final response to what's happening
Dear John (eaa53) thank you for responding yesterday and letting us know who you are.
We understand that you have brought a part built kit and from what I can see before your last email on the forum the only correspondence we have had from you was after you had brought this kit and requested a CD build manual from us. So it seems we have yet to meet you or have any of the initial discussions regarding our kits suitably. OK. The following is from Mark and he hopes it will clear up any misconceptions you have about the kit and us as a business.
Let’s start with a point close to most people hearts. Your comment “Build information, it’s a kit car I know but the build detail is, I will try to be generous, poor”.
I accept that the CD build manual is limited but it was only ever been intended as an aide-memoire for people with whom I had already had lengthy discussions during their visit to the factory and also when picking their kit up.
1) Ref non descript part
In the trade ….we call the part an upright – there are four in your kit, one for each corner of the car. The red tipped screw driver in the picture that you refer to on the build manual, is to show one of its number of tapered holes. This is indicated this way so as to remind you to think of this area when building. A following picture clearly shows that you then need to clean any paint or contamination from its mating surfaces. Simple DIY mechanics stuff really … but the picture was intended to offer a nudge.
2) Ref wiring problems
To help you here I would need to be sure of a few things for instance: the exact donor/engine & gearbox detail, date of manufacture etc. The kit was originally built for a basic Rover 25 series donor. If you look in the Haynes manual at the right diagram page this will give you the loom codes … it will also help you to understand your donor part connections. It does happen, from time to time, that some wires may be slightly differently coloured but the changes will be straight forward to understand – to be honest two hours to fix and come to understand a wiring loom (in any car) is not bad going I think. I will explain further.
The fuse box is to fit in front of the driver (bulkhead well). From there you have 3 major spurs in the loom
a) The longest (inc lights) to the rear of the car.
b) The next longest (inc heater controls) across the dash
c) Finally (inc fuel pump & lights) to the front of the car. Here also there are feeds and connections for the steering column switches. I don’t see, given that the fuel tank with its pump is at the front of the car and the distance to the rear light assemblies is so great, why it then took you 2 hours?
3) Your quote “Modifications, I will modify the build, some of the proposed engineering is inadequate sorry Mark but it’s obvious to a two year old”
I regard this as an utterly childish and immature comment when you have no apparent knowledge of my working history. It does however make me feel less inclined to try and help you. ;-)
Reference your quote “it’s because we have spent many hours trying to fix the unfixable because it was wrong to start with” I can not comment on the unfixable ‘because it was wrong to start with’ until you are more specific. The same goes for quality control.
This is a reply to a ‘critical friend’, a friend that I don’t even know!
From Terry Reference your question “all we need to know is what is happening, the newsletter appeared some weeks ago with a promise of an update that I have not seen yet”
We have our reasons for not sending out our annual newsletter before Xmas or the need to have to explain why. However the newsletter is now ready and I will be sending out the link to it either today or tomorrow.
N.B John, Mark does not know I am writing the following but I feel it’s important to do so. There is no need for you to reply.
If you feel the need to slate Mark’s engineering expertise in public it will be worth you noting that Mark has been in the kit car business for over 20 years and is one of the most respected engineers in the industry. All of the Kit magazines have put this in print on more than one occasion when testing our cars with the more recent having been written by Neil Lydon and published in The Sunday Telegraph Magazine. Quote: “Mark Matthews may be the most inspired architect of kit-cars in Britain, a man consistently capable of turning out products that combine a chutzpah in design with the most delicate and desirable balance of dynamic qualities”.
With regards
Terry & Mark
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