I always take the opportunity to "visit" triumph suppliers whenever I'm in
another part of the world. On a trip to CT about 5 years ago, I was staying
with friends in nearby Greenwich, and having seen the S&C ads since the late
70's, which had made them sound like "British Car All Stars", I had to visit.
What I found was a little foreign parts store, not unlike the ones we used
to see everywhere when standard parts houses didn't carry them "ferrin
parts". It was unimpressive to say the very least, and the staff could care
less that some TR nut from Texas had stopped by. My expectations of walking
out with armfuls of parts quickly vanished (they had nothing special or
rare), instead I left knowing that people were experiencing problems just
like you described. I was also unimpressed with Triumph Specialty (snooty,
untrustworthy, overpriced and nothing like their catalog) and Triumphs Only
(typical repair/sorta-restoration shop in the San Jose area. For some reason,
I expect these people to show their enthusiasm. TRF shows it, but it appears
that they have their own problems. I tried to order a pair of stock rear
springs, a diff cover gasket and pinion seal, carb kits and 2 bonnet locating
cones from them last week. They had 1 of the springs in stock. These are not
unusual parts. How could they run out of carb kits? I ordered it from
Moss---all in stock.
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