I've been patiently waiting for Coffman Corvette to reproduce the 69-72 BB rad supports and just when I was about to order one I read a post about their quality not being up to par. Can anyone comment on the quality of these supports in particlar or maybe another source that I could use for a correct(without the drivers side harness indent) support. Thanks.
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Re: Suggested source for BB Rad Support
Coffman, to my knowledge is the one and only source for radiator core supports. I cannot imagine that Ernie and company will not correct any problems promptly.Dick Whittington -
Re: Suggested source for BB Rad Support
I bought a coffman for a 70 at Carlisle after they told me they were the only one making them and they were accurate. Comparing it in the hotel to my original it was piss poor. Side to side dimensions were off, folds were mushy and in different places.
I talked to Keen at the show and they said they make an accurate support from orginal dies.
Next show I had ordered one from Caledonia which was from Keen. Gary checked the side to side dimensions for me before I went to the show and they were the same as my orginal support. It is very very close to my original. I think I had a few hex head nuts on mine and a few were square or vice versa. Support brackets were in the same place as my orginal.
Don't have it in front of me but seems there were two nuts on my original that were not on this replacement. Otherwise it was good but maybe I just got lucky.
I showed Coffman that their support was not in the ballpark and they refunded my money saying they were getting an original scanned and would have them done shortly. I think that was Carlisle 2003.
WarrenComment
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Re: Suggested source for BB Rad Support
Warren-----
That's interesting information. I was not aware that there was any manufacturing source other than Coffman for these radiator supports. It surprises me that Coffman would have had the tooling produced for their supports if the original tooling were still around, regardless of whether they had access to it. The cost of producing such tooling is very high. Not only would someone using reproduction tooling be at a parts-quality disadvantage, they'd likely be at a cost-disadvantage since the cost of producing reproduction tooling would likely exceed the licensing or use cost of the original tooling.
However, if Keen is reproducing the supports from the original tooling, they would definitely have the "upper hand". Any replacement tooling, like that which Coffman has produced, would very likely be inferior to the original tooling. It's just not economically viable to produce PRODUCTION-type tooling for most reproduction parts manufacture. Without PRODUCTION-type tooling there is a much greater probability of inferior parts, especially for complex, die-formed components parts of these supports. That, in turn, leads to fitment problems.
I'm going to have to compare the Coffman and Keen radiator supports at the next shows I attend.In Appreciation of John HinckleyComment
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