I'm seething!

I've spent all Sunday afternoon putting a clutch together for my Chummy engine rebuild. I thought I'd treat it to new linings, springs, toggle posts, pins and levers. I assemble the posts on the driven plate and rivet the new lining on. Big mistake! When I try to assemble the cover plate, I find the new posts won't go through the holes in the cover plate, although they fit the (rather sloppy) holes in the driven plate. Cursing the fact that I didn't check this before riveting the lining in place, I reach for the micrometer.
Measure the new posts - 0.630" diameter (16.05mm). Holes in the cover plate are unworn and 5/8" diameter (0.625"). Consider my options.

1) Return the parts as dimensionally inaccurate, unfit for purpose and get my money back. First I'll have to drill out the rivets from the driven plate.

2) Get the posts out and put them in the lathe and turn them to the correct diameter, (about 1 thou under 5/8, i.e. 0.624"). Still have to get the rivets out, I don't have another set and it'll be quite tricky to hold the post on centre accurately.

3) I have a 16mm reamer, ream the cover plate holes and carefully file 0.05mm (about 2 thou) off the posts.

I elect to go with 3) above, I'll have to remember that the cover plate is now non-standard.
It takes ages to remove the 0.05mm with a smooth file and get a good running fit but eventually I'm ready to fit the levers with new pins.

Oh no!
The new pins are poorly finished, and the wrong length! I have to spend another 1/2 hour facing them off in the lathe! I feel they should be case hardened......?

All this on top of last week, where I went to fit a set of fan pulley bushes, only to find that they dropped into the pulley and wobbled about. Investigation with my friend mike proved that the new bushes were in fact 1 1/2 thou or more down on size. A phone call to the supplier found that all his stock was the same and his answer? "Well, they fit the pulleys we supply!"
They don’t fit Austin pulleys so shim stock and Loctite to the rescue but it really shouldn't be like this.

Those clutch posts are £21 for three. If I was buying such a spare for a modern car (if you could get component parts like this), I would expect them to be at least double that price but they would FIT! I think we are driving our suppliers on price alone, not quality. If I were doing this job commercially, I would have to charge my customer 3 hours labour (rather than 10 minutes) to fit the parts, plus their cost, making them a total approaching £100, which makes the parts rather expensive. Wouldn't it be better to pay £45 or £50, have the parts made from the correct material, dimensionally accurate, correctly heat treated and then just fit them? Personally, I’d prefer this rather than having to spend hours of my time fettling, adjusting and finishing them. Yes, I know that Austin Sevens were the cheap end of the market, but that was years ago, now they are worth a lot of money and surely they warrant the investment in quality spares?

I’ve got this off my chest (don’t start me on piston rings) so I’m off to have a pint. What do the rest of you think?

Location: North Wiltshire

I've had many parts over the years both old and new, from cherished suppliers and off ebay but never had a problem that I recall, maybe I've just been lucky.

Location: Near M1 Motorway Jtn 28

As a general rule I think our main cherished parts suppliers do a good job, most new parts today are of reasonable to excellent quality. That said I have over the years had some rather dodgy parts from one or two people, whom I would now no longer use, or who no longer trade. I have also had some rubbish second hand parts sent to me by traders, again I vote with my feet, tell them what I think and do not go back.
Name and shame I say, any trader worth his salt and our custom would not give the response you got! However I also think you should have returned the posts, and asked for them to be replaced or your money refunded. As it stands he has got away with it.

Location: NZ

Send a copy of your post to the supplier and get their reaction...including whether relevant parts are hardened. On the reaction go public...good or bad.
David

Location: Stratford upon Avon

Tim

I am surprised that you have not had more feedback.

Been there, done that. Exhausts that dont fit. Wheels studs that the nuts wont go on etc etc.

As annoying as it is, the guys who are supplying parts are dealing with manufacture of smallish batches. Been there, done that. Getting good consistent quality is difficult.

However, occasionally rubbish spares availibility is better than no spares availibility.

Britpart aka '****part' prove it with their Landrover spares!

Hi tim,

Always contact your supplier before going public, if something is wrong at least give them a chance to put things right. They may not even know about the problem. I'm sure they would apreciate the chance to correct things before seeing the complaints on here.

Although if I was told bushes only fit there own pulleys, after they had been sold seperate. I would have returned a few choice words myself.

if a mistake was never made we would all be working for NASA for serious amounts of money instead of making austin 7 spares.

Then nothing would be available.

Higher prices are not the answer, just because it's more expensive doesn't prove its better quality.

Ask yourself why you went to the supplier in the first place, linnings, posts, fingers etc etc ( big supplier offering one stop shop ) quality wasn't the first thing on your mind.

If nothing of the above helps, you should start manufacturing austin 7 parts. And supplying us all. If nothing else it will give you appreciation of what the existing suppliers are up against.

most suppliers are a one man set up, cottage industries. It's hard to keep up with getting everything perfect. Or in many casses getting it on the shelf at all. Let alone chasing up the mistake after it's been made.

As hedd suggests, having problems with odd items is better than not having any suppliers at all.

Tony.

Location: Huncote on the pig

Location: As far east in Kent as you can get

and even NASA had their problems!

Steve V.

Location: Polegate, East Sussex, United Kingdom

On the rare occasion that I have received incorrectly machined/made parts I have contacted the supplier and the problem has been resolved. The first instance that I recall was a set of king pins and bushes from Austin Seven Service which has to be at least 50 years ago, the two top bushes bushes fell straight through their holes in the stub axles. A phone call to Jack Dalby revealed I was the first customer to receive bushes from a new batch which as he just learnt were all 0.025" undersize. Jack thanked me for letting him know and was full of apologies and found some correct size ones to send. I think the Austin Seven world owes a lot to our cherished suppliers who are an example for a lot of modern suppliers who only want to get their hands on your cash.

Dave is absolutely right; If you have a problem with parts, contact the supplier first.

We do a great deal of research to try to ensure that our woodwork components are as accurate as possible. However, our source material is for the most part at least eighty years old and more often than not broken, distorted, rotten or worm-eaten in varying degrees. As better original parts come to light, we check and if necessary revise our patterns and templates.

Despite this, I've directly received only five significant complaints in two years. Two of these proved to be down to defective repairs to the car's metalwork and nothing to do with us, two were the result of our incorrectly guessing missing details of decayed original parts; we supplied corrected replacements, and one arose from copying some internal trim cards that themselves were inaccurate copies of the originals; replacements have been offered.

I was therefore rather shocked a couple of days ago to be told by an old hand of the A7 world that a couple of people had told him that our parts didn't fit properly. One of these referred to the door cards mentioned above and I put my hands up to that one. The other is starting to look like a case of Chinese whispers! The report is at least third hand and I'm beginning to think that the parts involved may not have been ours at all, but a not-very-good set of Mk1 Ruby woodwork that was offered on eBay a while back.

If I've made a cock-up, I'll try to put it right. I'm sure that all other reputable suppliers would say the same. However, if we don't know about a problem, we can't do anything about it. We rely on building up good reputations in a small, specialised world and none of us can afford for them to be damaged.

Please, if anyone has a problem, speak to your supplier first!

Location: Herefordshire, with an "E" not a "T".

Good morning all. A similar thread is currently running in Practical Classics magazine where contributors are commenting on the poor quality of many new replacement parts. Quite a concern where safety critical parts are concerned. The response from many suppliers seems to be 'you are lucky to get it at all!'
Knowing as I do our suppliers I am sure that they would never knowingly sell anything of doubtful quality.
Having recently bought a set of ARQ Ruby woodwork from Martin I only wish that the household furniture was of such quality and the same goes for Tracey's upholstery.
Regards
Stuart

Location: Staffordshire, the creative county.

Thanks Stuart!

Location: Herefordshire, with an "E" not a "T".

Tracy says thank you stuart

Location: Huncote on the pig

This thread's point about contacting the supplier first still holds true. On new year's eve both the LED headlamps blew at the same instance on changing from dip to main beam so my first reaction was that something had failed on the common wiring for both lamps. After finding the wiring OK I checked the LEDs and to my surprise I found both were well cooked. So I replaced them with a spare set of incandescent bulbs I had in the car and posted the rather smelly LEDs back to Classic Dynamo & Regulator Conersions with a letter explaining what had happened. The next day I received an e mail from them explained what may have caused the fault, dodgy earths etc and today I have received two replacement LEDs F.O.C. now that's what I call service. Now it is a bit warmer I'm checking all the wiring connections before I fit them.

Hi dave,

It's a strange one.

Normal bulbs blow one at a time.

But the LED blows in pairs.

When the halogens were about, a local club member had them blow at the same time.

I had a bulb blow on my iveco van, the local garage convinced me to by a pair at discount. And recommended the other bulb would blow inside 2 weeks. Sure enough the smart **** was correct.

Is the earth, or the technology

Tony.

Location: Huncote on the pig

I had two LED brake lights stop working together just last year - I assumed it was coincidence, at the time.

I had two sidelight/indicator LED bulbs go within a couple of days. I have now put inline low amperage fuses and it appears to be ok . Fingers crossed

Location: Oakley hants