Well i hope this thread doesn't get nasty! Bought an A+ 1380 from Sydney off ebay for a good price-not complaining, has a weber with 5"manifold, extractors and exhaust, RE13, headwork, lsd etc etc.
Would have liked to build up an engine myself, but time and finances were against me so i snapped it up. Owner had claimed it had been dynoed and tuned.
Alarm bells started ringing when i found 40mm diameter ram tubes fitted to a 45mm weber. Fixed that easily. Tidied up many other similar silly things, painted it, set tappets, put points in it, ran it on floor and set timing as recommended by owner for "recurved" dizzy.
Put it in car, drove around, went quite well but seemed a bit flat. Checked air/ fuel ratio-10.5 A/F ratio under load. Mucked around with jets etc- got a nice 12.5:1 A/F ratio- better but still flat.
MMM better look at that timing again....Hello! NO centrifical advance!! That explains flatness i guess, dizzy must be seized. Pulled it out to unseize-found it had been welded up!! Might be alright for a methanol blown engine- but not this baby!!
I reckon the dyno guy has left his locked test dizzy in there and forgotton about it! Either that or he may just be a rough operator!!!
Want to do pulsar dizzy conversion but until then i've cut weights free and cleaned it up, will put back in and i'm tipping it may go a LOT better. (And yes i will recheck those mixtures)
Yes i know, i know, i should have checked that it advanced the first time, don't know why i didn't!!! Brain fade i guess.

can i buy the 40mm chokes off you then????

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No offence intended here but--> anyone writing a book about minis 30 years ago may not have experienced such worn or stuffed-with components as we are finding these days.

You should put your heart & soul into everything you do.

Sorry Matt, they've already gone!

Sorry it didn't work out for you, bummer!

I have bought 2 mini's from eBay and have been wrapt with what I got. I got what the seller described.

Then I went one better and bought a motorbike from Belgium from eBay. Risky? you bet! This morning I checked out my gmail account and the seller dude sent me a movie of him starting the bike. I was stoked. In broken english, this French guy said hello to me and then started the bike and gave me the thumbs up.

How good is that!!!!!

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1964 Cooper UK 970 S 'CZ 4289'

purchased my mini from ebay..... for the price i paid i can't complain BUT when i went to go and see it, didn't look like in the photo's....
firstly there was no ignition barrel spent half an hour trying to hot wire it so i could drive it, secondly dash was an utter mess of cables with no idea where to start.....

otherwise body was very good and car was a good price

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The BLUE BRIK

I bought my Corona Coupe off Yahoo Japan auctions based on the photos and seller's description. It arrived exactly as described, so I was very happy.

I've recently purchased a cheap Mini sight-unseen, so I will let you know how that turns out!

Cheers,

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Brett Nicholson
Greendale (near Ballan) VIC.
1971 Morris Mini Moke
1966 Austin Mini
1965 Morris Mini Traveller
1973 LR Series 3 88
2007 LR Freelander 2

Now we know why you paid the good price you did - you were able to find the problem, the seller probably couldn't find the problem, hence the sale.

I brought a Ford Laser off a guy in Brisbane and couldn't be happier with the deal, it's always the rule that "" BUYER BEWARE" , i asked him plenty of questions about the car, also got him to email me more photo's , which he did without hesitation he already had plenty of photo's in the add which i think is a good thing, they don't seem to be hiding anything that way and then after a couple of phone calls i was satisfied that everything was legit and he was upfront with me so i went for it and won the auction.I then flew to Brisbane went and checked car and it was exactly as he said it was, then drove the car home from Brisbane to Muswellbrook ( in 8 hrs, 1 stop for fuel ) and have not had an issue with the car since it looks and goes well, couldn't be happier . But as i said before beware , ask plenty of questions do your homework and if you are at all unsure don't do it.

Colin

I bought a $70 Porsche racing flag once (big vinyl thing).

It didn't arrive and when I contacted the guy he said he'd send another.

He didn't send anything and when I went to complain to Paypal the 70 days had expired so I had no come-back! I reckon the guy knew that and used the "I'll send another" as a delaying tactic - you have been warned.

If it doesn't arrive report it immediately!

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Regards,

Mike
"He who dies with the most toys wins."

I've bought, sight unseen:
Mk II 850
Clubman Estate
Commer van
Suzuki M50/VZ800 motorbike
Volvo V70 T5

People are generally pretty good and honest, which reaffirms my faith in society. In return, I've tried to be as honest as possible, even to the point of cutting people a deal when they pay too much. I sold a nitro RC car and the winning bid was too high for what it was, so I told the guy to only pay 1/2. Too honest? Nah, what goes around comes around.

That's briliant, but the sad fact is that people like you are few and far between, and the less scrupulous people tend just to take advantage.

I hope you don't get stung

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"I'm sorry, but a lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part!"

"People are generally good and honest".

I've travelled to nearly every country in the world and I'm sorry to say that's not my experience. On balance they will rip you off - unfortunately.

Especially on things like e-bay where it's used to offload items unseen.

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Regards,

Mike
"He who dies with the most toys wins."

my problem is with ebay itself, i bought a primary gear from england i paid by paypal and have receipts. the primary gear arrived no problems but ebay have said i havent paid for it here are a few letters we have traded.
here is my first response
i am sick of getting these emails where it is saying i have not paid, i now have a strike and here is the receipt so you pack of idiots can sort it out
cheers allan
my second response
Tony at ebay rang me on my number and wanted me to ring back bit hard when you dont leave phone numbers you pack of f g idiots.
cheers allan
this is in early october i went to buy something today on ebay and i had 2 strikes against my ebay id so i finally got hold of someone and after a couple of words they hung up on me

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busier than a 0ne legged man in a butt kicking competion

It might be a bit different in NZ compared to say Zimbabwe, where the seller knows I can pay him a visit... Also, it's one of the few benefits of living in a small country.

Also in the case of the Volvo (easily the most expensive thing I've taken a gamble on), he dropped it at the dealer, then I paid him the money and he told the dealer to release it to the transport company.

And in over 400 trades on Trade Me (Ebay was too late to the market in NZ), I've yet to have a deal go bad, which is nice when you think about it.

so far too date ive had no prblems with ebay.
my curerent project..1967 mini witch ive been working on since late 2005 was bourght of ebay..for a low price of $960
i was happy...
i will admit i was a tad scared as you never know if the car is a stolen item..rebirth etc...had the car checked out and it came back clean but the engine in it didnt..still had finance owing on it...but lucky for me the engine diddnt come with car so i was told theres no problem...

the one thing i hate is when people say the item or there location its in australia but its not its in japan..or hong kong...i tend to look for items in aus first so i dont have too wait to long for it to arrive.
ive had this happen more than once...
and theres no hiding it iether as the item has hong kong stamps etc....
the last thing i bourght was a dvd case...just one of those back binders..
cheap under $15.00 it holds 200 dics..was told item location was in melbourne....but it wasent....it took over three weeks to arrive....i complained
and when it arrived it came from hong kong...

they offered me $1.00 compenstation....for wasting my time..hahaha
I also had one instance when i sold a phone...person who won the phone was in usa....they then wanted the item exspess posted to another country....cant remember what it was but it wasent usa.

i said no they said they would transfer moneyplus extra to cover the postage cost into my paypal account once i give them the posting tracking no....it sounded suss so i put in a query to paypal....and it came back that the person was running a scam...it was quite good too..the emails i got from soo called paypal were quite convincing...
what got me thinking was the phone was sold for $350 aus

and the winner said they would deposit $900 into my account.
as im honest i wrote back and said no your paying too much...and they replied yes but its to pay for extra postage costs etc....it got me thinking ....glad i checked it out...as i would have sent the phone and gotten no money..

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started a new project...there goes all my free time....