There's one machine shop left in Saginaw (that does heads / auto engines...) and I know the guy who owns it. Nice guy, known him for... 10+ years maybe, he's one of a group of irreplaceable friends I have there.
A few years back his flywheel grinder crapped out on him on account of some electrical problem, and it was so old he didn't know where to turn to get it fixed.
So I got a call. And I'm 5.5hrs away. I got there mid-afternoon on a Friday.
While a it's a simple machine, I spent maybe 4hrs just tracing wires to and from the two motors and motor controllers, "making sense" and "taking notes" of everything b/c I didn't know if someone else had messed with it at some prior time and maybe f'd it up... because it was obvious that mine weren't the first hands on the machine.
After about 6 hrs on site and a few more hours browsing the web for replacement parts, I had a plan for him and parts on order by Saturday afternoon... basically, it was a motor speed controller and potentiometer (which was used to select the speed) that needed replacement, maybe $130 total.
I never "charged" him anything -- that wouldn't have been appropriate -- but he did the heads on my Pontiac 455 for free in return.