The Triumph Dolomite Club - Discussion Forum

Cost is the main factor in producing good quality parts. A lot of the parts that we manufacture here at work are produced because the cheap versions are rubbish. Extra time and money is spent on better materials, more time finishing them and more investment in tech to produce them more consistently.

It works brilliantly for Jaguar and Healey racers who have lots of money and are willing to spend substantial sums for parts. Sadly in my experience many Dolomite owners don't like to spend a lot on their cars, they are still considered a cheap classic so expensive but better quality parts are not a lot of interest to many. It's a shame because you end up reducing the quality and viability of the remaining cars with cheap parts that fall apart.

I have just had a look at the gearbox mounts that Polybush have made for us, we have 2 grades and they are nicely bonded. I'll get in touch with them and get an idea of viability, probably using a used mount as old core to save on the cost of re-tooling the metalwork.

SprintMWU773V wrote:Cost is the main factor in producing good quality parts. A lot of the parts that we manufacture here at work are produced because the cheap versions are rubbish. Extra time and money is spent on better materials, more time finishing them and more investment in tech to produce them more consistently.

It works brilliantly for Jaguar and Healey racers who have lots of money and are willing to spend substantial sums for parts. Sadly in my experience many Dolomite owners don't like to spend a lot on their cars, they are still considered a cheap classic so expensive but better quality parts are not a lot of interest to many. It's a shame because you end up reducing the quality and viability of the remaining cars with cheap parts that fall apart.

I have just had a look at the gearbox mounts that Polybush have made for us, we have 2 grades and they are nicely bonded. I'll get in touch with them and get an idea of viability, probably using a used mount as old core to save on the cost of re-tooling the metalwork.

I don't think it is quite that simple. The cost can depend on the supplier, often they won't list the brand of the part. So am I paying for a quality part or a ripoff supplier? This is not helped by the tendency of the some suppliers to excluded VAT and charge eye watering postage. One of the reasons I like ebay, even though you have to be careful about which seller you use, is they have clamped down on ripoff postage charges.

This is made more complicated, because some once quality names have been bought up, often by cheap Chinese suppliers and so some parts are quality, others are not. Sometimes one batch is good, another bad.

Seeking value is not a vice, nobody wants to be ripped off. This does happen, often an identical part is cheaper when it is sold to owners of one car rather than another. How can that be justified? I will pay more for quality, but at the moment price is no guarantee.

My rule of thumb is NOS and club parts are best. Then suppliers I have found to be trust worthy like Winns and Robsport (others maybe as good, these are just the ones I use and have experience of). With odds and ends off ebay. I will pay more for quality, but spotting quality isn't always easy.

There is also the perception of what the market will pay.

This leads to ridiculous situations like the following example. TR6 owners could buy 2 sets of identical bearing shells for a Spitfire 1500 for less than a single set for a TR6 and would have had some spares left over! More of the same parts actually costing less!

TR6 owners were clearly perceived as less cost conscious than us cheapskate spit drivers...

Jonners

Jon Tilson wrote:There is also the perception of what the market will pay.

This leads to ridiculous situations like the following example. TR6 owners could buy 2 sets of identical bearing shells for a Spitfire 1500 for less than a single set for a TR6 and would have had some spares left over! More of the same parts actually costing less!

TR6 owners were clearly perceived as less cost conscious than us cheapskate spit drivers...

Jonners

Exactly, yet the part will be made with the same tooling and materials.

This isn't just a low volume classic issue, I read article that said the mainstream parts market was awash with poor quality and in some cases, counterfeit parts.

cleverusername wrote:One of the reasons I like ebay, even though you have to be careful about which seller you use, is they have clamped down on ripoff postage charges.

Did they?
They have certainly talked about it, however if you
ignore the "Free Postage" bit in the search results and instead study the listings…..

cleverusername wrote:I read article that said the mainstream parts market was awash with poor quality and in some cases, counterfeit parts.

Yes, in Car Mechanics magazine?
Did you notice that the sub standard parts illustrated were for Dolomites?




Ian.

sprint95m wrote:

cleverusername wrote:One of the reasons I like ebay, even though you have to be careful about which seller you use, is they have clamped down on ripoff postage charges.

Did they?
They have certainly talked about it, however if you
ignore the "Free Postage" bit in the search results and instead study the listings…..

cleverusername wrote:I read article that said the mainstream parts market was awash with poor quality and in some cases, counterfeit parts.

Yes, in Car Mechanics magazine?
Did you notice that the sub standard parts illustrated were for Dolomites?




Ian.

Yes that was the article.

The advantage with ebay is sellers can't hide postage and vat on the last page, you see it up front.

Part suppliers on the other hand leave it as a nasty surprise for the last page. I tried to order a couple of gaskets from one supplier I won't name. They tried to charge me £6 postage, my response can't be repeated here, needless to say they didn't get my business.

I sell on ebay sometimes, so I know exactly what things cost to post. Some of the charges suppliers set are outrageous

Turns out one of our customers owns Bonaprene which makes Polybush. I have to speak to him regarding another matter so I will drop in any questions about engine mounts if I get the chance. Polybush is a small part of the business, they actually manufacture loads of other things.

The metal work on engine mounts are flat plates; I could measure and CAD the silhouettes and enquire what quantity could be laser cut within the minimum charge...

The reason OE engine mounts are not available is the manufacturers had all of their tooling patterns stolen by metal thieves.

I asked Polybush on Saturday. They are not averse to making anything but the minimum quantity would be at least 100, ideally more like 150. I cannot see this working, perhaps someone else could be tempted to make significantly fewer?

Either way they liked the idea and thought it could work well, particularly because of the problems people seem to have sticking rubber to metal these days. Their only other suggestion was to see if something they already make might be suitable.

I haven't heard of any problems with the ones from Rimmers.

The only thing that I was aware of was that the gearbox mounting rubber on Sprints was too hard in some cases (still yet to investigate this on my own car) and we have got a mod for that now anyway.

James467 wrote:I haven't heard of any problems with the ones from Rimmers.

Mine gave in after 6 months from RB so I bought a pair from a firm in Telford, these were to hard solid as a rock - no give in them at all, exchanged for another set which were sligtly softer - but I still struggled to fit them. To get around the issue I fitted one from a previous set and one from the slightly softer set - all fine now.


I also bought a set from Ebay said they were OEM originals - I can confirm that they were OEM original mount - they were rubbish, I will find a photo of them and post it - then you will see why I said they were rubbish.

Paul

Poly will be too hard and makes something to tear and crack. On two sprints i have modified the brackets and both sprint mounts are 45 degrees as the 1850 ones and they do fine. The problem is the rh horizontal one cannot take the load and does overload the lh one by pulling to much on it. Both 45 degrees does the job. If anyone does want to make some solution the best is to use suitable readily available ones from car make and type X and only make some adapter brackets. Just buy one time a set of conversion brackets of the club and buy for the next 20 years good quality mounts which are available.

Jeroen

Flyfisherman wrote:I also bought a set from Ebay said they were OEM originals - I can confirm that they were OEM original mount - they were rubbish, I will find a photo of them and post it - then you will see why I said they were rubbish. Paul

Here is the picture of oem original mounts