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Wards have offered a new crankshaft pulley for some time but at an eye watering £438, I notice Rimmers are now offering one too at a more reasonable £144, both claim to be manufactured to original specification, does anyone have experience of either component?
It would be interesting to know how the two replacements available compare in weight to an original. As it is an harmonic crankshaft damper as well as being a pulley, I suspect the weight is an important factor..
Mike.
To answer my own question, it seems from the advertisements that both are made from machined steel, which actually weighs the same as cast iron, so no issue there. As both are also balanced and assembled with appropriately vulcanised rubber, it would be interesting to know why one is almost £300 more than the other. Presumably they both come with the same guarantee.
Any suggestions?
Mike.
Wards have invested in a number of replacement parts manufacturing projects for the Stags. This takes up their time and effort in R&D and liaising with manufacturers. Initial batches are small and costly to make and Wards want to get back some of that investment hence the price. Have Rimmers done the same or are they piggybacking off Wards efforts? Also, is the Rimmers item of the same quality? There are replacement parts about that are of poor quality such as water pumps that are not correctly hardened and cause major damage to engines when they fail - a reason why Wards refuse to fit non-original water pumps to their engine rebuilds.
Dave
Dave.
Expert:- Ex is something that has been and spurt is a drip under pressure.
One possibility is that Wards have them made in UK or 'The West' whereas Rimmers may have a far eastern source that works out much cheaper to make.
My concern would be possible lack of longevity of the rubber in the eastern version
Why not ask Rimmers? I think it's consumer law to reveal country of origin.
I don't know personally the background to the current offerings from E J Ward and Rimmers.
When SOCTFL investigated re-manufacture around 2011 the research revealed various complications such as whether to re-use existing metal parts from old pulleys vs. make new ones, and the need to balance each pulley after assembly - we had some interesting discussions about vibration harmonics and adverse effects arising. Either way tooling was needed for the rubber insert. At the time the project was discussed with one of the other suppliers but it didn't go ahead, I seem to remember the thinking was that enough used pulleys were in circulation at that time and this would dilute sales of the new item.
So the cost drivers for the two suppliers' products could be different depending on the route to manufacture. Also they may take different business decisions on how to amortise non-recurring engineering costs, and over what period. I agree with the OP that it isn't clear how all this may be reflected in the two end-products and it's difficult to know which is better value for owners base on published information.
I guess the best thing to do going forward is to share experience on the Forum.
Having been involved with both oem & re manufacturing parts, I was amazed to see the wards offering & then the rimmers one. Hats off to both, to be fair.
no experience of either part though.
getting anything made these days in low volume is becoming really tricky.
trying to do a number of items.
choke cables for example….having to consider billeting the housing & rod.
refurbishing is much less work.
anyone tried using a roller t.v. Harmonic damper?
on this topic, some of the bolts for the pulley are only engaged with 3 threads….which is simply not enough. Check & change if needed when replacing the pulley. Bolt is 5/8 unf thread & should have at least 1D engagement. Iirc a mk2 needs 4/1/2” long.
Thanks for the responses I contacted Rimmers who tell me theirs are made by Forpart Spares UK - from which a bit of Googling suggests they may originate in Turkey. I think Rimmers and Robsport are the same source.
Turkishexporter.net is a Government Supported export portal of Turkey, a quick search identifies ten crankshaft pulley manufacturers, these are presumably part of the global supply chain. I haven't investigated how many we have in the UK, but there's probably high design capability and economy of scale in production facilities in Turkey.
Turkish Crankshaft Pulley, Turkey Crankshaft Pulley Manufacturers, Suppliers and Exporters Directory.<br> Made in Turkey Crankshaft Pulley from Turkish Suppliers, Exporters and Manufacturer Companies in Turkey.
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