datsunmike wrote:
>
> While I admire the engineering ingenuity that went on to convert to belts
> from chains, I think for the majority of you it would be cheaper to buy all
> the chains, gears and guides and far easier or convert to another engine.
The problem is the timing sets for the U20 are NLA now. Somebody is going to
have to ante up to reproduce those parts, and that's expensive. That means the
parts are going to be expensive, even more expensive than they were, which was
already expensive. I talked a bit with Les about trying to develop a kit that
used cheaper and more readily available parts, but from what I could see, by the
time you made adapters etc., it would be as costly as reproducing the correct
parts.
Roadsters are in the limbo zone right now, where factory parts are drying up and
there aren't any repro parts replacing them yet. Most Brit cars went through the
same thing back in the late 80s. To make things worse, there are far fewer
Roadsters than there were of most of the Brit cars. That means sales volume will
not support the repro parts as easily and therefore prices will have to be
higher. The Nissan timing set ran about $700 if I recall correctly, so a repro
set will likely have to sell for twice that, or more! And even then the
manufacturer won't see any return on their investment for quite a while. They
only way folks will pay those sorts of prices is if the car value warrants it,
and that is going to take time. That increase in value will also make the cars
unsuitable for the street. :-( Again, the same thing happened to the Brit cars.
Back in the 80s and early 90s you saw MGBs on the street all the time, but not
anymore. I used to see a dozen a week or so, now I might see a half dozen in a
year. My $2500 72 MGB now is easily worth over $6500. And this is for a car
where there are still a lot of them left (there's probably more 70-73 MGBs left
just in CA than all the Roadsters in the world), so the effects will be even
more severe with the Roadsters. I'm betting that in 3-5 years an honest
restoration on a 2 liter will run well over $50k to do, and will require some
parts to be made by hand. Its sad but true that right now if someone is sitting
on a stockpile of parts, they would be just plain nuts to sell at current
values. The parts are *guaranteed* to go up in value a bunch in the next few
years. Luckily, most of the Roadster community (and Vendors) are neither sane
nor profit motivated. :-) I remember folks sitting on stocks of MG parts for
several years because they knew the parts would skyrocket in value. I know of
several people who made quite a piece of change. I also know of several who
waited too long to offer their stash for sale and found Moss had already
reproduced the parts and the value had dropped off considerably, but even they
made money. Sadly I wasn't one of them, I sold my parts at fair value 'till they
were gone and made friends but very little money. I'm betting most of the
Roadster vendors will do the same, and end up with lots of friends. :-)
Hopefully they will also make enough money to start reproducing parts or running
Roadsters are going to become as rare as a model T.
--
Marc Sayer
82 280ZXT
71 FJ510
|