Ol Phartz Partz offers the largest selection of bolt-on disc brake conversions with specifically engineered and matched group of components designed to provide superior brake system performance All kits are bolt on performance and easily installed with simple hand tools that are used for routine maintenance. If you would like additional information or to speak to one of our technicians contact us at 949-716-2569. We can also help you out with applications you cannot find on our web site.
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Speed cost money, how fast do you want to go? That is a very common phase in the automotive industry. Another line used by road racers is: Go in deeper and come out harder. Both refer to power and speed. However, the second also refers to brakes. If you brake later that means you lifted off the throttle later. To come out of the corner harder means that the car had to settle quickly and allow you to put the power down sooner. That refers back to a good braking system.
How much does speed cost? Cam kit is $500 and head porting is $800, higher compression pistons are $600 and so the bill climbs. Install it yourself and put up with all of the problems of parts not fitting together. Take it to a professional and it could cost $10,000 for the complete engine to be done. Installing a A-Series 1275 cc engine into a Bugeye Sprite may seem cheap because you purchased it used for $800. Now add all the things you need to get it installed and you spent another $500. OK, $1300.00 is a lot less than $10,000. But now you can go fast or faster. Driving this little "hot Rod" maybe very enjoyable. You can race along side the kid in the loud Honda and beat him away from the lights and go down country roads as fast as the car can handle the curves. What a thrill until that lady in the mini van does not see you and pulls into your path. Stomp on the pedal and those old worn out brakes do not work or stop the car quick enough to save the high dollar front end sheet metal on your Bugeye Sprite. Speed costs money! I hear it all the time, I am not going to drive this car very far or fast. The original brakes are good enough. Not true, with enough time to judge your stopping distances and enough time to plan ahead maybe the answer is yes. In today's traffic I doubt you will be given the opportunity, at least not in California. To refurbish the drum brakes on a British car with quality components that will work as the system was designed will cost about $800 if you do it yourself.(depending on the car of course) Now this refurbished braking system will get you a car designed for 1958. How was traffic then? How is traffic now? Now that you have refurbished it, every time you go out for that nice little ride, you jack up the car and adjust the brakes before leaving, remember to take your brick for the E-Brake since the original never did work. Or how about spending $1200.00 to $1500.00 and buy a disc brake kit that works. Spend less time working on your car as the disc brakes are self adjusting. Stop quicker, stop with more assurance and never panic when that guy in front of you that is texting stops short without any reason. Do good brakes cost lots of money - No. Initially, the cost going in is about twice the cost of refurbishing a standard brake system. In the end it is cheaper as you do not need to change pads or rotors as often as you will drums and brake shoes. In fact with our larger disc brake kits you will probably never change pads or rotors since the car will never travel close to 80,000 miles. Think about your little "hot Rod" and all of the dollars you spent to make it fast, then think about how you are going to stop it. Disc brake kits cost less to purchase than a refurbished used front end for a Bugeye and that is without the cost of repainting that front end.
SAFETY FIRST Cost is relative. I constantly get the question why do your kits cost so much? Can I buy just the brackets and do it myself? If I buy most of the kit from you can I just buy my own rotors and calipers? Can you just sent me the parts list so I can save some money? Well I have one question before I answer these questions. Do you call a major manufacturer or parts house such as Moss Motors or Wilwood Engineering and ask these questions of them? I would love to know the answer.
Answering these questions in the manner that I learned from a former boss, Kas Kasner, why would you want to do these things? See, Kas never answered a question that you had but rather asked you a question or maybe more until you answered your own question. That is called making you think. Think about all of the questions that I posted at the top of this blog. Most you will be able to answer them yourself if you think hard enough without having to read through this complete blog. I will answer them in reverse order scenarios. First, I can send you a list of parts? You can purchase it for the same price as the kit. It also comes with the kit. Now you do not need it. If I did just send you the list and you chose you can go buy all of the parts in the kit. First question, how would you install it without instructions? But you have chosen to go on and do it yourself. Suppose you drive a daily driver that gets 15 mpg and suppose the local hardware store is 5 miles away and your local auto parts store is 5 miles in the other direction. Sound about right? The wrecking yard for the real cheap guys is out of town and 10 miles from either store. How am I doing? Do you as a home tuner have grade 8 bolts on the shelf in a variety of sizes, grade 8 locking nuts and both in metric and standard threads? I doubt it! So you need 1-1/4" long bolts grade 8 with a grip instead of all thread ( qty 12), what does your local ACE Hardware charge you for them? $1.25 each (or more) for a total of $15.00 and you drove 5 miles to get them and back. Gas here (CA) is $3.00+ a gallon. So you spent $3.00 to get them and $16.00 to purchase them with tax. That $1.25 bolt just cost $5.00 ea. Now you realize that you need some other hardware that you did not think about, back to the store. The joke at Home Depot and Lowes is that any time you purchase an item to fix your electrical, plumbing or woodworking is that we will see you at least 3 more times. Ask any Home Depot or Lowes associate. Now for the big items, the calipers. Your local parts store does not stock them, what do you do? Order them and make a second trip to pick them up? Order them on line and wait a week to get them? Take a trip to the wrecking yard to purchase used ones, spend time finding the correct car, dig through your tool box for the correct tool (if you took it with you), spend time taking it off, now you find that it is no good; start all over. Frustration at its best. Time, money, gas equals $$$$. When you buy my kit non of these trips are required. Second, can I buy my own calipers and rotors? Sure, you can. We sort of answered the caliper question above. Getting into depth on caliper quality will be in our next blog. Rotors are most likely available at your local parts store so the first trip was not totally useless as you just have to wait for the calipers to come in but you picked up the rotors and pads. Lets just say you spent the money to buy the calipers from the parts store. Now you wait 3 days and they finally come in and the $175.00 that the guy charged you for "rebuilt calipers" turns out to be an additional $175.00 each for the core charge since you do not have a core to return. That makes it $175.00 x 4 or $700.00 plus tax plus 2 trips to and from the parts store for an additional $6.00 in gas. Plus you have now waited a week to get your "kit" done. (clock ticking) When you get home you realize the calipers do not have hardware for the pads and neither does your pad kit, so off to the parts store you go again. More gas, more time, more money and more frustration. $$$$ When you buy my kit non of these trips are required. Third, can I buy just the brackets and do it myself? Well, I suppose I could just make brackets and you do it yourself. The big question here is would you follow my parts list or decide to make changes based on what you can find or what is cheapest? Now, when you finally get the brakes installed, the brakes do not function as they should. You call Ol Phartz Partz for help and we cannot provide the correct information you need since you changed our design. If you used a caliper too big and the rear brakes locked up, who is responsible, Ol Phartz Partz or you? Did this cause an accident? Where does the responsibility lie? Ol Phartz Partz or you? The answer to these questions is YOU but never once in my 50+ year career as a car builder, shop owner, parts man or executive at a major automobile manufacturer has a customer that made this type of mistake ever admitted error, the blame always points back at the seller. Now with social media, fingers are pointed rather quickly. Reason enough not to sell brackets only When you buy my kit non of this will happen. Do my kits cost so much in the end? No. All of the parts needed are in the kit and all of the correct parts are in the kit. The disc brake kits are engineered to work correctly if installed exactly like our instructions. A very complete instruction book and a very complete kit in the box. No trips to stores, no gas to spend, no wear and tear on your daily driver and best of all no frustrations on trying to figure out what you are doing. We are the "Kit That Fits" SAFETY FIRST When contemplating power-train modifications , the conventional wisdom is that one must make more horse power to drive in current traffic or change the differential ratio to stay up with current speeds on the motorways. Very little if any thought is put into ensuring that the brakes are up to the job: more top speed means a huge need for more effective stopping power.
Contrary to popular myth, the standard British car brakes as designed are very capable of bringing a standard car to an unflustered halt given significant time or warnings. The poor braking in our older British cars is generally caused by very worn components, e.g. drums that are worn beyond use and have lost shape compatibility with the shoes. On modern roads, the car is surrounded by others with far superior stopping distances , so it pays to spend some time and money ensuring that your system is at its best. Purchasing the correct components and checking that they are in correct specification with the original components can get you a fairly decent braking system. Replacing all of the worn parts found in most older cars can cost a major amount of coin. Then you still cannot hope to compete with our contemporary cars for stopping distance. However, we now have the ability to upgrade our older cars and interchange components with other modern cars which has made it possible to get higher specification components such as disc brakes installed for safer driving on the more congested roads of today. If you regularly use your car and cover high mileage at high speed, you should consider a conversion to disc brakes to improve your stopping power. Converting to front discs reduces the time required to stop the vehicle since they are more powerful, easier to modulate and have a better resistance to fade. Converting to four wheel disc brakes father enhances this ability to stop. Stopping your car in time to avoid a collision, dodge a stalled mini van, people changing lanes at the last second on the highway or just descending a steep mountain grade is a major feat in most cases. Do it with drum brakes and you have a huge risk. Installing disc brakes on the front or all four wheels reduces this risk to a minimum and allows you to safely drive along side contemporary vehicles on our congested modern roadways. Horsepower may get you there faster, changing a differential gear for a higher ratio may allow you higher speed but a disc brake conversion will get you home safely. The chances that you will need to stop rapidly more than once in congested traffic is very high. The original drum braking systems while good in their time will not halt the car without significant warning nor stop you quickly enough without that due warning. OUR DISC BRAKES WILL! Our kits are designed to bolt on with the use of simple hand tools and are completely reversible when a car is returned to original concours condition. This also means they are complete kits, unlike other kits from companies that have copied our kits. Our kits are very complete with every nut, bolt, screw, washer, fastener, and all major components are included in each and every kit. When you open the box there is not a single item you will need except tools. This does add cost our kits. The cost of these "small" items adds up quickly but add up the cost of 10 trips to "Joe's Hardware" or 6 calls to your British Car specialist (Ol Phartz Partz maybe?) for all of the items needed to complete the installation that other companies leave out and you will find that the cost is less with our kits in the end. We took care of deleting the need for these trips or the shipping of extra items, we put them in the box. We pride ourselves that our kits will fit the factory wheels while allowing the car to function like a modern vehicle. This way no one will know that your classic car has the stopping power built to modern safety standards. If you prefer to show off your stopping power, all of the current aftermarket wheels (in proper sizes) will fit with your uprated braking system. Give our brake a try, you will be pleasantly surprised. "The kit that fits" I have not spent much time writing on this site and should start a weekly post. That will be in my dreams! This time of year while we all celebrate holidays of our choice, it is good to remember our friends, those in need and those that have passed this year. Celebrate with care, please.
Ol Phartz Partz celebrates its 7th Christmas this year. that brings memories from years past and how we have grown and changed. We are changing again. Watching a made for TV Christmas movie this week brought to mind how something old is new and something new is old. The company in the movie reintroduced a sweater for the Christmas line that was their first item for their first Christmas 50 years previous. Something old is something new! We have added the new products from Speedwell Engineering to our product line and soon will have them on this site. You can purchase all of the products designed and built by Tom Colby right here along with your favorite parts from Ol Phartz Partz. Speedwell Engineering is an old company selling new ideas to the BMC community. Great products to make your Sprite or Midget go fast, handle and stop. Something old is something new! While Ol Phartz Partz is not a very old company, I am an old BMC guy. I remember Christmas day 1958 going down to the dealership and opening the doors with my father to deliver a Old English White Sprite with red interior to a gentlemen. This was a Christmas gift for his daughter. Growning up in this business I got to see the Christmas ribbons on the Triumphs every year. A big red bow and ribbon all the way around a green TR4 for many years. I spent my youth learning the ways around all of the BMC and Triumph cars and drove Morris and Standard 8s to school before they were "cute". Usually the winter months in Colorado were spent driving SAABs as they negociated the snow better and had true heaters. Summers were time to drop the top and drive a British Sports Car. These memories bring along with them the expertise also that is required to sell and service the British cars we love today. Something old is something new! All of you in the BL community who enjoy your British roadsters and sedans probably did not relize that Ol Phartz Partz is a full line parts distributor. While we do specialize in our brake kits and Stainless Brake lines, we carry a huge inventory of replacement parts for Morris, MG, Austin Healey, Sunbeam and Triumph at very competitve prices. This line of parts encompasses items from the UK, Moss Motors and many other suppliers. All quaility replacement parts. some of these items are on this web site and others are not. If you do not see the item you need on this site, call us, as we most likely have it in stock. Everything from small hardware widgets to major repair parts are in stock. If not, we can get them within a short period of time at very reasonable prices. Along with competitve pricing, you get true service and technical expertise with every phone call or web order. Something old is something new! Start the New Year right. Let us service your British car with the utmost care or purchase high quality parts to do it yourself from the OLDEST and NEWEST British Car Source in the USA. Your British parts and service emporuim located in sunny southern California. Something old is something new. Merry Christmas and may God bless you one and all. Steve Christiansen Ol Phartz Partz I have tried to make this site as easy to navigate as I can. There are some elements that I cannot change. The site is managed by weebly.com which has set the fonts, colors and operating procedures on some of functions and will not allow me to change them. The dark grey print on the shopping cart is one example. Aesthetically it is very "arty" but for some of us in this world, it is hard to read. I cannot change this and have tried, many calls to Weebly do not show any answer in the near future. The way credit card information is entered is also more like the forms used by banks instead the way most of us are used to seeing credit card billing info inserted on a vast majority of web sites. This again is something I cannot set or change. The site and your info are secure Purchase your items with confidence. We at Ol Phartz Partz accept all major credit cars and PayPal in a safe and secure manner. Enjoy browsing our site and we welcome your feedback. If you cannot find the part you are looking for to fit your classic British car contact us through our e-mail link or via phone and we will glad to help you source the item needed. Steve |
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February 2017
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