You can still find a good deal if you look around.

[adigra]

Greetings to all. I am in the final stages of the year long restoration of my FHC, during which time I've paid some extraordinarily high prices for various things, but also was very pleasantly surprised by others, very reasonably or downright cheap finds.

As part of my purchase deal I had paid the supplying dealer to have the wheels repainted from black to the correct silver. This was done, and looked great from about 6 feet away, until I realised that the paint was applied only on the outside directly on top of untreated black paint underneath, while the rest of each wheel was very rusty on all other sides. I also soon realised that by gently pushing with my finger I could crack the paint, of which big chips flaked off immediately. Basically, I got totally ripped off. A ?100 lesson learned. I took all five wheels to a place in Bradford, and for ?60 had them cleaned and powder coated, and just fitted them to the car yesterday. They look amazing, inside and out. The same place also powder coated the seat frames and runners, the heater box and fan, and various other little pieces, all for ?30.

On another related note, I had the local Alba Tyres place take the tyres off all five wheels, order another matching tyre (as the spare was beyond hope), refit them and balance the wheels. Charged me only the previously quoted ?47 for the single tyre and fitting. We pointed out that they did all of this extra work, the manager just shrugged... A completely opposite experience to that I've had with the most widely spread chain.

The aforementioned seat frame also needed the tube welding and machining, which cost me ?10 at another local place.

A mobile electrician my father in law uses for his classics came out and sorted the dynamo, the points, electric windows and fitted new switches, etc. all for ?30. The last time I had a diagnostics machine plugged to my modern car it cost me ?40 for 10 min. of their time, so to have someone come out to me and spend 3 hours on the car for the price of a decent meal is frankly quite amazing.

Oh, not an Elan job, but to have a radiator of an old fiat pressure tested, cleaned and painted cost ?15 at another place in Bradford. A good deal if you ask me.

I am really not sure how these people make a living, but in the world where it seems everyone is out to rip you off, it sure is nice to be pleasantly surprised.

And as further information, I've had all of my instruments repaired and refurbished by Speedograph Ritchfield, who did a superb job, and at ?52 (?57 for the dual gauge) each I thought were very reasonable. They also refaced the two smaller dials, which cost a further ?40 each (which seems steep, but needed doing).

As discussed before, Les Chandler recovered and restored my SE steering wheel for ?170. An amazing job and a work of art.

As everyone already knows, Sue Miller is superb, and on top of being very helpful with the parts from the catalogue, she continually keeps amazing me at having various obsolete parts. It's really fantastic to talk to someone who knows every single random bracket and fitting other specialist seem to have no awareness of. Her fibreglass replacement parts are also much higher quality than I've ever seen elsewhere.

This list can go on and on as my huge enthusiasm to make this car as great as I can has meant nothing has gone untouched and I've now dealt with a huge number of specialists and suppliers, from trimmers to painters, to seatbelt manufacturers. I don't claim I am an expert on anything, but I sure could point most people in the direction of one for most jobs now. Did you know that the engine man Chris Foulds (the Lotus specialist) uses is also one of the best Bristol engine experts in the country? Can tune Webers by ear in an hour better than another specialist could do in two days with equipment.

Regards,
Adi

[john.p.clegg]

Adi

Come on mate,you've got to name names for service like that....my last wheels were quoted ?35 each for blasting and coating.....

John

[Robbie693]

Definitely very pleasing to get a good job at a fair price. Restores a little faith. I just had some seatbelt work done at Quickfit SBS, I'd bought some Kangol rear lap belts to use for the hardware to be transfered to the existing inertia reels. They unstitched the ends, fitted the new hardware, swapped over the labels (at their suggestion) and supplied some anchors in the correct finish to match up both ends for ?35.00 including recorded delivery return. It cost me 20 quid to send them down!.

Paul Matty have helped me out a few times for no charge, I broke down on their forecourt recently and they got me going again for instance.

I've also just got my steering wheel back from Len, looks fantastic!

Robbie

[adigra]

John, of course! The powder coating place is called Cas Coating and they are in Bradford on Victoria Road. I have all of their details if anyone needs them. They are pretty funny as they seem very relaxed about the job and the guy just counts how many pieces you leave with them, but after having used them 5-6 times now, they have always done a superb job. For the wheels, which seems to be their main business, they charge a ?1 per inch of the diameter.

The machining place is Holgate Engineering in Keighley. Their shop is fascinating as they always have some great looking gears and such being milled in the machine. They've done a number of jobs for us including the seat frame.

The trimmer I use, who has also trimmed my father in law's AC Ace, is Will Trim, also in Bradford, very close to Cas Coating, so he's usually very happy to pick stuff up from being coated if he needs to trim it afterwards. Very handy.

If interested in anything else let me know, I'm more than happy to pass on the details.



Robbie, I got my Seatbelts from Quickfit as well. They initially lost my order so it took a long time to get them, but the quality is superb, and the price reasonable.