[Andre40]

In my humble opinion if I had not followed up on these vital issues there would have been no RF cars built. Robert stressed the importance of sourcing these parts and suppliers, but in his post he said that my reports continued in the OLD style, which implied that all this was irrelevant to him.

If there’s one person who deserves a pat on the back in all this, it’s Robbie’s secretary, Candice, a loyal, long suffering and efficient lady who not only gave me a great deal of support in my role but had to put up with arguments, shouting matches and bad language.

Candice put together a bill of materials that stretched to 27 pages and which consisted of some 5000 parts, from large to small.

This is only one of several E-mails to Robert, dated September 11, 2005. There were others regarding tooling up for the bending of the exhaust pipes, Ford Cortina steering racks from Italy, head lights from Hella and much else besides.



Hi Robert,

Payment received, thank you.

It was really great to have Sam here for the week and I believe that we made some good in-roads. I'm sure that my report will duplicate Sam's feed back to you, but here goes anyway.

Much of the week was spent on setting up the parts shelves and the bolt bar and soon I will identify every single part that goes into the car.

I'm pleased to report that all the suppliers we called on were helpful, friendly and knew their business.

We called on the following companies:

Thorp Delta, the nearby Opel/Chevrolet main dealer. They can supply the trunnion, bearing and flange but at a high retail price. The parts manager offered to supply at cost plus 10%. I'll keep in touch.

Keith, Brightglass. Making good and steady progress as evidenced by the three sets of pics.

Wright Seals. They can supply the fibreglass/aluminium backed heat cloth at a price that made Sam happy.

Docking. We took the starter motor to them and I'm awaiting feed back.

Clutch & Brake Services (CBS). We took the two pressure plate and clutch plates. Five-speed pressure plate and two clutch plates not a problem and six-speed pressure plate almost definite. I'll keep in touch.

Called on Hyflo for hoses and were pointed to Dave Sinclair of Racetech with whom we've had previous dealings. Dave called and we're awaiting quotes.

Called on Rubber Products & Mouldings and have sourced all the rubber mouldings and door seals, etc.

Called on VW Barons and the plastic part that goes with the clutch release mechanism is ridiculously expensive, ie R423 for a small plastic part that's worth about R10! Robbie is scratching his head, figuratively speaking that is and I'm sure that he'll 'make a plan.'.

Two visits to Jimmy’s Trim Shop to check progress and foam shaping for comfort and lumber support.

Called on All Gear to check on progress with machining of six-speed shorter shaft.

Collected four rear uprights from Ajax Foundries.

Called on Stateside, importers of American car parts. Left Corvette caliper with them to do research on sourcing.

Called on Audi dealer to check on prices of new and recon Audi gearboxes.

Called on distant relative, gearbox specialist, Edgar Johnson, to discuss beefed-up and modied Audi gearboxes to handle higher torque. Can be done.

Over and above our agreed weekly report I'm sure that from now on I would be able to let you have at least two to three reports per week plus pics.

Onwards and Headlong Through The Waves (specially created for you as a Naval man!).

Kind regards,
Andre