehicles per tech and just let them go. And we run. We run diagnostic techs. Me and Zach do all the diagnostics. That's all we do.
Zeb Beard [00:31:08]:
We do the diagnostics, the test drives, all that stuff. And then we got. Right now I got three guys. I call those r and R guys. They just remove and replace. So me and Zach bring the vehicles in, we look at them, decide what they need, then they go to the r and R guys, and they don't even. They don't even have to pull them in. We have them pulled in the bay, sitting there.
Zeb Beard [00:31:31]:
A lot of times I'll rack them, for them, if it has to be racked, I put it on the rack, get it started picking up where all they have to do is get in there and turn hours. And then if they run into a snack, they got another one sitting right there. Parts is already sitting there in front of it waiting on them. They just. And that's how I make flat rate work, is. Is the guys on flat rate never wait on anything. Right. You know, if we can help it.
Jeff Compton [00:31:54]:
Yeah.
Zeb Beard [00:31:54]:
And my day. My day is mostly just making sure that those guys never stop working. So if they hit a snap, they hit. They break off a bolt or something. They stop, they move to the next one. I get the broke bolt out because I'm pretty handy at that.
Jeff Compton [00:32:09]:
Yeah.
Zeb Beard [00:32:10]:
And they don't. They don't do test drives. They don't do diagnostics. They don't do any of those time wasters. They just sit there and roll hours.
Jeff Compton [00:32:19]:
I. My friend Sean Miller, I think he set his shop up very similar to how you are, and I don't know how, if you're familiar with Sean or nothing. Um, great guy. Super. And I want to think that, like, that's almost the same process he has because he's the senior guy there. Um, and it's the same thing, you know, if a bolt breaks off, he doesn't punish his guys. Now, his guys are not on flat rate, but he doesn't punish his guys by, like, making them go and do it. You know what I mean? Of, like, oh, it's going to be a learning thing for you.
Jeff Compton [00:32:47]:
Like, I'm. Excuse me if as soon as I go to a flat rate mentality, I'm not here to learn how to get a broken boat out. Right. Like, I'm so focused then on how much time is it gonna cost me, because, like, it's dollars and cents at that point that I'm not here to learn. I just want to know how. How much am I getting penalized because this bolt broke whereas you take it and you're just like, I'm not gonna punish that guy. I'll handle.
Zeb Beard [00:33:13]:
I don't want him. I don't want him, but I want him to. I want him to be making me money.
Jeff Compton [00:33:17]:
Yeah.
Zeb Beard [00:33:17]:
These shop owners get too hung up on with this. You know? He. I'm not gonna pay him for this. Well, if you're not paying him for that, he's not getting. He's not making you money either.
Jeff Compton [00:33:26]:
That's right.
Zeb Beard [00:33:27]:
Get him off and get him on something. He can make you money.
Jeff Compton [00:33:29]:
Yeah.
Zeb Beard [00:33:30]:
You know, these they want to focus on what they're paying the tech. Well, what is that tech making you? You know, he's. I want. I want him to be pulling 200% all the time. That's my goal. They. I want him to be 200% efficient all the time. So that's the focus of my day, is to making sure they hit 200%.
Jeff Compton [00:33:48]:
And you guys are doing. Your guys are doing it.
Zeb Beard [00:33:50]:
Yeah, they do it for the most part. I mean, it's. It's up and down.
Jeff Compton [00:33:54]:
Yeah. Yeah.
Zeb Beard [00:33:54]:
You know, they may. They may only hit 100% this week, but next week they may hit 300%, so it kind of evens out. But a lot of guys. My guys regularly turn. You know, it's. If they got some good jobs lined up, it's not. It's not anything for them to turn 100 hours, and.
Jeff Compton [00:34:10]:
And that's because you do. You think a lot of it is because you're. You're so hands on with. With, like, having everything ready, right?
Zeb Beard [00:34:18]:
Yeah, yeah, I try to have everything ready for them.
Jeff Compton [00:34:20]:
Yeah.
Zeb Beard [00:34:21]:
And we have the. Susie, you have the parts out there at the vehicle waiting on them. We try to have everything they need for the job before they even get to the job right now. You always going to run into something, and we're having a little trouble with them. We got to get them to wherever I. They still. They're still bad about it. They will.
Zeb Beard [00:34:40]:
Like, for instance, they take one apart and they see it needs a belt. Well, first thing you should do is get on tech metric, right? Then tell Susie, hey, I need a belt for this. Well, they're bad about. Wait until they. They go ready to put the belt back on. Hey, I need a belt.
Jeff Compton [00:34:55]:
Yeah.
Zeb Beard [00:34:56]:
Or air filter. Hey, this truck needs an air filter. Well, you took it apart a month ago, you know. Cause. Cause a lot of our stuff does stay here for a month. You know, like, if it needs an engine or something like that, it might be in the shop for a month. That's another reason we run such a big shop. Yeah.
Zeb Beard [00:35:12]:
You know, such a large shop is so we can fit a lot of them in there because they may have to sit for a while and until we get all the parts rounded up or we hit a snag, you know, if we find something else while we're in there, it may. It may stop the job for. For two weeks. Yeah, we get. You know, we get the part to fix what we found after we got in there.
Jeff Compton [00:35:30]:
Do you ever bounce? Does it more than one tech work on a vehicle?
Zeb Beard [00:35:34]:
Yeah, we do that. A lot.
Jeff Compton [00:35:35]:
Yeah.
Zeb Beard [00:35:36]:
Like, I got some of my guys, they like doing front end work. Some of them don't like doing front end work. So I may have one guy put an engine in, and then the other guy put the front end in it, things like that. Or if he's hung up, you know, say he's. He pulls the engine out, and he's waiting on an engine, and then he gets over here, and he starts working on something else. And the other guy might even go back and put the engine back in for him.
Jeff Compton [00:36:01]:
Right.
Zeb Beard [00:36:01]:
We do a lot of that because we work on so many of the same thing. These guys, you could take.
Jeff Compton [00:36:05]:
I was just gonna ask you on that. How does that work? Because I would think, like, if I had to go behind anyone in my shop and they've taken an engine out or tranny outer a component out, and then I got to go put it together, you couldn't get me. I bitch about it. If I was straight time, and if I was flat rate, there'd be no friggin way I'd do it. I'd be like, how are you gonna make that work?
Zeb Beard [00:36:25]:
Well, they don't. They don't just like it, but they can do it. And mainly it's because both of them I've taught, or all three of them, they. They were pretty well trained by me. I taught them my process of how I take things apart and lay it out. So they pretty well do it the same way. Right, but. But like a six seven power stroke or a.
Zeb Beard [00:36:45]:
Or a LMl Duramax. You could take one down to the smallest pieces that. That it is my entire truck. Put it in a cement mixer, let it mix, and then dump it back out and pick up any piece of it and show it to those guys. And they would say, that boat goes, and so, and so. I mean, that's amazing. That's how well they know. They know them, everything about them.
Jeff Compton [00:37:07]:
Now, when I talked to you earlier, you were looking for a tech. Did you manage to get one?
Zeb Beard [00:37:11]:
Well, I got one back that he. He worked for me back in high school. When he was in high school, like, in 0708, he'd been with me a long time, off and on. And he's kind of a. He's kind of an eccentric character. He's bounced around and been to a lot of different shops. He's worked for me three or four different times, and my son ended up breaking his arm on a motorcycle, and so I was in a bind, and this guy had been wanting to go back to work for me. So the Monday my son broke his arm on a Sunday, the next Monday I got up and called him, and he came back to work.
Zeb Beard [00:37:45]:
He's been here doing pretty good. And matter of fact, he's upstairs right now. That's one thing about my shop. If you. If you need a place to live, you can live right here.
Jeff Compton [00:37:55]:
Yeah. He comes in on. He stays with you.
Zeb Beard [00:37:58]:
Well, this guy lives here all time. He's here 24/7 yeah, he lives here all the time now. Zach. Zach. He was going back and forth to Tulsa.
Jeff Compton [00:38:07]:
Yeah.
Zeb Beard [00:38:07]:
But Zach has ended up moving out. He's got his own house here. He's renting his own house here in town because his son came to live with him. And this not really a good place for. It's no place for children, you know. So I told him, I said, man, your son, you know, he's a great kid and everything, but I just can't have, you know, a kid living here.
Jeff Compton [00:38:26]:
Yeah.
Zeb Beard [00:38:27]:
So. Which. I give him a housing allowance for his house, too. So he, you know, so I help him rent a house. I don't know if. I don't know if it's more than the housing allowance I got. I think it's pretty close, right? I pay him a pretty good housing allowance, too. So.
Jeff Compton [00:38:41]:
Yeah, it's. It's so, like, you're not even bragging. You're just like, why? I. You know, I got them, and I. And I just got a housing allowance, too. Like, I haven't talked to another owner that I can think of off top. My head, that is, has got a housing allowance for their technologies. I know of another.
Zeb Beard [00:39:01]:
I needed help. I needed help in the diagnostic department bad because I was overwhelmed, especially getting moved into this place and all. It was. It was bad, I remember. And so I was like, I got to have some help. And I'd been invited into a group of diagnostic techs in a. In a chat group, and there was several of them in there, and I would have hired any one of those guys. I mean, they're all great, and.
Zeb Beard [00:39:27]:
But I met Zach at vision. He was in the group, and. And I really. I don't know, I just. I. Like I said, I get these feelings about people when I meet them, and I just. I just. For some reason, I was drawn to this guy, and I really needed a tech.
Zeb Beard [00:39:41]:
A diagnostic tech. And we hear all this, and in this. In this technicians group there, that I was in there mainly to spy. I wanted to hear what they had to say. I wanted to hear what they were looking for and, and what they wanted and what would their ideals shop would be like and what their ideal pay would be like and all this stuff. So I was in there mostly just spying and gathering information. So I used all this information that I had gathered, and then we got the change in the industry group came in, and then, and I had been in there for a while, and I'd kind of listen to those guys in there. What an ideal situation would be for a tech.
Zeb Beard [00:40:21]:
So I just kind of went out on a limb, and I don't think anybody's done it since. And I caught a lot of shit for it, but I just put a, I just put a, I put a tech wanted. Everybody would post. They would do it like, kind of on the down low. They'd say, here's my, here's my technician wanted ad. What do you think about it? Well, yeah, so I did it the opposite way. I said, look, everybody else puts them in here, and it wants to know what you think about. I'm just putting it out there.
Zeb Beard [00:40:47]:
I'm looking for a diagnostic technique. I'm gonna put it right in here. Of course, a bunch of people, this isn't the place for that and all this, but they, they ended up leaving it.
Jeff Compton [00:40:53]:
Yeah.
Zeb Beard [00:40:54]:
And it worked. Zach. Zach messaged me, and he was working for l. One. And I was really surprised that I could even get anybody interested from, from l. One because Keith, I've since met him. I didn't know him at the time, but he's a great guy and a great place to work. And Zach was one of their top guys, and I think he'd been with them since the start.
Zeb Beard [00:41:15]:
Yep. So he got a hold of me and said, hey, man, I think I'd like to come work for you. And he came down and interviewed, and I told him, he said, what can you pay? I said, I tell you what I'm gonna do. We'll do something that's never been done before. You just take, and we'll call it your list of demands. You write down what you gotta have to come to work for me, and I'm gonna figure out how I'm gonna make my customers pay for it. That's how we're gonna do it. So that's what we did.
Zeb Beard [00:41:44]:
I've still got some stipulations I gotta meet. Been pretty tough moving in this shop. I've still got some things I got to do for him. He's, he's worked with me on that. I still got some, you know, some of the, some of the things on the list I haven't crossed off yet. But the, the pay was the main thing that we got checked off, and we got the housing allowance checked off and all that kind of stuff. I got some equipment still that I got to get him.
Jeff Compton [00:42:05]:
You saw the post? It was a couple days ago. I think they even pulled it after they were looking for a diesel tack. For $18 an hour.
Zeb Beard [00:42:17]:
I pay my cleanup guy. I think that's another thing we do that really boosts efficiency. I see it in the groups all the time. These guys are like, my techs won't clean up. We try to stop him for an hour. I'm like, why do you have a tech? It doesn't make a damn high. He's paid if he's flat rate, if he's hourly, a tech that makes your shop 300 plus an hour, why is that? Somebody sleep sweeping the floor? Yeah, why get you somebody else and pay them $20 an hour? You can find somebody sweep the floor for $20 an hour. I got one kid right now.
Zeb Beard [00:42:51]:
That's, that's another problem I'm gonna have is I've got a kid right now that I don't know. You see me post when he graduated high school, and, of course, you get them all that. Oh, this kid's a hard worker. He just wants a job and all this, and they get in there and they work good for a couple of months, and then it just. This kid, since the first day, he's just worked his ass off. And the problem is he's getting pretty good. We let him. We let him do some, you know, some mechanic jobs, and he's pretty good at it.
Zeb Beard [00:43:20]:
But the problem is now he's, he's so good at cleaning up, at being a cleanup guy. He cleans his whole, I think, the main floor of the shops, 32,000ft, he cleans it. Keeps that whole thing spotless by himself.
Jeff Compton [00:43:33]:
Right.
Zeb Beard [00:43:34]:
So now that he's getting to be a tech, now I got to go try to find somebody to replace and clean it. So it may be easier to find a tech than it is going to be to replace the cleanup guy.
Jeff Compton [00:43:45]:
Well, it's not a bad. It's not a bad problem to have those, essentially.
Zeb Beard [00:43:49]:
No. No, it's not.
Jeff Compton [00:43:50]:
When you think about the technician shortage and, you know, that's still such a. I posted a video again today, and somebody's like, you know, they reiterate, oh, well, that guy's not charging enough, and that's why his parking lot's full. Well, that may be true, but he still hit on some key points that it doesn't matter whether he charges enough or not, we're going to see it where it won't matter. Somebody was talking about the one dealer was like $200 an hour and they're still like a month before you can get your car in there. Yeah, like the door rates are going to keep going up, but you're not going to get any in done any faster.
Zeb Beard [00:44:28]:
You still got to put the work out.
Jeff Compton [00:44:29]:
That's right.
Zeb Beard [00:44:30]:
You know, you can charge $1,000 an hour and have a parking lot full, but you never get that $1,000 an hour if you don't get the workout.
Jeff Compton [00:44:37]:
Yeah, and that's, you know, the, the technician shortage thing is like, yeah, it's, it's, it's a true thing. For sure. For sure. I mean we're struggling here, but it's not, it's, everybody says, well, just charge more and it's gonna fix itself. It's not because eventually the guy that you already have, something's gonna happen to him. Like your son broke his arm. Right. Or, or he just retires and what are you gonna do?
Zeb Beard [00:45:04]:
I got one, I got one that's leaving in November. 1 of my guys that's been with me, I mean they're all top guys. Yeah, he's leaving in November. He's getting deployed so he'll be gone for a year. So this kid I gotta make, I gotta turn it between now and November. I gotta turn this kid into a jam up tech. And that's kind of how we've overcome the technician short. That's why we have this big ass shop you can make.
Zeb Beard [00:45:27]:
I try to maximize the amount of work that the text that I have can get done.
Jeff Compton [00:45:32]:
Yeah.
Zeb Beard [00:45:33]:
And so that allows me to work with less techs. And I'll tell you, shop payments are a lot cheaper than tech payments, I can tell you.
Jeff Compton [00:45:44]:
But you know how many people would argue that with you?
Zeb Beard [00:45:47]:
Well, they can, but I've proven it. I mean, I proved it with myself. Here's how I proved that in 2015, I was working by myself and I had started figuring things out. Things were going great, but I was working in 4000ft and I was watching every day. I was spending most of my day pulling cars in, pulling cars out, pulling cars in, pulling cars out. And so I was like, man, I spend, I spend 3 hours a day at least pulling these cars in and out. If I was working those 3 hours, those 3 hours, because I always turn 200%, I'm going to turn 200%. Those 3 hours are 6 hours a day.
Jeff Compton [00:46:28]:
Yeah.
Zeb Beard [00:46:28]:
That I'm losing. I'm losing 6 hours a day. And so I put the pencil to it. I'm like, man, I can build. I can. I can more than double the size of this shop and. And easily pay for it. So I did.
Zeb Beard [00:46:40]:
I went to the bank, and I had a good. I still got a good relationship with my bank. I was like, look, I need a bigger shop. I said, but I'm not hiring anybody. And I wrote it all out for him and my banker. He said, man, that's a. He said, that's a no brainer. He said, you tell him to get out there tomorrow and start working.
Zeb Beard [00:46:54]:
So I added, I added 5000 more feet on, and I didn't add any employees at the time. It was just me and Susie. And then Zachary would come in and clean up in the evenings after school. And my production doubled without adding any text. So that right there proved it. So then I added on again and again and again. And then I built this place. And I still got some growing pains here, but we're gonna.
Zeb Beard [00:47:21]:
We're gonna end up getting it going pretty good, I think. We did. We did 272 last month. It was kind of starting to jail. We did 272 with. We got six total employees. Six. Seven.
Zeb Beard [00:47:33]:
We got seven total employees. That's counting me and Susie.
Jeff Compton [00:47:36]:
Yeah.
Zeb Beard [00:47:36]:
Got me and Susie. We got Zach as a diagnostic tech. Got my son. Zachary is an R and R tech. Got Kyle. That's the military guy. He's R and R tech. And then we got Carthan, which is.
Zeb Beard [00:47:49]:
He's another R and R tech. And then we got. Jackson is the kid that's coming up. He's getting where he's doing smaller jobs and cleanup, stuff like that.
Jeff Compton [00:48:01]:
You're coming to Asda?
Zeb Beard [00:48:04]:
I hope to.
Jeff Compton [00:48:05]:
Yeah.
Zeb Beard [00:48:05]:
I'm supposed to be, uh. I'm supposed to be contracted to take Zach. So, yeah, if he goes, I'm gonna have to go, which. That's. That's in September, so.
Jeff Compton [00:48:14]:
End of September.
Zeb Beard [00:48:14]:
Yeah, I got it. I guess I. That's far enough away. I think I can make it.
Jeff Compton [00:48:19]:
Yeah. You're gonna be involved in that project I got working on.
Zeb Beard [00:48:22]:
Okay. So I got to be there.
Jeff Compton [00:48:23]:
Yeah. If you can make.
Zeb Beard [00:48:24]:
If you make me. If you say I got to be there, I'll make it happen.
Jeff Compton [00:48:27]:
Yeah. You're going to be part of it, so. For sure. Yeah. Because I think, you know, it's not a situation. I don't want to get everybody up there and thinking like, we're trying to make. Everybody has to be the same, you know what I mean? It's about, like, I want people to hear different perspectives, and it's like what you would have never thought worked. I want somebody sitting there that already made it work, you know, on both sides.
Jeff Compton [00:48:52]:
Technician, owner. And then we just keep going from there. And then, you know, not to let too much out of the bag, but if it, if it's really successful, and I think it will be, if, if it can become a traditional thing, like we do it every year at Asta, or if we try to get it where we do it at every event, it's gonna be massive. Because there's. You see it and you see me talk about all the time, the same posts keep coming up, you know what I mean? And I'll say, how come you didn't learn the lesson from this person? And I don't name names, but I'm like, didn't we go through this last month? Like, you know, you put in the customer supply parts and now what are you, what are you gonna do? If we get people that are at the events, but they're not that involved on the groups in online, and then they start to hear the conversation in real time, real people, I think that's so powerful. That's what I'm hoping for anyway.
Zeb Beard [00:49:51]:
So it does work. I went. I went to the summit, the seven three summit, and my good friend Vinnie Hines, I don't know if you've seen him around, he's pretty big on the diesel side. But anyway, he had been working for a big shop out in Atlanta, and he left there, started working for this company called power hungry. And they do seven three tuning devices and a lot of different things for seven threes. Well, they put together this summit. Yeah, it was all supposed to be about all seven threes. Well, Vinnie had hit me up about coming to it, and I'm like, man, I don't do seven three performance, you know? So I was like, you know, I just kind of blew him off.
Zeb Beard [00:50:28]:
Like, yeah, I'll think about it. Whatever. So a few days later, or a little bit later, he text me back and he's like, man, the reason I want you to come? He said, man, I want you to speak there.
Jeff Compton [00:50:38]:
Yeah.
Zeb Beard [00:50:39]:
He said, man, you've done a lot of things that kind of the way I like to do them, and they're different than a lot of people, and I want you to come speak there. Of course, that was right up my alley. I. There's nothing I like more than talking about myself. I can do that 24 hours a day. So I was like, yeah, I'll do it. And so I went and turned out, I mean, there's a lot of people there. You can see the crowd just, you know, you could really see.
Zeb Beard [00:51:04]:
I thought I did terrible. I did a lot of rambling. I got off my head a little script there. I wrote, like, four different speeches and I threw them all away. And then I made one with just bullet points, and I got off, I didn't even use that thing.
Jeff Compton [00:51:16]:
Yeah.
Zeb Beard [00:51:16]:
And turned out everybody loved it. And I've got two or three guys that I still talk to, and I said, man, that, that speech you gave changed my life. I started doing things the way you're doing them, and it changed my life. I'm, now I can pay my bills. My family's doing better. Everybody's happy in my family. I'm home with my family more, but making more money.
Jeff Compton [00:51:36]:
Yep.
Zeb Beard [00:51:37]:
So I was pretty excited about that. And, uh, just if you get up and talk about what you've been through and, and how you fixed it and you don't have to do all of it, just take a few things. Just take a few things and change them, and it can make a big difference in the end.
Jeff Compton [00:51:51]:
Yeah, that's, that's the whole thing with me. And if I can, if I can stay on task, stay on point and keep, you know, it's going to be, we're going to have some pretty interesting personality, so I think it's going to be good. And if we can keep everybody, you know, I don't think fisticuffs are going to happen, but if we can keep, like, you know, everybody focused and moving towards a common goal, I think we're going to get there really good. And that's, and that's why, and it shouldn't, you shouldn't be surprised that people want to talk to you as much and hear what you have to say as much as you are, because, I mean, it's like every day we get up and we just go to work and, but I don't think you realize what you're doing with the way you're doing it, the, the gravity of it, the, the enormity of it. You know what I mean? It's, it's, it's, it's different. It's a different way of thinking. And that's why, that's why I so click with you is because it's like, you know, I've said to other people, like, he doesn't even for a second think that he can't do anything. You know what I mean? Like he just.
Jeff Compton [00:52:57]:
If he decides that he's gonna do it, he does it. And that's. I mean, that's why I. Dory, I think you're awesome. You know?
Zeb Beard [00:53:04]:
Well, I've been told I can't so many times. I mean, I remember when I bought that. That first shop I had was 4000ft in a shithole of a town. I mean, I hate to talk about the town, but I mean, it's. There's not much there and not much stays in business there. And, and nobody thought that I could do it. The shop had been there a long time and it was on its way out. And then it grew.
Zeb Beard [00:53:30]:
And then it grew. And of course there were people around town. Well, what. The things he's trying to do won't work in this town because it's. It'll work in big cities but it ain't gonna work here. And then I made it work. And then I made it bigger. And they said, well, he's done went too big.
Zeb Beard [00:53:44]:
Now it's not gonna work. So that made me want to go even bigger and even bigger and even bigger. And then this place. Oh, you should hear the. I love hearing the rumors about this place. The state. State paid for the college out here. Paid for it.
Zeb Beard [00:53:58]:
The city paid for it. All this I got to hire. I have to hire, I don't know, 20 something employees by the end of the year. If I don't, well then they're going to kick me out. And none of that's true. I mean, it's me and Warren bank and trust. That's it.
Jeff Compton [00:54:14]:
Yeah.
Zeb Beard [00:54:15]:
That's the only two. Warren bank of trust gave me all the money for this. And they believed in me since the start. And it's me and them together.
Jeff Compton [00:54:22]:
Yeah, but you back it up. You say you do what you say you're going to do.
Zeb Beard [00:54:26]:
Yeah.
Jeff Compton [00:54:27]:
I mean, and that's. That's the whole thing. And that. That's why um. You know, I'm so. I'm so proud of you. I really am.
Zeb Beard [00:54:34]:
But thank you.
Jeff Compton [00:54:35]:
I'm uh. We'll let you go. It's. It's getting up to where it's coming up on your. Well, it's. It's my uh, it's my holiday weekend here. It's my Canada day weekend. And uh, tomorrow's Canada day.
Jeff Compton [00:54:48]:
And then you've got the fourth.
Zeb Beard [00:54:49]:
Yeah, we got the fourth. Next week I'm gonna take off. Fourth falls on a Thursday.
Jeff Compton [00:54:53]:
Yeah.
Zeb Beard [00:54:54]:
So what I'm gonna do, I'm gonna go to hot springs Thursday night. They have a big, uh, fireworks celebration on the lake. So I'm gonna work Thursday the fourth, and then I'm gonna take off Thursday evening and go watch the fireworks celebration. Be off Friday.
Jeff Compton [00:55:07]:
You get some fishing done?
Zeb Beard [00:55:09]:
Yeah, I'm gonna fish a little bit. I took my boat up there.
Jeff Compton [00:55:11]:
Yeah.
Zeb Beard [00:55:12]:
And it's gonna be hard to catch it. It's hard to catch them up there this time of year. It's a party lake. So that lake gets chopped up.
Jeff Compton [00:55:19]:
Yep.
Zeb Beard [00:55:20]:
I'm telling you, those party barges and jet skis get out there 08:00 in the morning and they don't let up. Man, we. I've been on my party bars to almost. The sun was coming up. Yeah, we get on that thing and wrist ride. No, you've heard about it. You've talked about it on your show before. You don't see the point of a party barge.
Zeb Beard [00:55:36]:
But I. Well, I see one of my favorite things.
Jeff Compton [00:55:39]:
I see more of the point of a party of ours than I do of a jet ski. Like, I keep. I keep a three quarter ounce flipping jig on. On deck for jet skiers if they just get too close. And I picked it up and got ready to cast today because three of them went by and it's supposed to no wake zone. And they were just ripping. And I'm going down the shoreline, flipping, flipping and flipping my worm in and trying to get a bite on a tree. And, uh, normally on that one spot, I can get a fish.
Jeff Compton [00:56:06]:
But they like these. They had three of them going around, plus the wake boat. They were kind of doing circles around the boat. It was. It was a big party. And, um, my little boat, it gets a rocking when they. They come by and wake up. Cause it's only a little 14 foot boat.
Jeff Compton [00:56:21]:
And I had that flipping jig, my hand getting ready to make a cast at the guy in the thing. And I mean, I. I would have hit him. He was that close.
Zeb Beard [00:56:27]:
And the jet skis don't bother us too much up there. I got two jet skis, but hell, I think I rode them. I've had them two or three years. I think I may have rode them three times. I don't ride them much. But those damn wake boats, man, they're. That lake is full of them. And they.
Zeb Beard [00:56:43]:
It's fine if you're out there wake, doing your wake thing, whatever they do, if you're out there doing that, that's fine. But these guys ride around with them making the wake without even. Yeah, and they're hell on our docks and our.
Jeff Compton [00:56:56]:
Yeah.
Zeb Beard [00:56:57]:
You know, we got floating docks out there, and they're just tearing them all to pieces.
Jeff Compton [00:57:00]:
And it's hard to fish. It's really hard to fish. It's hard to feel what your jig is doing when your boats rocking, like, the way it is.
Zeb Beard [00:57:07]:
But I gotta tell you, I don't know how much it affects the fish, because I have caught some giant fish when I'm sitting there, you know, with the. With the. After a wake, boat goes by, so I don't. I guess the fish get used to it. But I have noticed when the. You know, when the after. After memorial day, that's when everybody puts their boat in the water and they leave it in the water till labor day. Yeah.
Zeb Beard [00:57:28]:
And after that, the fishing does slow down tremendously on that lake. I don't know if they just go deeper. I don't really know what they do, because some of the tournament guys really. They still catch a lot of them, but they do a lot of night fishing.
Jeff Compton [00:57:38]:
Yeah.
Zeb Beard [00:57:39]:
I need to get in with some of those tournament guys up there and kind of get some strategy from them to see what they do.
Jeff Compton [00:57:44]:
Yeah. You got to come up, visit me one time, maybe next year, and I won't.
Zeb Beard [00:57:48]:
Too bad.
Jeff Compton [00:57:48]:
Yeah, we'll put you on some fish that, like, different than what you've seen different. We'll get you on some smallmouth, and it'll change your life.
Zeb Beard [00:57:56]:
Cause I won't do that bad. I've caught a few of them. There's a few in Hamilton and a few in Lake Ouachita, and I've just caught a few of them. And, man, they ain't nothing like a smallmouth fight.
Jeff Compton [00:58:05]:
But how big do they get in Hamilton?
Zeb Beard [00:58:07]:
They get pretty big. I caught one that was in Washtow. I caught one that's maybe close to three pounds. But, I mean, that's. That's decent size.
Jeff Compton [00:58:17]:
You know, brother, you get a five pound small mouth on. It's a. It's a different thing. It's, uh. Yeah, it's like a five pound smallmouth is. I mean, I've never caught a ten pound largemouth, but I've caught almost a six pound largemouth and a five pound small. A couple five pound smallies. And that smally is.
Jeff Compton [00:58:37]:
It's twice the fish. Twice the fish in the way that it. Way that it fights. But I. Yeah, yeah, it'll change your life, man. You'll be like. You'll be wanting to buy a house up in Canada. It's a small mouth around because it's, it's, there's just something about them, the way it is, the way they, the way they fight.
Jeff Compton [00:58:54]:
And then if, if we could get you up here long enough, we try and get you on a muskie.
Zeb Beard [00:59:00]:
Yeah, that's what I want.
Jeff Compton [00:59:01]:
And a small mouth at the same, in the same week.
Zeb Beard [00:59:03]:
So, yeah, I would like that.
Jeff Compton [00:59:04]:
Yeah, they'll, they're, those people up here, they get stupid about those fish because what they call a good day is if they actually see one. Like if it'll actually follow the bait to the boat. Um, so I got spoiled real quick. I went out the first time and I went out with my friend. He's no longer with us. And, um, we go on this lake that he, like the, literally, the lake is literally down the road from him. So he fished it every day of his life, it seemed, until ice out to ice in. And he.
Jeff Compton [00:59:34]:
So he knew these muskie were like his pets. He knew. There's a 47 that lives on that rock pile. There's a 43 that lives over on that weed bed every time. Because people with those fish, they don't realize when it's the alpha predator. Nothing moves it off that spot. Nothing. It makes its home on that spot.
Jeff Compton [00:59:55]:
It spawns near there, but all it needs, food, shelter, whatever, is in that spot. There's nothing bigger in that lake that's going to come move that fish. So that fish is always there. So he says to me, he says, cast that rock piles are going by. So I throw a mainline spinner over there and, you know, and they call them the fish of a thousand casts. Well, this was probably the 20th cast that morning. And we bring a 47 like it hooks up, comes right to the boat. And that ruined me for those fish for the rest of my life because then it's just like, to me, it's just like bass fish.
Jeff Compton [01:00:29]:
And you go, you should catch one every time. We went out three more times and I never hooked up with one. I had it followed to the boat. And that ruined me for then because I'm like now, to me, they're just like dumb dogs that chase cars. That's what muskie are. So if anybody's listening, you don't like that. That's what they are. They're like, dumb because they'll.
Jeff Compton [01:00:47]:
Zeb, they're such a curious species that it's like they'll see anything and they'll follow it right to the boat and you'll sit there and you'll figure out your lure back and forth inside of the end, they'll go stupid staring at it, but they won't hit it. And then it's just like. That is the most frustrating thing is you've had ten minutes that you've worked this fish and it won't bite. But for them, that's a good day. They go, it's a good day at three follows and I'm.
Zeb Beard [01:01:12]:
That's it. Damn. Like I was telling you about that busy break. That's the way it is. And you can. You can see. You can see the fish on your live scope there. You can see that it's a 1012 14 pound bass.
Zeb Beard [01:01:23]:
And you throw at that fish.
Jeff Compton [01:01:25]:
Yeah.
Zeb Beard [01:01:25]:
Hours. I can't. I can't do it.
Jeff Compton [01:01:27]:
Yeah.
Zeb Beard [01:01:28]:
I can't do it. I go down there and I fish for a couple hours and I come home. That's reading. I hadn't caught one yet, but I'm gonna be like you. I'm gonna go down there and I'm gonna get me a good one in my 2 hours.
Jeff Compton [01:01:36]:
Yeah.
Zeb Beard [01:01:37]:
Cuz I'm not willing. I'm not willing to sit there and throw it. One fish for three, 4 hours. I'm not.
Jeff Compton [01:01:42]:
I can't, I can't. I can't bed fish for them. I've seen them up shallow like that. And I'll throw everything on the deck at them and they should come over and nose it and she won't pick it up or she turns completely turns away and there's other guys that is like, they'll study that and they'll work that fish for 4 hours. I've seen guys. I can't. I just. The clock starts ticking and I'm just like, I got to go.
Jeff Compton [01:02:03]:
There's another fish somewhere is what I.
Zeb Beard [01:02:05]:
Just tell myself I'm gonna go fish somewhere else. And then if I don't buy. That's why I like Hamilton. My party barge is sitting there. So I take my bass boat out and I go fish and I'll throw and I'll catch a few and I. And if they quit, bite. And I go park that bass boat and I hop on that party barge and I drink beer the rest of the day.
Jeff Compton [01:02:21]:
Yeah, well, we'll get.
Zeb Beard [01:02:22]:
Susie's not like that. So Zozie, she'll fish.
Jeff Compton [01:02:26]:
Yeah.
Zeb Beard [01:02:26]:
She'd fish in the hot sun, the pouring rain. It doesn't matter. She never wants to quit. But I like to quit and go do something else.
Jeff Compton [01:02:38]:
Well, brother, we'll get you up here one day and I'll. And I'll come down there and we'll. We'll go on. On Brussy and try it, because, I mean, I've seen some of the pics from that lake. There's some good ones in there.
Zeb Beard [01:02:47]:
It's full of monsters. Yeah, full of them.
Jeff Compton [01:02:50]:
Yeah. It's just a tough lake, so.
Zeb Beard [01:02:52]:
Yeah. Yeah.
Jeff Compton [01:02:53]:
I'm probably not gonna be able to help you, but I'll at least be. I'll cheer you on.
Zeb Beard [01:02:56]:
Well, at least I'll have somebody there with me.
Jeff Compton [01:02:58]:
Yeah.
Zeb Beard [01:02:58]:
And then besides me and Susie.
Jeff Compton [01:03:00]:
And then when you feel like quitting, I'll be like, no, man, I came all the way for this. Let's stay at another.
Zeb Beard [01:03:04]:
Yeah. Yeah. You can get me into staying, so Z can't get me into staying. Yeah, but you probably could.
Jeff Compton [01:03:09]:
I could. All right, I'll let you go. Thank you very much for being here. I look forward to talking with you again. I can't wait to see you at Asta. We're going to have a lot of fun there.
Zeb Beard [01:03:20]:
All right, well, thanks for having me.
Jeff Compton [01:03:21]:
It's always a pleasure, man. You are always welcome here. Ciao, everybody. We'll talk to you soon. Hey, if you could do me a favor real quick and, like, comment on and share this episode, I'd really appreciate it. And please, most importantly, set the podcast to automatically download every Tuesday morning. As always, I'd like to thank our amazing guests for their perspectives and expertise, and I hope that you'll please join us again next week on this journey of change. Thank you to my partners in the ASA group and to the change in the industry podcast.
Jeff Compton [01:03:51]:
Remember what I always say, in this industry, you get what you pay for. Here's hoping everyone finds their missing ten.
Zeb Beard [01:03:57]:
Mm.
Jeff Compton [01:03:58]:
And we'll see you all again next time.