Drake 40 dlx headlamp rims (bezels)
 

More drake quality (the lack thereof)...
Brand new, right out of the box. - I'd attempted to fit them prior to painting the fenders and am glad I did. They fit horribly. I suppose I could pull them down but they will bite in to the paint so deeply, I am 100% certain the paint will lift.
Fitting an authentic bezel there is zero issue.
Comparing the repop to the authentic reveals the authentic is wider by about 3/16".
I am certain Drake's boys have never heard of this issue before and that I am the only one that this has happened with.
Yeah, right...
And just to get in front of those that say "you should be glad that drake makes...". Not when it is crap.
Ad says "perfect" copy. That's what I'd paid for.

Re: Drake 40 dlx headlamp rims (bezels)
 

I had the same issue over a year ago. I returned them for a refund which I highly recommend.

Re: Drake 40 dlx headlamp rims (bezels)
 

Too bad they have let the quality slip... Fortunately I bought mine from Drake 30 years ago and they fit very well.

Re: Drake 40 dlx headlamp rims (bezels)
 

Why can't the manufacturers make the quality that we have come to expect, rather that producing something that may look okay in their catalog, but not in real life. In the early 1970's I had an early ford parts store. We were dealers for most of the aftermarket suppliers. The one supplier that had consistent first quality parts was A&L parts in Connecticut. He produced excellent quality products at very reasonable prices. Al, ( A&L) was more concerned with the long run, not just to make a quick buck. Al is no longer with us, but his son Allen is following in his father's footsteps. A&L produced mostly model A reproduction parts, but my partner and I convinced Al to make the 1932 Ford tail light, and the 2 correct horn I.D. tags for the 1932 Sparton horn, from samples that we supplied to him. thankfully he did produce them.

Re: Drake 40 dlx headlamp rims (bezels)
 

A&L has been a great source for small, hard to find goodies for '32-'34s over the years, such as the horn data plates mentioned by Nick and while it lasted, hard core radiator shell and cowl lacing, metal tire valve stem hardware, authentic windshield wiper hardware, etc. Too bad that as of June this year they no longer sell at retail.

Re: Drake 40 dlx headlamp rims (bezels)
 

The sad thing is that it would not cost any more to make a correct reproduction rather than an unusable piece of crap!
Why do they do this?

Re: Drake 40 dlx headlamp rims (bezels)
 

If it's a stamping then most likely dies were involved. With that much difference in size, it makes a person wonder what the die maker used as a pattern or if they had a pattern at all. If they used some crappy reproduction to make a pattern then the successive parts are doomed to have the same flaws.

Re: Drake 40 dlx headlamp rims (bezels)
 

It seems like the prototype part of the development process gets left out. Without a trial run and prove out that the part fits and functions as intended, it's a shot in the dark and a leap of faith in the actual manufacturer of the part, be they in Taiwan, China, or the U.S..

Re: Drake 40 dlx headlamp rims (bezels)
 

This is the $64,000 question! Bob Drake and/or you other vendors, please tell us WHY you continue to sell shoddy, mis-shapen parts when there is no reason for doing so!!

Re: Drake 40 dlx headlamp rims (bezels)
 

It actually does cost more to hold tolerances tighter.
You've all heard of the military paying $600 for a hammer that you and I can buy at Lowes for $15.
There's a lot of truth to that scenario.
I did a lot of tool making for government supplied parts. Some of the tolerances we had to hold were well, just plain stupid. That drove the costs way up.
One that I recall not so fondly was the cap that subsequently was mated to the dipstick for Abrams (sp?) tanks.
The cap itself had to be perfectly round within .003" TIR. While that may sound easy to make, it isn't. Give me .020" and I'll be pounding them out as fast as you can blink.
then, the dipstick itself... the markings had to be within .005" (+/- .0025"). Okay, i get why they need to be quite accurate but on an engine that holds twenty some gallons of oil, give me .020" and again, easy, peasy.

My point is, it does cost more to tighten up tolerances.
The guy having the stuff made is well aware of this and makes a choice. Less profit and a better part or more profit and well, poopy?

Re: Drake 40 dlx headlamp rims (bezels)
 

Don't the designer engineers and the production engineers ever get together to make a cost effective part and actually see how it needs fits? Like Mike said, the markings on a dip stick don't need to be + or - .0025".
That's just common sense.

Re: Drake 40 dlx headlamp rims (bezels)
 

I was told that in the military there is such a heightened sense of CYA that designs are drawn to the tightest specifications so as to eliminate as much as possible any negative issues down the road.

Want another story? Well, you're gonna get one.
I made the tooling for what was called a "collector". Apparently it went near (on?) the back of a jet engine and caught, well, I don't know... it caught something.
We would sell these to Allison for $900 back in 1990 or so. They were stainless and had dimensional tolerances that would make a mortal man cry. Allison would literally triple the cost to the army. All they did was take it out of our box, put it in theirs's and ship.
Anyway, I met a jet mechanic that had replaced this part numerous times. He told me to do it by the book took an entire day. Take a leather mallet and whack the side in, it took about an hour.
Guess which method was employed?
So, we are building these things to the most stringent tolerances and they are subsequently beat with a leather mallet.
Obviously the beating did not effect the installed performance.

Re: Drake 40 dlx headlamp rims (bezels)
 

Understood that super tight tolerances raise the cost. But, from your experience, how much extra would it cost to hold, say, a 1/32" tolerance on those headlight bezels over the 3/16" tolerance accepted by Bob Drake?

Re: Drake 40 dlx headlamp rims (bezels)
 

I'am not here to defend Drake as I have received junk parts from several vendors. I will say that the holes in 80 year old fenders may not be perfect and the bezels i got from Drake didn't fit very good but with some hand forming the soft metal you can get a pretty good fit.

Re: Drake 40 dlx headlamp rims (bezels)
 

CHINA--that is where most of the repro parts are made and they could care LESS, they still get there money before the product is shipped. This also applies to just about anything from china, drugs with asbestos, children's milk formula with melamine and the list goes on. Smartin up America

Re: Drake 40 dlx headlamp rims (bezels)
 

Wow Mike. Thanks for the true stories of how the gov't "saves us money".

There must be millions more to tell.

Re: Drake 40 dlx headlamp rims (bezels)
 

Oh please, not this again. Do you really think that the Chinese just sit down and decide to send inferior products to the USA? Nope, these inferior products are all ordered by greedy AMERICAN coporations trying to maximize their profits.

By the way, it is spelled "smartEn".

Re: Drake 40 dlx headlamp rims (bezels)
 

[QUOTE=tubman;1912736]Oh please, not this again. Do you really think that the Chinese just sit down and decide to send inferior products to the USA? Nope, these inferior products are all ordered by greedy AMERICAN coporations trying to maximize their profits.

By the way, it is spelled "smartEn".[/QUOT


You're 100% right, Tubman! Thanks for setting the record straight (again)!

Re: Drake 40 dlx headlamp rims (bezels)
 

Re: Drake 40 dlx headlamp rims (bezels)
 

Since those are junk anyway you might try something I read about years ago. If the issue is that they seem too "narrow". Somebody wrote that you could lay a towel down on a surface like a work bench, put the bezel on it upside down, take another towel and using both hands push the edges down which would force the bezel edges to become wider. I bet those things can flex out 3/32 on each side, maybe a bit more due to spring back.
I am wondering if during the chrome step if the machine that polishes or buffs them puts too much pressure on the sides or perhaps they are shrinking after being molded. See if you can make them fit.
I had 5 NOS in the envelope deluxe bezels that were raw pot metal that I had all chromed with the rest of my stuff and 2 of them as warned by my buddy at the chrome place said pocked up big time and half dissolved. I did get enough for my wagon and 1 spare. You have nothing to lose by trying.