['So £10 a piece for nuts sounds quite cheap in comparison..']
The fact is that not all parts are the same...Some can easily be made at a viable price today, some can't...The more manual labour is involved in the process the less chance of getting a product everyone can afford because of todays labour rates..
I think you're making an erroneous comparison to justify the £40 asking price for 4 original sump guard nuts...I can (and have ) made exact replicas out of the correct material and had them plated for about £2.50 per nut at todays manufacturing prices, even taking into account the low volume of production...
However, my particular point there was that building a bike from original parts throughout if you start off with an incomplete machine is not really an option for many and hard to justify with prices at the level of the example I quoted (the nuts)...
Thus the interest in replica parts from India etc...Because people can't afford or can't financially justify spending more on parts than the final machine costs, or they can't find a good original part,or they are unable to pay for multiple hours of labour for a skilled craftsman it doesn't automatically mean they are all tight asses...As I said, these sort of sweeping generalisations about groups of people never apply...Just take a look at some of the extremely expensive rebuilds that are out there..
I agree though, we don't see eye to eye on this subject really in multiple ways....Ian
Appreciate your responses and opinions.
To be fair, there's no problem with my M20's fuel tank.
I am now dealing with my BMW R51/3 and looking for a solution for it. Its fuel tank will probably be disqualified.
The truth is that these days the gas tank is undergoing patching repairs, and a pressure check will reveal whether we have succeeded or not.
And if we do not succeed, then I would like to be ready with an opinion whether to purchase a replica, and where.
By the way the advantage in the tanks of our M20's is that you can dilute any fuel refill with one liter of diesel. I have been doing this for years, the motorcycle works very nicely and I believe that maybe the diesel helps a bit in preventing the rust on the sides of the tank.
Who knows.
