Sat.23.09.06. I journeyed to Lincoln at the crack of dawn to personally return the ‘crap stock’ back to Rimmers. I arrived just before 9 o’clock, unloaded three boxes of spares hastily presenting myself to Mark Pilkington, the unfortunate Rimmers employee who had the task of checking my ostensibly, endless list. The paper work should be completed on Monday when the financial staff can prepare a definitive invoice displaying exactly the goods returned against goods retained. A cheque will then be drawn for the difference then posted immediately to CB Motors. Mark will pass on the list to Toby in customer services possibly next week Andrew Haig of ‘finance’ will dispense the cheque.
The visit to Rimmers was made all the sweeter when after a request to Mark for the return of my callipers he dug out a pair of undamaged exchange callipers instead of my shagged out originals. They could even be rescued ‘in house’, scrubbed clean, repaired with a simple, inexpensive kit and not bartered for a new pair.
Yet another fateful bonus arose when a customer in the stores, having overheard the scale of my transaction, offered a couple of useful addresses. James Paddock of Chester, TRGB and Watford wheels were all collectively strongly recommended. He claimed that the prices were competitive, but importantly, the quality super. We shall see.
I telephoned Chris to confirm all had gone well. He sounded pleased; progress had been achieved following Colin’s recommendations, the financial news in particular from Rimmers welcomed. The cracks have been papered over.
Mon.25.09.06. The distasteful disagreement on Friday has conversely given the project an unexpected welcomed boost. The air has been cleared, friendships and respect restored, presently there is a feeling of renewed enthusiastic purpose. There has been far too much development, design modifications, incessant, bloody hard work for it all to slip away carelessly imploding into nothing. Over the weekend Chris has been fine tuning Colin’s latest contributions: cutting the transmission tunnel deeper to form its final profile at the same time enlarging the steering column passage. He has also made a start rescuing some of the original parts, particularly the master cylinders. Having seen the extremely poor quality modern equivalents together with listening constantly to ‘experts’ within the trade maintaining that ‘old’ is best, we have decided to revive as many parts as it is possible from the 1970’s car. The basic raw materials employed almost 40 years ago have a superior constitution having unquestionably been machined to a much higher standard. The clutch and brake master cylinders are one such example. Rimmers offered a master cylinder that had a plastic 90 degree reservoir boasting a badly crafted shoddy barrel, probably better suited to a tractor. The trunnions were fashioned from very inferior lightweight brass and the brake pads were probably made from grass. The regulator connectors were bent, cobbled together with fragile, mild metal, reminiscent of a used coke can. The process of restoration is not unduly difficult but it is time consuming: procedures can be duplicated on most engineered units which in the long term could claw back lost time, but more importantly save on expensive alternatives. The outer coat of rust and grime is first of all removed with a wire brush followed by 150’s, 600 and finally 1200s wet and dry paper. A mild rub of ‘T’ cut gives the piece its ‘aged’ gloss and Hey Presto a brand new, ‘out of the box’ component sits before you. Apart from having a genuine ‘Stanpart’ on the vehicle there is tremendous feeling of personal satisfaction gained from such an exercise: resurrecting life into something that has been far too easily discarded, prematurely pronounced dead and gone.
I have made contact with John of James Paddock. He, like everyone else we have encountered, claims, albeit in a much more modest tone, to have everything that we require at a very competitive price. The company is based in Chester, as such very accessible. I briefly explained the predicament that we had suffered with the former definitive order to which John curiously replied, “I seem to have a lot of customers from Lincoln”. Enough said. He can offer a 10% trade discount on already tasty, reasonable prices. I intend compiling a list of parts which I shall forward tomorrow.
This has been a successful day. It has been a long time coming but I sense that we have turned the corner we have re-discovered our concentration, focus and determination.
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