More tales of rubbish!

Just been fitting my partners Rover with some chrome handles to replace the plastic finish handles. One of the new handles was not correctly put together/machined meaning the securing plate on the rear was bent out.... If i had not noticed it would of severely damaged the paint! had to undo part of the handle realign and use a BFH!

Not good!

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New from the UK and wanting a NICE little British car!

Is there a list of parts NOT TO BUY somewhere? We are just starting on a fix up and am about to spend lots of $$$$ on rubbers etc. Or someone who selects only good stuff to sell?

thanks
frank

Well dont buy the rubbers from minispares, I bought new rubbers/weather shields etc all round for a countryman and not a single piece fitted properly. I have just bought a new rubber kit for an RX3 I am restoring from http://www.scottsoldautorubber.com.au/

They send rubbers all over the world and the guy assured me his rubbers were perfect. They have to be better than the crap from minispares and seem to have plenty to offer for minis.

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1965 Riley Elf
1974 Ex Army Moke
1997 Rover Cooper
2002 JCW Cooper
2003 JCW Cooper S

Buy rubbers in Australia
Our minis are different

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1969 Cooper "S"
1967 Mini Deluxe
1973 Clubman Van (the fleet spare)
1978 ex 1275 LS ("Wizard" Eaton Supercharged)
2015 HSV GenF GTS(occasional drive & tow car)
2019 MINI F55 Cooper S

Fitted a duplex timing chain from minispares yesterday, checked the crankshaft keyway for fit in the sprocket, it was snug but I thought fit nicely...gave it a tap onto the crank with a soft faced mallet and the crank sprocket cracked in 2 places!! Couldn't believe it!

Either your built like the hulk or they are some shoddy parts

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Project Pickles is ALIVE!!!!! Click Here!
Success is so much sweeter after the struggle

It was for an english car so you would think english rubbers would fit

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1965 Riley Elf
1974 Ex Army Moke
1997 Rover Cooper
2002 JCW Cooper
2003 JCW Cooper S

Ah yes, but are they now `English rubbers'. I bet they come from much further east than the english channel. Nudge nudge

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DrMini- 1970 wasaMatic 1360, Mk1S crank, 86.6HP (ATW) =~125 @ crank, 45 Dellorto (38 chokes), RE282 sprint cam, 1.5 rockers, 11.0:1 C/R.

The Australian built Mini was Built by an English owned Company in Australia.
So some rubbers are Australian designed and made and do not fit the UK built Mini
for example pretty much all the rubbers in the Aust Made wind up window doors.
I must say that I find
Getting good quality rubber products these days is a Real Problem
no Matter where they come from

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" A Hundred Years From Now It will not Matter what my Bank Acount Was,
The Sort Of House I Lived in, Or The Kind Of Car I drove ... But The World May Be A Better Place
Because I was Once Important In The Life Of A Child"

Just as an idea will the people who have had great parts that have fitted and just as important recived good service give that company a plug so the rest of us have a fighting chance of not adding to the tales of crappy parts and equally crappy service. just a thought

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66 Van 1275
69 K Sedan
69 K Van Teabag
66 austin Countryman
68van

Each of my electronic regulators are tested to hold a steady 10 volt output while input is varied from 11 to 30 volts. If not it is not shipped. For authenticity I can install it in your original case for and extra $10 (cause it is so fiddly to do)

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David L


My greatest fear in life is that when I die my wife will sell my Mini and tools for the price I told her I paid for them!

Thanks but I pulled one out of a car which had sat in a paddock for 30 years and it worked perfect. Will keep it in mind if I ever need another

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1965 Riley Elf
1974 Ex Army Moke
1997 Rover Cooper
2002 JCW Cooper
2003 JCW Cooper S

Response from a well known English purveyor of parts to Kev's comment about rockers..

I would agree with another comment that, if you get a bad part ...BITCH to the original supplier. Some of them will actually do something about it. IME Minispares (UK) is one of these... even if you do have to do a Kruschev.

Cheers, Ian

"Its difficult to comment of the problems the original poster had with the c-aht436 rockers, as there is no indication in the post as to when they where bought, so its impossible to judge which batch they came from.

There are six different suppliers involved in the production of this part, and there have been (from memory) four seperate batches (of the actual rocker arm) made, each batch has improved as various ideas have been tried out. The problem with anything that is heat treated is that it will alter in dimension slighty, so as these have evolved as a product different methods of heat treatment and grinding of the pad area have been tried. The current batch is just about bang on really. The lift is just about perfect now.

Adjuster screws are a constant bug bear in these cast rockers, the top and bottom tolorance of the thread rolling can alter so much, plus how the threads alter in size from the heat. we scrap a vast quantity of the things off, i weighed nearly a full wheel barrow full in for scrap the other month!

We usually hand select them for use in the roller rockers (its possible to see by eye which ones are 'best') as they alloy rockers are very intolorant of poor adjuster screws (due to the grabby nature of the anodising), the remaining ones are then used in the cast rockers, but if they are too tight or slack they are discarded. I dont however assemble the cast rockers as they are a 'budget' part and there isnt enough money in them to pay me to sit and hand sort adjuster screws for them. We simply count the component parts and box them up for the warehouse lads in London to assemble and box them up.

ive just looked at a random selection of 20 rockers here and cannot even get a 2 thou feeler gauge between the nut and the top of the arm (even though the nut is not 100% flat), it only takes a few seconds to pass a file over the top of the rocker to sort this 'problem' out.

we are looking into getting a cnc machined super dooper adjuster screw made, but of course the price will go up as they will cost a bit to make, they could easily add 10-20 quid to a set of rockers.

i must say though, we have sold over a thousand sets of these rockers in three years, and people like swifty are happy to buy them in quantity and use them in his race engines (although, to be fair, he does use and expensive adjuster he sources himself)."

"The Australian built Mini was Built by an English owned Company in Australia.
So some rubbers are Australian designed and made and do not fit the UK built Mini...."

So, is there an - reliable - Oz source for 850 (sliding window) door and window rubbers ...?????

Cheers, Ian

Thanks Ian,
In reply to your post above, I would say, the reason they could not get a .002" feeler under the nut is simply that the nut is way loose on the adjuster, which itself is .020" undersized on the thread and rattles around in the rocker when fitted. So, when you did the nut up it pulls the adjuster over at an angle.
Once proper on-size adjusters and nuts were fitted though, the angled gap between nut & rocker was very apparent to the naked eye.

BTW, these cast rockers came directly from MSC in the last month.

GR used to run these `forged' (were then) rockers in some race engines, but he is less enthused about them lately.

[EDIT]
Further to your comment on the 1.5 rockers above, the following was posted today on MiniMania forum by Motormay1969, and I quote:

"Ahhhh....science.

This is another case where a bit of measuring and comparison of the measured results paints a much better picture than words alone could. That said, following (below) are a few words on some of the history of 1.5 rockers as sold by the usual UK suspects.

Thanks to the ever-helpful DRMINI(of Oz) for his data and comments posted on this thread.

One of the earliest 1.5 rockers is the original 1.5:1 MSC rocker, designed by Keith Calver in the early 1980s. This was an investment cast component, was very accurate, gave the correct lift ratio, and was hard wearing. It had 'KEITH DODD' (owner of Mini Spares Center) cast in to it.

Sometime later, another rocker came appeared as the replacement for the previous one when the casting company that was making them got in to financial issues, packed up everything and moved without leaving any contact details. They took the tooling with them. As a result, Keith Calver designed a new rocker from experiences learned with the first rocker. This one was even better, except there was a batch made with insufficient heat treatment on the pad that caused premature wear. This was also an investment cast component and had 'KEITH DODD' cast in to it as well. It was distinguishable by the very different 'hooked beak' profile at the pad end.

Following that rocker in history is its replacement which came along when the tooling being used had worn out, so it was decided to do forged instead of casting. Manufactured in the UK by one of the foremost automotive specialist manufacturers, it was heavier than the previous two but proved 100% reliable and gave the required 1.5:1 ratio. It was decided to forge the rocker in this design so it could be used in historic motorsports series where non-roller rockers had to be used. The forging finish was left as forged so that to the untrained eye they look like the original 'S' type rocker. It had 1.5-1 forged in to the side of it.

The latest offering is sourced outside the UK. It is supposed to be a copy of the original forged 1.5:1 rocker, but is nowhere near the quality. Problems are inconsistently drilled/tapped adjuster screw threaded hole, adjuster lock nut land not machined square to the threaded hole, rocker pad does not sit square on the valve tip, ratio all over the place (generally around 1.6 - 1.62:1 on modded engines). Identified by having just 1.5 forged in to the side, and the pads are very smooth/polished."

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DrMini- 1970 wasaMatic 1360, Mk1S crank, 86.6HP (ATW) =~125 @ crank, 45 Dellorto (38 chokes), RE282 sprint cam, 1.5 rockers, 11.0:1 C/R.