Steering Column Floor Gaiter

[Richard Coney]

Further to my recent Thread about glove boxes, can anyone recommend a supplier of rubber parts who might (amongst other things) have the large floor gaiter that mounts at the bottom of the steering column of a P15/D25C and who would be prepared to ship to the UK? The engine heat that comes into the passenger compartment through the remains of my gaiter is awesome! I've been reading Threads where members have been critical of the quality of some rubber parts and the difficulty in dealing with some suppliers. Being so far away, I want to get it right first time if I can.

Alternatively, has any Forum member got one of these gaiters spare who would be willing to sell it to me and ship to the UK?

Thanks guys (and girls)

Richard

[jimainnj]

Roberts Motor Parts 978 363 5407 in Ma. US has them in there catalog for $65. US I have not needed this part but I have bought other parts from them.

[Joe Flanagan]

I've had good experiences with Roberts and I'm sure they'd ship the item to you in the UK. You might try Kanter, too.

[DutchEdwin]

Be careful with kanter. Had motor mounts form them. Took me 4 month to get a pair that would match equal and correct rubber hardness. No problems form the side of kanter, always willing to help, even phone me back to the Netherlands but they had lack of technical background on the rubber parts. They just shipped what they got from there supplier, bad or good quality. The first pair I got was one very soft and one like hard like plastic. I would go for Roberts, although I've not used him before.

If you do not have experience on US to Europe shipment, go by USPS. Much better and cheaper then UPS. Most shipments within 4 day's. Customs can kill you, had one delay of 3 weeks of lying around at the airport. And in the Netherlands, USPS uses our lokal postal service, they will deliver to my door, and if I'm not at home delivery to the local postoffice. So don't have to take a day off tho receive the package. Not sure about GB but you can check yourselve.

For payment...use creditcard/paypall or postoffice deposit. Never use a bank. The bank in the US will take off a certain percentage of the payment...how much depents on the mood of the guy in the bank, the weater, and number of good looking girls he met this morning.

Edited September 22, 2009 by DutchEdwin

[michael.warshaw]

roberts motor parts all the way ask for gary jr, hes the best tell him mike warshaw from ny sent ya

[Richard Coney]

Thanks everybody. That's very helpful.

With regards to postage etc. having recently opened a PayPal account to send some money to another Forum Member (Hi, Robert) I would definitely pay by that medium if the vendor was able to accept it. I found the process very easy and painless. I would ask for shipment via US Postal Service. Not the fastest by any means, but generally reliable.

Some years back I was regularly importing model car kits and modelling magazines from the US to the UK and they always came by Surface Mail, USPS. I don't believe I ever lost a shipment, but there again, I don't recall any package ever "missing" the UK Customs. On top of the Duty payable, we also have to pay VAT (sales tax) on the price of the items sent and the postage costs, and the Duty paid, so you are paying tax on the tax. Furthermore the Royal Mail charges a "Clearance Fee" before they will collect the Customs fee and deliver the package. The Clearance Fee used to be about £8.00 per package (about $12.00US), regardless of size or weight, so for small items I was often paying more for Duty, postage and admin fees than the cost of the item itself.

For those of you interested in Canadian Coupes (You know it's weird that I've owned as many "American" cars of Canadian origin than US origin), I've attached a couple of pictures.

[Jim Yergin]

Nice looking car. Thanks for posting the pictures.

Jim Yergin

[T120]

Richard,Nice car.I like the upholstery on your car.I had an almost identical interior down to the colour on a coupe I had back in the sixties.Ralph

[Plymouthy Adams]

definitely a tight fit with the license plate..of course the wide and thin would hve been more out of place....Did Britian ever have the oval tag?

friend of mine gave me this tag for the Tiger..I know it is not the correct letters etc but only a few homeboys know that..and now that the forum knows..do they know the correct tag...?

anyway...it looks at home on the car...

Edited September 23, 2009 by Tim Adams

[1940plymouth]

Richard,

Great looking car, and yes, Roberts is a great place to do business with.

Keep us posted on your progress,

Bob

[Richard Coney]

Tim,

generally we in the UK have two official number plate sizes, the one you have on your Tiger and the other much squarer, with the number on two lines. You can see them both on my Dodge. However, us American car fans often have custom stamped plates made up (for show use only of course...yeah, right!) which mimic your Stateside tags. They generally describe the car, the year of manufacture and the State favoured by the owner. You can, of course, order what you like. If the licence number (which should stay with the car for its whole life unless swapped for a vanity plate at some point), is too long, there isn't enough room, but many old American cars over here have just three letters and three numbers with, perhaps a letter denoting the year of manufacture, so it's not generally a problem. The plates are not legal, though if your car is not later than about 1963 and you choose a black background with white letters, you can generally get away with it. I had a set made up for my '66 Mustang, which was made in California, so I reflected that on the plate. The attached picture is not good, but should give you the idea. I'm contempating doing it on the Dodge, with '19 Ontario 48' on the top line and 'Dodge' under the licence number.