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[ART FORMAN]

Hi,

The original front and rear overriders on my TR3B have some dents and some rust inside.  I am debating if it is worth it to have the dents and rust repaired and then re-chromed or simply buy aftermarket overriders.  However, I have heard that some of the aftermarket overriders are not high quality.  I would appreciate your thoughts.  Is Ebay a good place to buy aftermarket overriders?

Thank you.
Art

[TR3driver]

Although I have not tried it (my TR3 is strictly for driving pleasure, never a show car); my approach would be to buy the overriders (and support tubes for the front) directly from TRF.  Then if you are not pleased with the fit & finish, return them.

While the quality isn't always what we would like, I know Charles goes out of his way to find the best available (and only sells the parts he would use on his own TR3).  And the prices shown are far less than you are going to pay for decent quality work repairing and rechroming your originals.  Which makes it worth trying, anyway, IMO.

eBay is where "seconds" and "thirds" get sold as "NOS", in my opinion.  That's not to say that everything sold there is junk, but the percentage is high.  Caveat Emptor.

Case in point, some years ago I bought a front apron on eBay that fell apart during shipment from all the rust.  Had to track the seller down to a different ebay ID; then they offered me some "rust free" bumpers rather than refunding my money.  At first, they gave me two photos of the same overrider, claiming it was both sides.  When I insisted on seeing the other side, they admitted that it had fallen apart while being removed.

Disclosure: I have invested in TRF's 'Customer Investment Program', so I may not be totally unbiased.  But I would have written the same thing even before joining CIP (which gets a healthy discount on parts prices).

[TomMull]

I essentially agree with Randall but if quality is your major concern you cant beat a repaired and triple plated set of originals. The better you begin with the better (and cheaper) the result, so if yours are really dinged up you might want to get a better set from one of the used parts people. Quality chrome plating will be shockingly expensive, however, and the reproductions look good to me and they will seem cheap after you get a quote from the chrome guys (at least my chrome guy). I plan to use my old ones as is. I also notice that Randall has better things to say about reproduction overriders than he does for reproduction rod bolts in a previous post. (Perhaps I’ll use my overrider money for new rod bolts). Finally, I’ve bought several “NOS” body parts on eBay, one side in a few cases and then got the other side from TRF. I found the quality an fit of the NOS to match or exceed TRF (neither was perfect, but certainly good enough). This is just my personal observation and my sample consists of damned few parts, certainly not enough to generalize so take this for what it’s worth.
 Tom Mulligan

[TR3driver]

I also notice that Randall has better things to say about reproduction overriders than he does for reproduction rod bolts

Well, there is a method to my madness ... the overriders are essentially only appearance items (useless in a crash, IMO), so Art should have no trouble judging for himself if the quality of the repros is adequate for his purposes. 

But rod bolts are kind of critical (meaning there will be a lot of incidental damage if they fail), and most folks don't have the equipment to test them for thread class, tensile strength, fatigue resistance, etc.

All just my opinion, worth everything it costs 

"Good judgment comes from experience.  Experience comes from bad judgment."

[ART FORMAN]

Randell & Tom,

Thank you so much for your help.  I did get a price via email from a local chrome shop which quoted me $75-$95 for each overrider depending on size and condition.  Assuming $95 each that would be roughly twice the cost of buying new ones.  So maybe it is worth having my original overriders re-chromed.

Art