A while back I had bought a vacc. can from my mom and pop shop and one from Autozone just to see how things were and had found that both brands had the can stamped on the backside with an "AH-" for EI or and "AG-" for points...same stamp, Wells vs. Standard Motor Products.

I decided to do the same and bought an LX103 Standard Brand pick-up and a Wells CR-103 from Autozone... price difference was $3... Standard was more expensive... The picture below for me looks like the beginning of the end for aftermarket parts even from Standard...the Wells unit on the left has plastic 'nubs' for the pickup plate to ride on...the Standard part on the right is the exact same pickup plate... the baseplate in the center is one I cleaned up from a 1974 distributor, notice the nice metal low wear surfaces for the pickup to ride on....

This is going to put a major wrench in my re-curves if parts quality even from Standard is no better than "Wells"....








Thought I should share...Sadly I no longer have a "Niehoff" dealer in town and am having problems procuring XD5's and XD6's for proper distributor rebuilding...

-D.Idiot

Well, there's plastic and then there's plastic; I'm not a materials engineer, but even so, I can think of several polymer materials that would be a better pick than copper for those slide/support nubs, because they'd be more self-lubricating (the metal-to-metal junction drags and wears if not oiled periodically). I don't think I'd reject a pickup plate on this basis alone. Of course, because it is a change of material relative to the original, I'd want to see how they held up, but I think they'd do fine. Are there other indications (aside from plastic nubs) of subStandard quality? It's entirely possible there are; we have to face facts and realise that parts for older applications like this are low-demand items and most of the market for them won't pay for tippy-top quality any more.

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

I have two new Standard voltage Regulators, the mid quality VR125, not the low grade and not Bluestreak ( which I have not been able to find lately).

The parts look fine but the boxs say China, the actual parts still say USA on them. Looks like the direction things are still headed, even for the supposed higher quality parts.

My best guess would be that the glides on the advance plate are nylon, which should be fine. As Dan pointed out, there are some good uses for plastics where they actually excel. I have been using Delrin for years on many projects that would have been aluminum or brass before.

I don't know that there was ever an "X" (BlueStreak) version of VR125. I haven't looked too closely; I think the next regulator I install will likely be a Transpo adjustable one. Right now my '73 has a Standard VR125 (not the "T" Tru-Tech low-cost junk). It seems to work well. The car also has a Standard made-in-Taiwan new headlight switch which looks and feels like acceptable quality (I have much less distrust on GP of parts from Taiwan than from China). FWIW, Ray at Old Car Parts Northwest is swimming in NOS Mopar voltage regulators, and IIRC he has pickup plates and other distributor parts, too. He didn't have an American-made headlight switch for me, though.

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

They probably are, but they wobble/are a little loose, and are "melted" into place...which doesn't exactly make me warm and fuzzy on making sure that they stay put for the long run unlike the metal pressed in studs.

I think I may save up a larger sum of $$$ and pay Ray a visit this coming year and see what he has for "parts", at the moment it's getting tougher to find cores to re-furbish as well.

-D.Idiot

Did they ever? I can count on one hand the number of people I know who care enough to ask for Blue Streak when tune-up time comes. Last time I needed a distr cap, I found only one parts store who even knew what Blue Streak meant, so bought two or three caps as a signal to the manufacturer that there's still some demand.

Here's a sad indication: A neighbor had a little pickup truck that got harder and harder to start every morning-- could hear him cranking it longer and longer each time before it sputtered to life. This went on for weeks, maybe months, then one day a rollback truck appeared to haul it away. Oh good, I thought, he's finally forced to get a tune-up. No, actually, the little truck never returned, and suddenly a big huge SUV appeared in the driveway instead.

This is the mentality we have in this country? Don't fix it, just buy a new one? Sheesh.

- Erik

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Lots of early Valiants and Barracudas have crossed my path.
Also a handful of other toys for variety now and then.

Dan: The Transpro adjustable regulator I bought a couple of years ago was made in China. Just an FYI.

Im assuming the "plastic" nub is nylon and if so let me just say that is one of the toughest polys (plastics) out there. Being a mechanic in a plastic extrusion plant Ive had to deal with alot of it. It takes nylon almost 600 deg to melt and once it cools it has to get hotter than that to soften. We had a freak accident where then by mistake the operator cooled down the extruter while it had nylon in it and had some resin (plastic pellets) with a melt temp of 350 deg behind it. They had it cooking at 700 deg while my buddy was taking it apart and needless to say the lower melt temp resin was liquefied. It pretty much exploded in his face. Lucky he was wearing saftey glasses, but they did have to dig it out of his nose and peel it off his face neck and arms.