[i]OK
Below is the last couple of enties from another Thread and as rightly suggested by Jason (Thanks 
) this subject really needs its own slot so to speak.
The Immediate text below basically describes what Iām offering to do and below that in red is the reply from Jason requesting a new thread which this is !
The only other information below is a reply from Martin with a different point of view and some good ideas of his own, ALL ideas are always welcome !
SO here we have the NEW Thread lets have YOUR involvement and comments ! I would still request ANY useful data you have especially personal knowledge of alternate parts or supplier / manufacturer contacts be either posted or emailed to me at the address below.
Thanks
Peter[/i]
I have been a Classic car nut for as long as I car to remember and probably longer than I should (according to the wife). I did this for the Reliant Scimitars and is was great help.
Iām really NOT after financial reward just HELP in the form of any information especially when it comes to manufacturers of various parts and the OM part numbers.
I work overseas for a month at a time so on a night when I have finished I get our the laptop and do my ?own thing? which at the present includes this quest !
I have set up spread sheets in Excel and broken the cars down into areas such as brakes, electrics, interior, body fittings etc and then the intent would be to enter the car it is fitted to, description of the part, the manufacturers part number, alternative part number(s) Lotus parts supplier numbers (Paul Matty, Christopher Neil etc etc) with hyperlinks to their sites, other cars it was fitted to, Suppliers for those car parts and their respective clubs (with Hyperlinks) !
I know it may sound very high tech but once done I think it would be of great use and I?ll probably burn it to CD and then distribute at minimal cost (If I can find a way to STOP people ripping it off and selling it on as that is not a TRUE classic car man as far as I?m concerned )
I have a copy of Paul?s book and there is some really good information in it which I intend to cross check against other info I have already gathered so hopefully the listing would be pretty reliable.
I am on the trail of lots of companies to try to glean information from them to assist in this and have positive response from SOME like AP Lockheed who sent me a disc with their back catalogues on (the ones your local motor factors use) and Bosal have done the same for exhausts etc. However other companies like Girling, Lucas, Unipart, AC Delco & Mintex etc etc has to date been unresponsive !
Do ANY of you out there have contacts in these or other companies I could use ? or supply me with any contact details you may have (as they may be different to ones I have found on the web ?)
My email address is at the bottom of this posting as always, so any information in the form of lists, contacts, part numbers, manufacturers or other info you have can always be sent to there. If you only have a hard copy then should be willing to take a copy you could post it to the address on the web site (also shown at the bottom of this listing) please mark the envelope Lotus Alternate Parts or something similar so my wife and I can identify them easily.
Thanks again
Peter Mallinson
[email protected]
www.sheenview.com
Jason1
First Gear
Joined: 03 Nov 2005
Posts: 46
Location: Colchester
Posted: Tue Feb 28, 2006 5:49 pm Post subject:
Peter
You may be better starting a new post with a title like +2 parts, so people will read and add to the list I think the door lights subject has run itās course.
Jason
M100
Fourth Gear
Joined: 16 Sep 2003
Posts: 559
Posted: Tue Feb 28, 2006 6:37 pm Post subject:
Peter, donāt take this as personal criticism but the problem with information like this is they tend to become controlled by one person leading to problems if the primary source decides to go and do something else, or a server crashes or someone smells money to be made and sells it on ebay.
A lot of the information will by neccesity be a duplication of Robinshaw and Ross, although they donāt have a right to the part number information itās an area that needs addressing carefully particularly if dummy infomation has been inserted into their texts (can of worms copyright issues spring to mind!)
If contributions are solicited and made by the wide arena of Elan owners such as on here then Iām sure most would prefer the collated information should be disseminated in the open and made freely available to all. Physical media is not always the right way as percieved value may get attributed to it, plus the ease of copying can both be an advantage and a huge disadvantage.
Make the information truly open and freely available and the piracy issue almost disappears, and assuming this site is properly backed up ??? so does any concerns about data loss. If the source respository can be modifed by anyone (in a positive way) then the result is usually much better, more comprehensive and more accurate.
Going back to the points mentioned in the first paragraph, a very similar thing happened with an alternative Elise list. Over a long period of time lots of people put a lot of work into an alternative parts list, the server went down and everything but a few fuzzy screen dumps someone just happened to save were the only remains of what was once a very useful site.
Also Excel, along with most other Microsoft applications use proprietary closed source formats. Something non proprietary like csv or even plain text is infinitely more portable.
Iād tend towards an area on the forum being reserved and arranged in a hierarchical manner to store this information or someone sets up a āwikiā both to cover the alternative parts issues and also the faq.
For those not immediately familiar with āwikiāsā then take a look at
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Introduction
bugzilla.org/
or for something specifically car oriented
Martin
72 Sprint DHC
