What parts are you having difficulty getting, these days?
 

I’ve read that Pontiac Edelbrock heads are scarce right now.
What else?

Cheap SD parts, rare SD alum parts.

Camshafts!

Cam cores, seems for just about every brand of car.

Tried buying a cam for an air cooled VW last week, cores won’t available until August we were told. Have been out for the last 6 months.

Wilwood WIL-140-11400-Ds a are a rolling 2 months out......been like that for 4-5 months now, at least from Summit and Jegs. TCI Flex Plate shields seems to be backordered too....if you want them black...

hard to get
 

I had to go different route because every thing was in back order for months. Rare manifolds (ramairrestoration) ,Dui distributors ,roller camshafts

Been having a hell of a time finding a throttle cable that isn't a safety hazard (sticky throttle linkage is no joke on a car like this, especially if it's wet)...

Sam

Pretty much damn near everything, and what I have been able to get has tripled in price.

Sheetmetal has been a real problem. Waited 3 months for quarters and 4 months for outer wheel houses. 6 months for a transmission. Paint material costs have nearly doubled. Same gallon of color I priced a month ago for $345 is now $620 a gallon.

I've gotten to the point now that if something isn't in stock and ready to ship, I don't order it. I'm tired of my money sitting in limbo for stuff on backorder. The project can just sit and wait, I'll move on to something else.

Speed parts electronics in general.

Also as oil prices continue to climb expect a major sky rocket in the prices of tires.

According to the Rubber Manufacturers Association in 2012, it takes approximately seven gallons” of oil to produce a single tire. “Five gallons are used as feedstock (from which the substances that combine to form synthetic rubber are derived), while two gallons supply the energy necessary for the manufacturing process.

.

American-made carburetor rebuilding kits for EVERY original carburetor used by Pontiac from 1933 to 1974 will be shipped the day following order. So not everything!

The 1932 and earlier take awhile as I have to machine the individual parts.

Jon,

I have absolutely ZERO problems getting bills in my mailbox.


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+1 particularly for 80s and 90s electronics. Am OK for Reattae but the Allante center stack (three LCDs) is a nightmare.

Caddy made a big thing about Pinin-Farina and the Airbridge but never mentioned that the center stack (three LCDs, three button panels, big circuit board in the back and hundreds of little white wires in a single unservicable two foot 15 lb box was available only as a $3,000.00 (in 1993) assembly. From Japan. Oh you could get the light bulbs.

ps Japanese supplier, Yazaki, has not responded to inquiries. Anyone have a connection there ?

At the risk of derailing (I'm just venting a little) getting a call back or any kind of reasonable customer service from ANY of the major suppliers (Holley, Summit...are you listening)? Summit has several items on backorder and they don't offer any information at all. Holley, well, they're just a black hole of simple information when asking about products I already have. Since this pandemic thing, I get supply chain issues but customer service seems to have taken an even bigger hit.

Back on topic, what other's have said, just about anything that needs to be ordered is delay or on back-order. Ordered a transmission some time ago. TO NO FAULT of the transmission shop, they couldn't get hard parts. I had a motor and heads put together a few months ago...aluminum blocks and heads, cranks, rods, gaskets...everything took forever to get.

I’m having an engine built. Estimated delivery time: March-ish, 2022!

It makes a lot more sense if you understand the tiers of a modern service desk (years ago I was essentially tiers 3 and thought crazy for publishing my pager number internally).

When you call a help desk, after an unreasonable wait you are answered by essentially a script kiddie. They have a published chart of questions and what they are allowed to answer. Above all they are not allowed to think, only respond. Often tier 1 is not even in this country.

With anything beyond what they can read on a computer screen you need to get at least to tier 2. Often asking to speak to a supervisor helps but they are often co-located with the script kiddies. Often an accent gives things away.

To really find out anything you need to reach a "specialist", often an engineer, but many systems are designed for you not to reach a specialist, questions can only be submitted. Your only hope is to make the question sufficiently specific to need an expert and request a call back. Caller-ID is great.

The point is that the specialists/engineers are usually working on things to make the company money and not to waste their time (often 10x the script kiddie pay) on a cost center like a service desk.
(let's just say that is why my web site is my phone extension - after a number of years of always answering the phone that way...)

Back in the day I had a rolodex of people mostly at suppliers & competitors who actually knew something. Worth its weight in platinum.

ps have spent a lot of time trying to find a contact at Yazaki with no luck so far. In this case I tend to broadcast for help even in unlikely places.

Well I did say "damn near" ;)

I'm seeing that end of it too. Trying to actually get someone on the phone, or even a return call, don't hold your breath.

On my transmission I don't fault the trans company, it was explained to me right at the beginning of my order (November last year) that they are having trouble getting certain bands, certain clutch/steel packages they prefer to use and it's created a backlog of trans builds that could go 3 months. Took longer than that but at least they told me up front. Some places I've found won't even do that, and leave you hanging wondering where your shipment is that should have arrived by now. Which gets back to the customer service thing again.

Another problem I ran into with a certain restoration parts supplier was that they didn't even have anyone in office at all. So when I called, it got transferred to someone at their home, who would then relay that order to another warehouse person, who was also at home. Then they would have to drive to the warehouse, pull and package the parts for shipment. The whole process took 3 days before I was even notified and billed. Just craziness. Just so happened to be in a state that was having those extreme lockdown situations. Figures.

It'll be interesting to see what businesses that are left stay afloat if this mess continues.

Yep that's another one. I was in Napa the other day and noticed their oil shelves bare. Amsoil, Valvoline, etc.... GONE I was just in there days before and they had plenty.
At first I thought they were reorganizing. Jim looked at me and said "nope, the past week it was just flying off the shelves, people buying it up." They were still waiting for a big restock order to show up. I kiddingly said "with the mess going on we'll probably have an oil shortage in the near future" LOL He said "oh don't say that, last year when someone came in here joking about the toilet paper and it actually happened." I guess I jinxed it now :D

I went home and promptly put in a big order of my own for oil and I noticed that the prices had went up.

Does a piece of *ss count?