Don's Machine Shop

Kelly Donaldson

a month ago

*** Warning if you need diesel head work. We brought my son’s diesel cylinder head here for repair and waited over a month. When I picked it up on Jan. 9 at 3pm, I paid over $700 in cash (with my 20yr old son’s hard earned money) and was told it was ready. As his mom, I have no knowledge of what a cylinder head should look like, so I trusted it was repaired when they loaded it into my vehicle. When I got it home (3.5 hours away), my son, who is a diesel tech, and his mechanic friend immediately saw new chips and damage that were not there before. The head was unusable and he had to buy a completely new one. We gave the shop time to make it right, but nothing was done. If you use this shop, do not pay cash.

C Richards

6 months ago

I had Dons machine and prep a 318 block, crank, and heads. They told me it was was 4 weeks out. Which they were more or less accurate on. After I picked up all pieces, I began assembling the motor. The motor was about 90% complete(rotating assembly in, heads on, cam in) I went to drop the lifters into the bores. The intake bore on cylinder 1 would not take a lifter. I called Don's and they said to try and take some 5000 grit sandpaper through the bore. That also did not work. So after all that work the motor had to be completely torn down so that the block could go back to Don's. I dropped it off at Don's and a few hours later they said it was done. They said they checked every bore and they all worked good. Come to find out the same bore was still not good. I took it back AGAIN and they insisted that the bore was fine. After getting a few more opinions I was told that the bore would not work. I ended up taking the block to a different shop that is taking care of the issue. The shop also noticed a few other things that weren't done to a high standard. Not only have I spent weeks trying to get this sorted out, but I've had to replace the brand new head gaskets that I torqued down. I also had to replace the brand new rear main seal. Overall I didn't have the best experience. Update, we got the whole motor pretty much together. We went to prime the oil pump and it was leaking out of the oil filter adapter. Come to find out Dons had given us the wrong adapter. So now we are out another week trying to find the right part.

Mark Mac

7 months ago

Quilty that surpass any machine shop in the bay area : family's pride in what they do best , shop cleanest with out FM . IF ONE NEEDS IT DONE RITE 1ST TAKE PRIDE IN EVERY ASPECT. I'M LOOKING FOR THE BEST DON'S 👌 I'VE TESTED EVERY MACHINE SHOP'S IN BAY AREA TWO TOP SHOP'S DON'S IN MARTINEZ ,AND AL HUBBARD'S VICK VH

JR Family

a year ago

I live out of town about 3 hours away and was looking for a good machine shop to do all my work on a 2003 honda s2000. Decided to take it to dons machine shop to fully build my motor with darton sleeves. They absolutely killed it, everything had perfect clearance down to the pistons rings. Everyting worked as it should and compression was perfect. Not to mention the great customer service they have. Definitely going back for my kseries and all my honda motors.

Lulu_ From_leschwab

a year ago

after letting dons build my motor a few days after I got it running the engine started knocking. After this happened I called dons and they offered to rebuilt it again. The knocking sound ended up being the valve seats they installed falling out of the head. After then rebuilt the engine a second time and I put the car back together I noticed the camshaft gear and the crankshaft gear timing marks do not line up (I paid to have the engine assembled) And after cranking it a few times to see if it had compression I believe something may have failed inside the engine again from the noises it made rotating . I don’t think dons deserves a 3rd chance at building and costing more of my money and time. Only go here if u want headaches of pulling engine in and out of a car bc they cannot machine or assemble the engines correctly.lets not forget about the parts they painted without asking and stripping the zink coating off of all the factory hardware in the engine and all the hardware I never got back.Now I have thousands of dollars into a engine that is better off as scrap metal thanks to everyone Dons Customer Hunter engine Z24