Want to buy Classic American Car Parts in the UK, look no further we can help…..
Part of owning any classic car even a classic American car or truck is needing to replace and buy American car parts for you car. Don’t get me wrong sometimes this comes with an immense amount of searching around online too find what you want and it also comes with a load of heartache and frustration when dealing with wrong parts, long lead times and dealing with import and customs duties.
Getting it quick enough – You will always want the parts yesterday and the reality is it’s never quite as quick as a trip to Halfords or Euro Car Parts. With some additional cost some parts can be obtained quickly from the USA or Europe when using services likes Fedex within a few days. There are some great deals on eBay and it’s a great hunting ground for the more obscure bits and pieces but the Global shipping programme which has opened up supply chain from the USA does take sometime to get to the UK.
Working out what you actually need – Trawling catalogues and trying to cross reference years is often a massive headache. Model year changes complicate matters too. As an example, we had a 1974 Dodge Charger, we needed a prop shaft yoke and the catalogue suggested a 10 or 29 spline yoke. Both were wrong and if you went to a 1975 one it actually had the 27 spline which was also used in 1974. The other big issue is what have people actually done to the vehicles in terms of modifications and enhancements in the past, this can alter the parts you need and finally is the engine, gearbox, axle and numerous other things actually factory original. We worked on a Classic American Ford Truck recently that on the spec sheet was a V6, the owner believed it was 5.7 V8 but it was actually a 4.9 V8.
So when it comes to buying the right parts, generally we can only really work with what we do know and that is through expertise or experience supported by the catalogues. The best route is often to cross reference part numbers on the part you are replacing where possible. If you are looking for classic car parts, Total Auto can help. Try to give us as much information as possible, we can relativley easily tell you what its supposed to have on it but it’s worth verifying this so you don’t own a host of parts you don’t need! You might end up with a stock room like ours!
