Jowett Bradford, Javelin, Jupiter and Pre-War Spares

[Chris Spencer]

Not wishing to sound negative - in fact having been a recent visitor to JCS and viewed the team in action and learnt of what they have planned I remain very positive. However I am not sure what Keith is proposing in his last post will actually achieve anything - I for one am very confident in the team at JCS so why do we need to commence separate actions outside of the undertakings of JCS. Let us (the membership) put our full support behind the team and let them get on with it. If you feel that you can help / support them further than please offer that help directly to the JCS team - but to start proposing actions without involving the team in the first place must make the members within JCS feel somewhat undervalued for the substantial efforts that they make on our behalf. Keith I am well aware that you have the very best interests of both the club & JCS in your heart but let the chaps at JCS get on with what they do best, equally if JCS would like to advise us on anyway or anything that we can assist on - we are all here for the asking.

[Keith Clements]

I am proposing that we communicate more on the subject of spares. Data and from it information helps to make better decisions.

It would be interesting to know what happened to Paul W.'s list and if others have, or would be prepared to share, such lists.

If anybody knows the answers to any of those questions posed then please enlighten.

We can be more specific if you like. Paul raised the issue of gearboxes. So what components are the potential problem?

This is not only a JCS issue, it is a global issue.

[Chris Spencer]

Keith - You talk has if the members of JCS can not plan for the future, has if they have a lack of understanding that the problem is just restricted solely to JCC membership, personally I am confident that they are fully aware that it is a global problem and will work with that in mind. Gather all the data you want then wrap it up in some fancy spreadsheet that no one but only you can understand but will it physically help or achieve anything ? - have you asked JCS if they require or need such information or is this just you making your own assumption that you are doing good ? I fail see what is constructive by questioning responses with your own plan of what should being done surely that is for the parts teams that support Jowetts worldwide and I have no doubt that they are all working extremely hard to ensure a continual parts supply for both todays and future generations - maybe we could let them get on with the task in hand.

[Keith Clements]

This topic was started my Mike who ran the Australian spares scheme for many years (probably 30), and although he is no longer in that team his views and insight are valuable.
I honestly do not think we (and by that I mean the Jowett community ) have enough information on the questions this topic has raised. If each of the spares teams think they have, then great.
On my visits to the USA, New Zealand and Australia I have talked with the individuals that run their spares operations and with JOAC and suppliers like Bill Lock as well as many people who maintain Jowetts. Now some of those conversations may have been some time ago and things may have become better in some areas, but in many others they are worse (such as local firms who will do small batches).
The spares service provided by each of the clubs is good, but there are some deficiencies that need to be addressed. Each of us can make a list of unavailable parts, a list of parts that have been of poor quality when purchased and a list of parts we would like to have but cannot justify the cost of purchasing them.
Some parts have been available but it is unlikely they will be in future. More redistribution and sharing between the spares sources would be good to reduce cost, improve supply and prevent needless manufacture.
I know there is work going on to amalgamate spares information but we can all help here by providing information, perhaps when we renew our subscription. Most members have little opportunity to contribute to the debate, even at club meetings if they can get to them. Here they can do that to supplement the private and group discussions that this topic might stimulate.

[Mike Allfrey]

To: Keith, Paul (W), Ian, Paul (B), Tony, Chris, Philip, Alastair and Scott,
I am, indeed, surprised at the good response to my initial post on this topic. It has never been my intention to depreciate any previous work in producing hard to obtain parts for Jowett motor vehicles. For all of that work and achievement, I have nothing but praise and grateful thanks. As I mentioned in my original post, it was not my intention to tread on any toes.
Now I realise that this subject has been looked upon by me, as being a personal crisis, rather than a general concern about spare parts for Jowett vehicles. Basically, it all comes back to the subject of communication and the knowledge of what is available, not only on the shelves of Jowett Car Spares, but on the shelves of other Jowett clubs' Spares Officers and the shelves of individual members of those clubs. As mentioned previously, at present I am of the view that, staying with the Javelin/Jupiter crankcase as an example of what I believe we are up against here..
My Jupiter is currently running with a crankcase (R0 type) that was given to me by, I think it was either Neville Spawton or Frank Peachy of the Midland Section, and I brought it to Australia with us in 1968. The crankcase in the car, when it came into my ownership, was an 'odd-half' set and a local search for main bearings resulted in none being available in 1998.
As a result of having recently (still am) been involved with a severely abused crankcase set, and having just one crankcase set still in my shed (it needs weld repairs and the cylinder head studs refuse to be removed), I came to the conclusion that we were very close to the end of the supply of these important components. Locally at least.
This brings us to the value of knowing what is being stored, and, if any are in storage, are any available for sale? In addition to that question, what is their condition?
With today's methods of communication, we have Jowett Talk and, possibly, a far reaching E-mail group that receives Jowetteer. Then there is also the same for By Jupiter! (JOAC), The Javelin (JCCA) and Flat Four (NZ JCC) – along with others. That should give us a good reach to the various clubs' membership. Whether anything useful would come out of a world-wide survey is extremely doubtful. We are pestered with surveys all the time and, like me, most are fed up with such. However, Jowett topics and activities matter to enthusiasts and we could be surprised. It is my firm belief that Jowett Club Presidents (Chair-persons) should be in regular contact with their counterparts overseas. A satisfactory start would be to strongly encourage the magazine editors to publish a stored parts survey. There is a facility where a survey as a PDF document can be filled in while on screen and E-mailed back to home clubs for processing and reporting to a central spares committee. I am not yet aware of the reach of the Jowett Talk Website. Club magazine editors are always on the lookout for material to fill their magazines, here is a golden opportunity!
Reading through the responses to my original topic-generating post, I note mention of a project for manufacturing Javelin/Jupiter crankcases in the UK. I remember reading about the very early stage of the project, however, I do not remember a call for 'Expressions of Interest' nor do I recall any request for orders from our part of the world. I am aware that recall may cause excuses, but for my part, I would have most certainly placed an order. Later, I heard comment about problems afflicting the project. I do not know whether those problems were financial, specification or quality of component related. It is my belief that the crankcase manufacture attempt would have taught us important lessons on how to go about a future project, such as a vintage Jowett's gearbox casing, for example.
Being also a member of the Jupiter Owners Auto Club, I have sometimes wondered why there are listed in BJ! parts that are common to Javelin models. I can easily understand that club being heavily involved with manufacture of parts unique to the Jupiter models. On that subject, I have often wondered why, because JOAC has had manufactured the coolant transfer housing, Part No. 53668. I would have thought that the same part could be used to replace the Javelin's Part No. 52072. I am aware of the aluminium and cast iron versions and, I believe there was a small difference in port placement due to Jupiter cylinder head gaskets being thinner than those for the Javelin, along with (possibly) differing dimensions between the head gasket face and the outlet port in the cylinder head. I could be wrong here! However, surely one type could have been made to suit both engines? Our purists may not agree, but an aluminium coolant transfer can be painted black and no one would know. The new aluminium housings look better too.
The foregoing relates to inter-club communication that is really needed.
Also greatly needed is an attitude change for our membership. Having good quality major components reasonably readily available, will go a long way to enhancing the quality image of Jowett motor vehicles. Such will encourage prospective owners of the Jowett marque to make a buying decision. Good quality spare parts will also add prestige to the image of the Jowett related clubs. We have achieved great applause at the NEC Restoration Show, but we need to build on that. Those of our clubs who man such displays need to be able to answer questions from the public in a positive manner; "How many gearbox casings did you say are needed?" And such!
The story of Ian Howell's search for one piston ring must also be applauded, not only for the diligence of Ian's search, but also for the success of his repair.
We undoubtedly have numerous hurdles ahead, however, should we pull together, we should get the world-wide spares project up and operating.
Mike Allfrey.
E0/SA/42R

[Chris Spencer]

In reality the real problem is not the supply of parts, we have suppliers, parts teams & officers throughout the world dedicating their time & energy to the supply of Jowett parts, communicating with each other has required, along with sourcing stock, introducing previously unavailable stock and future resource planning - all done whilst the everyday tasks of maintaining stock, picking & despatching orders, invoicing and the numinous other duties that need fulfilling in order to offer the service in the first place.

Publishing lists of parts availability is not particularly a good thing either - it works ok when you have good source of supply that can be easily replenished or you have the available funding in order to bulk purchase but to list parts of low volume / rare availability and you run the risk of some owners purchasing the said parts for the sake of private stockholding / 'just in case' - The danger here is that the owner that genuinely needs the parts to repair his / her Jowett is left with his / her vehicle off the road whilst other owners smugly have theirs on the road along with the spare parts sat gathering dust on a shelf possibly to be never used or utilised within their ownership of the vehicle.

The real problem is clearly demonstrated within this thread being that we have some members that are willing to make incorrect assumptions whilst forming inaccurate conclusions and responding with a knee jerk reaction. Discuss the subject has much as you want, post to forums and plot to unreadable spreadsheets - all pretty futile and achieves nothing other than undermining the excellent efforts of the established parts teams.

Why not channel your energy into supporting the parts teams and enquire has how you could help rather than inventing your non existent parts problems.

[PJGD]

Chris;
Conversely, the parts teams of which you speak could participate in this forum (and no doubt some do), and discuss some of the issues that they are faced with in respect of parts sourcing, coordination of component manufacture around the world to avoid duplication, sharing of drawings, and review of quality expectations, etc.

I take your point that to manage a spares activity on a voluntary basis is demanding of time and effort, but clearly, there are contributors here who are willing to help in whatever way they are able, so it seems sensible to utilize that energy. For the "Too many cooks" argument to be valid implies that all of the Jowett spares teams are working to perfection as things are, and that knowledgeable help would only make things worse, which somehow seems unlikely.

Philip

[Mike Allfrey]

I posted a lengthy reply on here a few days ago, and to that, I understand there have been two replies. I cannot see my last post on here, nor can I see the two replies on my screen. As an experiment, I made two new topics on, first, the Jupiter topics page and, the second on the Javelin topics page. Both of those come up on my monitor, so, I do not know what is going on.

The last posting I can see is one from Paul Wilks, dated 1st November, after that date - nothing. Thus, should I need to respond, how can I? At times I still have to log-in again when replying to a post in the topic, even though I had logged-in immediately after accessing the Jowett Talk Website.

Aha! There it all is, in the Window below this as it is being written, but was not there before!

Mike Allfrey.

[Mike Allfrey]

Please ignore my previous reply above.

I now realise that I may have voiced my concerns in a not too sensible way. So, I will attempt to explain what I am trying to get to is that the following steps may be considered:

First - We should form a world-wide spare parts 'committee' that are in contact with each other on a regular basis. Such a committee should be able to gain knowledge of what parts may be required.

Second - Here in Australia, the motor manufacturing industry has closed down. Other similar industries have closed too. Worst, is that manufacturing equipment has been sold and shipped overseas (China). As an example, the company that made the Jupiter radiator mounting rubbers, from tooling that I had made, has closed and that tooling has gone. This means no more mounting rubbers from this part of the world. Is anyone ordering water pump seals from India, that I researched some time ago?

Third - I am not at all in favour of hoarding parts and letting them gather dust. Also, I think it would be a massive task to compile a list of 'what is where' because it would probably be out of date the second it is completed - if ever it can be. However, it would be nice to know what is out there!

Fourth - I believe that we should make it possible, on a world-wide basis, for financial club members to place a 'WANTED' request in all newsletters at approximately the same time. I am hoping to get that started once I have contact information as an E-mail group, initially. Sadly, once again, we may be up against the hoarders out there.

Fifth - I do not envisage a large parts manufacturing enterprise, just to be positive about what may be seen to be required.

Sixth - I am asking that all Jowett Car Clubs should make contact with other British one-make car clubs (Rover P4 Guild) for example to gain some knowledge of common parts. Under the Javelin heading I raised the point that a Rover 90 master cylinder looks very similar to that in a full-hydraulic Javelin/Jupiter. It may have a different thread on its piston rod, but economy of numbers in the major machining processes could help manufacture costs.

To all of you, I value your comments greatly. Thank you for them.

Regards, Mike Allfrey.

[Forumadmin]

Thanks Mike,
On your first point, I have emailed members of each of the spares team when you first posted and alerted them of this topic. So hopefully we will get more responses. I know that some communication does take place and some parts are exchanged. It would be good to get a report from each club on this matter. Perhaps a direct question to each team would resolve this. There are some issues such as import duties that exacerbate the situation and this is where knowledge of who is travelling where helps move spares.

On your second, more and more manufacture is done in India and China and other countries. Bill Lock has an extensive source of suppliers, John Powter of JOAC sources many parts, Neil Moore many from NZ companies, Scott Renner finds parts hidden in the USA and Brian Holmes provides some innovative solutions in Australia. The JCS spares team source many parts for all models, but it is not clear where supply problems exist and so some more sharing between the teams cannot be a bad thing.

On your third pint (I left that typo in) , I found a good source of aluminium radiators that have been shipped worldwide as I advertised them in each of the club mags and on here. So we can all help. Whilst rebuilding cars I now make more than I need if we find a part that has no supplier. This is mainly to have stock for the next rebuild, so I am being a bit selfish! We also have technical days where we get together to fix a batch of parts, last one was Javelin steering boxes.

On your fifth, I doubt any call for information on parts wanted will yield much, but you can trawl through JT to see some that are required, but surely the best source is the record of parts requests to each spares team. Sharing those might yield some information for future planning.

On your sixth. In the UK we have a reasonable amount of contact with other clubs but I have noticed some clubs are now amalgamating spares functions and even putting then in the hands of commercial organisations. This also happens in Vintage clubs particularly in New Zealand and Australia. I also noticed it in Denmark. The Jowett clubs may be different as they cover a wide age and spectrum of vehicles. They also sourced most of the parts themselves rather than using parts from other makes. Perhaps there is cost effectiveness if spares teams redirect to other sources for such things as electrical and other parts used on other cars. This sort of good decision making is already taking place in JCS. We do have a section on JowettTalk that helps advertise these outside services!