Hi all,
We all have to wait the famous meeting I told you about and hope that
Renault believes in our roadsters.
About the H20 conversion... I ordered the H20 chain as well as the
tensioner and the gears.
Chain is different, gears have the same tooths but the offset is
different, bore hole for tensioner body is at a different position and
has no valve inside, the top which touches the chain can be used.
Regards,
Chris
BTW Both chains are still available in Europe.
-----UrsprC<ngliche Nachricht-----
Von: Marc Sayer <marcsayer@home.com>
An: Roadster list <datsun-roadsters@autox.team.net>
Datum: Freitag, 9. MC$rz 2001 05:41
Betreff: Re: OHC Chains and belts
>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
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