Ed Evans Talks Technical
143 Autumn is the new Spring Clean, but there needs to be some control of the clear-out
“There’s no point in storing parts you might never use, but there needs to be control over the clear-out”
Hoarding spare parts isn’t necessarily a good thing. Most of us hang on to spares that might one day come in useful for one of our vehicles but, in reality, they might never be needed. There’s a lot of time wasted digging through these parts to get to something at the bottom of the pile or the back of the cupboard, only to find it’s already been used, lost or doesn’t fit the model year of the vehicle.
So I’ve sold a lot of stuff recently, with several benefits. The benefit to me is an uncluttered workshop and more storage space for parts taken off vehicles during maintenance jobs – empty cupboards and shelves are a luxury. And there’s benefit to the people who bought them because they’ve saved money, and the parts are now getting other vehicles back on the road. My logic is, that there’s no point in storing parts you might never use, when those parts are available from commercial suppliers on next-day delivery anyway. But this is where there needs to be control over the clear-out.
Understandably, commercial parts suppliers tend to concentrate on parts they can sell, and can keep selling. So some parts that are rarely replaced on the vehicle may not be stocked. There’s plenty of old newstock of these rarely-replaced parts around, but once the supply is depleted, the cost of having some parts re-manufactured may be prohibitively expensive, given the number of customers needing them.
We still have a way out of this. Almost anything can be reproduced or reconditioned by a good machine shop or sheet metal worker, assuming we have access to original dimensions and patterns. But one-off components produced in this way are very expensive. This is the territory of the vintage vehicle movement, and it’s territory that we classic Land Rover drivers are destined for.
So, although others now have the benefit of the fastmoving parts I’ve got rid off, I’ve still hung onto all the difficult-to-obtain parts for the Land Rovers I own – the parts that might never be reproduced. These include early power steering bits, a Series III heater blower, a 200Tdi cylinder head and Girling brake and clutch cylinders (importantly, oiled internally so their bores don’t corrode on the shelf). Of course, I’ll probably never need most of them.