Morris Minor Owners Club

Can anyone recommend a supplier of good quality grille 'hockey sticks'? Mine were replaced with new ones made in Sri-Lanka a few years ago (circa 2009, IIRC), but have already badly pitted, obviously having been made of cheap 'monkey metal/mazak'.

Also, I have a replacement 5-bar grille I wish to fit (original one got bent when I hit a dopey mutt standing in the road on a blind corner, one dark night!)

I would like to paint it dark silver to match the wheels, but what's the best paint to use from the point of view of chip/rust resistance?

Get the ones you have properly rechromed, that way you will get better quality. Hope the 'dopey mutt' was ok. You can replace a grill.

I've had a pair of ESM hockey sticks for over a year and they are still in perfect condition - possibly because they are still in the garage, in the bag they came in! Hope they eventually perform better than yours, but suspect they all come from the same place.

Although I haven't used it on a grille, POR15 is seriously tough, provided the metal is adequately roughened before application. It is available in silver, though probably not in the shade you want to match your wheels. It is very expensive, and I need to cut open my tin and decant it into a different container as after use the paint has welded the lid to the tin!

Mark

I got various chrome parts from Bull Motif (including hockey sticks) and fitted them to the car nearly four years ago. All the chrome is still fine EXCEPT for some of the little bolts that fix the bumper blade to the valance, and the headlamp rim on one light (I don't mean the bezel, I mean the bit that surrounds the glass on the lamp unit itself)
I see BM give a two year guarantee on hockey sticks at the moment and claim that they are of 'superior quality'.............

Yes, I see Bull Motif have ones on E-bay, stating that they are UK made.

I suspect re-chroming the existing ones would probably cost more than buying a new pair...

Yes but I thought you were after quality! Proper platers use a more extensive procedure, rather than just churning products out. That's why we're stuck with crap parts; people don't want to pay.

True, but I've gone ahead and bought a pair of BM ones. Hopefully, being made in the UK, they should be of reasonable quality, and as said above by myoldjalopy, they've had their BM ones on for 4 years without problems.

les wrote: ↑Thu Nov 22, 2018 11:37 am That's why we're stuck with crap parts; people don't want to pay.

I'm guilty of buying cheap parts on occasion myself, but have to say that I couldn't agree more with Les on this.

Unfortunately, crap, cheap parts are all that are available for some items........and you don't always know they are crap until they fail prematurely...

Indeed. When I last refurbed the front end of my Traveller, those were the only hockey sticks available from my local Minor specialist (who, I gather is affiliated with a certain chap in Bath who outsourced some manufacture of parts to Sri Lanka).

You don't quite know at the time of buying parts what effect several years of exposure to the salt-laden air near the seaside does until it inevitably happens.

Conversely, I'm amazed my Taiwan-made front panel (from the same supplier) appears to have held up surprisingly well after 9 years, although I did Hammerite and/or Waxoyl the back of it prior to fitting.

The repro hockey sticks I bought were absolute rubbish. They were way off and looked terrible.
I ended up getting the originals re-chromed.

Regards
Declan