Gripe!!

I've been playing with Brit cars now for 50 years and Spridgets for 15. Some time ago I decided to avoid buying new parts if possible since the quality was suspect. I have a large stash of used parts and haunt E-bay for NOS and NORS parts that are commonly needed so I only go shopping for odds and ends. My small recent purchase from the common usual suspect netted me a set of cheap caliper pistons that didn't have the cut away for the pads. [Yes there are better ones for more money] Also a draft excluder pad for the dual master that was cut too small with holes for the pedal's that didn't even line up and made of a material too stiff for the application. It wouldn't stay where it was supposed to and I tossed it and refitted the old one. Also went to fit a different differential today and the gasket was worthless. It seems each time I have to order something I can expect more problems than the time before.

Soooo, since BMH and the major suppliers are unwilling to do anything about these parts I think it would be a good addition to the forums to have a list warning potential buyers against ordering worthless or poor quality parts. It would have to be easy to check for each model so it could let folks know what to not bother with ordering. I'm presently fooling with a Lotus where one knows the parts are unobtainium. I find that somewhat refreshing and better than thinking I can get what I can't.

BTW does anyone know if one can get the proper diff gasket that is usable or do I resort to RTV. I've got other things needing work so I can wait.

Kurt.

I have had similar issues with recent parts as well - sadly the work is jobbed out and the lowest bidder isn't always the most thorough - and, I think the patterns themselves are wearing out.

I photocopied my diff gasket on my printer and will just use proper gasket paper when I need to replace it. Can send you the PDF if you want.

Now that I've been at this for about 3 1/2 years, I've noticed some of the reproduction parts that I've purchased and installed are failing. Now I get why so many classic car aficionados prefer NOS parts.

Oh, yeah. ORIGINAL parts lasted 50 years, REPLACEMENTS 4.

I remember long ago...geez, 30 years anyway...sitting in an Early Ford V-8 club meeting, and one of the guys was showing a "new replacement" rear transmission mount for a 32. Okay.
Then he held up an NOS original.
The new one wouldn't A) fit over the end of the trans, and B) the side holes did not line up with the frame holes.

Double groove fan belts, less than a year. Brake and clutch pedal pads, same.
Put on new rear leafs, left side 1" higher than right.
Tomorrow I swap them to confirm.

Pain in the arsenic, it is.

The problem is legal. Apparently we cannot openly discuss this garbage without incurring the wrath of the importer's lawyers.

We'll see what the boss says.

Diff gaskets are easy to cut your own. However, Letting the gasket soak in oil for an hour will cause it to fit better.

see my thread titled 'mechanical fuel pump'. I have more to add today, but essentially comparing the currently available mechanical fuel pump to an unmolested original is not even close. they sorta look the same but the internal workings aren't even close. don't throw anything away! look for people that can repair the old stuff.

JP, I appreciate that and that would save me a bit...I'll PM you.

Trevor has a point and I should have thought of that but the gasket was WAY off.

Starting at the front this is what I have run into:
Winged bonnet badge didn't fit. I had the opportunity to buy a NOS badge a short time ago and didn't since the E-bay seller was asking $100....should have!
As mentioned caliper pistons and draft excluder.
Gasket under pedal box. This is cut from a foam that I'm sure doesn't shrink....it was way to small and a real bear to fit. I can only suspect that the maker wanted to save a penny and fudged and the seller wanted to make a penny so said that's good enough!
The diff gasket.
Rear brake cylinders with the usual E clip.
I'd like to get a new boot latch and lock but can't seem to get anyone to go look at the numbers stamped on the shank so that I can match them. 20 years ago I don't think that would have been a problem but for now I'll refit my ratty one.
I hope I can find the invoice because I think I should send all these ratty parts back and ask for a refund. Doubt I'll get it but if we all did this maybe they would get tired of it and make an effort.

Kurt

I believe, NO PROOF, but I believe that a large part of the problem is that the repro parts are being made on machines that are metric, not imperial. When one looks at the conversion charts one sees that they go out to three decimal places.. and that's just all the charts can show. If your machine tools aren't calibrated and marked for imperial measurement, it's always and approximation. .. ... That's the first part of our problem. The second is the quality of the materials themselves. We're all aware of "dung forged steel". This is a case where the low cost suppliers have driven the quality suppliers out of business. The problem begins with the consumer who wants to buy a part for $79 instead of $200. The guy making the good stuff can't sell enough to stay in business long enough for the consumers to realize that the cheap parts aren't worth $10. ...

All this is part of the reason I'm selling the red thing. .... It's one thing to get parts for a 30 year old car and quite another for a 50 year old one. .

Pythias said:

I believe, NO PROOF, but I believe that a large part of the problem is that the repro parts are being made on machines that are metric, not imperial. When one looks at the conversion charts one sees that they go out to three decimal places.. and that's just all the charts can show. If your machine tools aren't calibrated and marked for imperial measurement, it's always and approximation. .. ... That's the first part of our problem. The second is the quality of the materials themselves. We're all aware of "dung forged steel". This is a case where the low cost suppliers have driven the quality suppliers out of business. The problem begins with the consumer who wants to buy a part for $79 instead of $200. The guy making the good stuff can't sell enough to stay in business long enough for the consumers to realize that the cheap parts aren't worth $10. ...

All this is part of the reason I'm selling the red thing. .... It's one thing to get parts for a 30 year old car and quite another for a 50 year old one. .

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I would gladly pay $200 for a part that could be purchased for $40 elsewhere if that $200 part wouldn't leave me stranded in the middle lane of a busy street at rush hour blocking 50 other cars that won't stop going around me on all sides long enough to allow me to push my car out of their way. uh oh...I'm ranting again:apologetic:

So what are we going to do about this folks? I suggest a "Parked" spot such as Basil has at the top of the page on each forum in which we can lump our bad experiences with each bad part. If I know what not to buy I can get by other ways. As an example, the diff gasket can be easily made but it really erks me to pay for something that is unusable. Or maybe we should do just as I'm tending to do anyway....just assume all replacement parts are not worth buying!

Kurt.

All well and good, but I know from personal experience that easily 90% (and I'm being generous) of the owners won't pay even a little more for a better product. That's why, for the most part, you won't see better quality - there just isn't the support to justify it.

Unfortunately we were having the same conversations on the Sprite list decades ago, hence Frank C.'s "dung forged steel" quote. Maybe we should buy a 3D printer and start making our own stuff. Funny how I can't convince my wife that all those old spare parts I have and will probably never need are "worth somethin""

Gerard said:

All well and good, but I know from personal experience that easily 90% (and I'm being generous) of the owners won't pay even a little more for a better product. That's why, for the most part, you won't see better quality - there just isn't the support to justify it.

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I can't disagree Gerard. It seems to me that if we didn't have these cheap nasty parts though no one would mind spending good money for good parts. So maybe we should just stop buying as I'm tending to do anyway and maybe these pervayers of cr*p will go away!.

Kurt.

nomad said:

I can't disagree Gerard. It seems to me that if we didn't have these cheap nasty parts though no one would mind spending good money for good parts. So maybe we should just stop buying as I'm tending to do anyway and maybe these pervayers of cr*p will go away!.

Kurt.

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No, if you don't buy the crap, they think there is no market for the parts at all so they quit making ANYTHING.

Well, I do know that I will be avoiding Moss and VB from now on....I've had much better luck with AH Spares. You have to wait and pay more freight but the discount on parts easily make up for it. I got a set of Goodridge SS brake hoses from them for 2/3 Moss price plus a bunch of other odds and ends. They didn't have everything I needed hense I resorted to Moss.

Kurt.

I am rebuilding several gearboxes at the moment. One of them has a couple really badly chewed up gears due to someone's inability to assemble it correctly. I didn't want to replace them with used gears since mixing different worn gears can leave you with a really noisy result. I was considering buying new gears from AH Spares, but someone I was consulting overseas bought a new second gear from them, and the tolerance was apparently so bad, it was even too loose to fit the mainshaft properly. I don't know if it was a fluke or what's to be expected, but I think everyone, including them has been affected by poor tolerance parts. It's hard to know where to reliably source things sometimes. I ended up buying some NOS parts I was lucky to find.

nomad said:

Well, I do know that I will be avoiding Moss and VB from now on....I've had much better luck with AH Spares. You have to wait and pay more freight but the discount on parts easily make up for it. I got a set of Goodridge SS brake hoses from them for 2/3 Moss price plus a bunch of other odds and ends. They didn't have everything I needed hense I resorted to Moss.

Kurt.

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Well, Gerard, I lay a big part of the blame of these poor quality parts on British Motor Heritage that I thought, at one time, was to have some control over the parts market. I don't know how much that is anymore but I do remember seeing the whole group's smiling faces in an ad not all that long ago. I'm sure that AH Spare's probably gets many of their parts from the same place as the usual suspects but, to me, seem to be more willing to go out of their way. I think that most of the blame go'es to vendor's that won't check parts orders for quality and are only interested in the cheapest source. Good old competition would do a lot there. We need to see Ashley Hinton prosper and others like them. People that can be counted on to always supply quality, I think, would become the source that many of us would go to first.

Kurt.

I'll join in. This is the state of the gasket that was packed with the rear bearing kit I just received. Of course when I tried to straighten it out it ripped. Maybe I can use it as a pattern. Also the brake shoes are on back order.

You may have missed my earlier post. Any gasket made of that type material swells when soaked with oil, so it is best to let them soak a bit. HOWEVER, that looks like the wrong type material for the rear hubs. I think it should be much thinner. Many people skip that gasket and just go with the O-rings and RTV.

That's not so much a quality issue as a packing issue. These can be purchase separately, probably from the same source, and should cost less than $1.

I have some of the same ones and the thickness is fine. If you set it with Hylomar, you'd be fine using it anyway.

Rhodyspit75 said:

I'll join in. This is the state of the gasket that was packed with the rear bearing kit I just received. Of course when I tried to straighten it out it ripped. Maybe I can use it as a pattern. Also the brake shoes are on back order. View attachment 47435

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