It’s that time again… if you’re reading this you’ve clicked the “Christmas Closing” message on the webshop.
Good. You’ll be surprised how many people miss that big red banner at the top of every single page…
This year we close at Midday on Friday the 22nd December.
Our last collection will be Royal Mail at around 4:30pm on Thursday 21st December.
Last Fedex collection will be at 2:30pm on Thursday 21st December
That means if you’re reading this after around 2:00pm on Thursday the 21st December it’s unlikely your Fedex order will be shipped.
We’ll push the Royal Mail stuff as far as we can up to the last collection time
We may be able to drop small items in the parcel collection box on Friday morning, but we can’t guarantee it…
Realistically once it gets to around 3:30pm that’s it…
Until…
January 2nd TWENTY TWENTY FOUR Yes, thats a whole new year… We will be ringing in the New Year on January 1st, then returning to work on the second January.
All orders placed over the Christmas/New Year period will be shipped in the order they were placed (ish).
As always we will do our best to catch up on the backlog and we aim to have all hands on deck shipping orders in the New Year, but we expect some delays may be possible with shipping.
All thats left is to wish you all a very Merry Christmas, and a productive and Happy New Year.
Thanks for keeping us busy again for a whole year!
Another common question we get at Brickwerks Towers is why do we use “Left” and “Right” to describe where parts fit to the vehicle on our webshop and not “nearside” and “offside” or “drivers side” and “passenger side”?
The answer is simple, we sell car parts for vehicles that are both left hand drive and right hand drive to customers all around the world, we cannot use nearside or offside as we have no idea where the customers browsing the site is located nor what their vehicle is and which side of the road that they drive on.
Left and right are used as it doesn’t matter in the world you are, left is always left and right is always right.
Left and right is taken as if you are sat in the vehicle facing forwards.
In the UK where we drive on the left hand side of the road, Left is nearside and Right is Offside, or nearside is Left, and offside is right.
Following on from several recent discussions with both trade and retail customers who have approached us regarding the supply of radiators for the T3 either as a standard replacement or an uprated version we’ve been prompted to write this post regarding whats happened with the radiators over the last few years and what’s available now and to dispel some of the myths flaoting around.
As far as VW are concerned, and ignoring the very early Diesel radiator which isn’t available anyway… and the “DF” radiator which isn’t either, there are 2 different radiators. a version with a 34mm core or the bigger version with a 42mm core..
This measurement refers to the thickness of the radiator core. The core being the “finned” section of the radiator that has channels that the coolant runs through.
Actually it’s more complicated than that, as there are a number of dropped part numbers (including one that was discontinued before the watercooled models were even made… but we’ll ignore all those too as they all supercede to the same parts.)
We’ve recently seen enquiries about a radiator with a 50mm core, supposedly fitted to vehicles for “hot climates”.
This didn’t make sense to us, as the “hot climate” radiator is the 42mm core radiator, as factory fitted to the 2.1i and Turbo Diesel models.
There is another “hot climate” option, which is listed for the “DF” engine and which is in fact the standard 34mm radiator, so a “hot climate” radiator for a DF would be the standard radiator for the 1.9 “DG” for example. A “hot climate” radiator for the “DG” would be a radiator as fitted to the 2.1 and TD models. There is, as far as we can tell, no “hot climate” radiator for the 2.1 and TD. They all had the same 42mm core radiator.
Going back to this mythical “50mm core”, we believe this is either a misunderstanding of how radiator cores are measured (they have measured the top/bottom plate rather than the core itself) or in some cases a little intentional deception to help boost sales… pointless really as any schoolgirl with a ruler can confirm the core thickness.
Previously, we have offered 2 options for the larger 42mm core radiator, an original South African produced radiator from Hella (still made until a couple of years ago), which was pretty much exactly the same as the one VW fitted in the factory, and an alternative which is an aftermarket radiator sold under many different brands. Sadly the originals are no longer available, part of the reason for this is the insistance by some suppliers that the cheaper rads are the same as the originals resulting in a drop in demand for them. Some of those suppliers now claiming to supply some special “50mm core” radiator (which actually has a 42mm core).
Screenshot from VW’s parts prgoram, ETKA
Please review the following table that lists all the different radiator part numbers as fitted to a T3, when they were discontinued and which part number they were replaced by.
The parts in bold are radiators that we currently stock.
The early or late style in the table above refers to the radiator style and not the vehicle, early style radiators were only ever fitted to 1.6D “CS” engines and were of a more traditional construction having brass tanks and a soldered core. The early radiator is easily identified by it’s huge design flaw by having the cooling fan switches at the top of the left hand tank, any loss of coolant would render the fan switches inoperable and would accelerate a oveheat situation.
Luckily, VW realised the shortcomings in this early style radiator design and it was replaced with the introduction of the WBX engine for the 1983 model year by the later style radiator with plastic tanks, aluminium core and a fan switch in a sensible place!
Hopefully this page clears up some of the misinformation floating around and helps you make an informed choice when shopping around for a radiator.
Just measure the core on your “specially produced” radiator and check you’ve got that extra “girth” you’ve paid for.
As with all this kind of stuff, you pays your money you takes your choice.
As we’re now past the 2pm cut off point for orders leaving same day we have stopped processing orders to concentrate on counting our stock.
The website will continue to take orders, they will NOT be sent until after stocktake.
Any orders placed after 2pm on Weds 29th of March ’23 will be held until the stock take is complete, as soon as the stocktake is complete then we shall return to processing orders.
We don’t expect to be finished until Friday the 31st, sometime in the afternoon, orders will be sent on a first come first served basis, we expect disruption to continue until the early part of next week.
As usual we’ll do our best to get stuff out the door as soon as we can.
Emails asking why your stuff has not left will be met with the usual “read the massive red banner at the top of each page” response and probably a link to this page, you can lead a horse to water, you can’t make it drink!
Now then, it’s that time of year again when we have to close the shop for a couple of days and count what we have on the shelf, put the stock levels right and clear any silly mistakes we’ve made over the last 12 months.
We shall be closed on Thursday the 30th and Friday the 31st of March.
This means orders placed after around 2pm on Wednesday the 29th March are unlikely to be processed until the stock take is complete.
Please order your parts in good time! being closed means… being closed!
The webshop will remain open and will continue to take orders but there’s a good chance NOTHING will be sent before Monday the 3rd of April.
As the first series of the VW LT get older we’re being aproached by more and more customers trying to source parts for these vehicles.
Sourcing parts for the LT is getting difficult, the last vehicles off the production line was well over 26 years ago (correct at time of writing Feb’23) you cannot simply nip to a VW parts department or use your local motor factor anymore to get your spares.
As these vehicles aren’t deemed as cool as some of their more compact bretherin then vehicle parts manufacturers haven’t taken any interest in reproducing parts for them and a lot of the time there simply isn’t the choice available quality wise, a lot of the time it’s take what you can get and live with it!
Luckily in true VW fashion there are a lot of simple parts are shared between vehicles in VW’s range and thankfully vehicles that are more popular but it’s the things like body panels, gearbox parts and such that were only ever used on VW LT models that we’re struggling with.
As you know, we’re known for mainly supplying T3 & T4 parts but we do have a decent range of LT parts and I’d chance saying that we probably have the largest range of LT1 parts in the UK however our LT knowledge is not as deep as it is for T3 and T4.
In an attemp to “get our heads” around all things LT then we’ve produced this little table to help us understand the LT and to help guide customers to products that are on our website as there seems to be a bewhildering array of models, engines, axles, brakes and suspension parts and without a little knowledge then it’s nigh on impossible giving parts advice.
We have a few more tables of information of which we’ll share shortly and hopefully collate into a little tech section but in the meantime this should help some customer understand the vehicle that they own and find some parts on the website.
Model
Type
M Code
PR Code
GVW (KG)
Front suspension
Rear wheels
Brakes
>’89
90>
LT28
28x
OWA
2800
Coil
Single
250×55
LT31
28x
OWB
3200
Coil
Single
250×55
LT35E
29x
–
OWC
3500
Coil
Single*
270×65*
LT35
29x
–
3500
Coil
Twin
270×65
LT35Z
29x
–
OWJ
3500
Coil
Twin
270×65
LT40
29x
M512
OWD
4000
Leaf Spring
Twin
270×65
LT40A
29x
M350
OWH
3500
Leaf Spring
Twin
270×65
LT45
29x
M926
OWE
4600
Leaf Spring
Twin
270×65
LT50
29x
M908
OWF
5000
Leaf Spring
Twin
270×65
LT55
29x
M384
OWG
5600
Leaf Spring
Twin
270×65
LT 35 runs to end of ’89 where it is then split to LT35E (single rear wheels) or LT35Z (twin rear wheels)
* LT35E has it’s own rear brake set up using rear brake drums unique to LT35E. 270X65mm shoes as used on twin wheel vehicles but with a unique drum to utilise the rear axle of the LT28 & LT31
We’ll continue to support the LT and we’re adding new parts all the time but what we are finding is that parts are available, we buy a few then that’s it! All gone and not to be replaced!
If you want it and it’s available then we’ll stock it!
Latest update on Royal Mail Industrial Action – December 19th 2022
As the Royal Mail strikes continue right up to Christmas and there is a significant backlog of mail at Royal Mail depots we have made the decision to temporarily disable Royal Mail services to most areas, other than large letter rates for small packages and a few remote areas that don’t have realistic courier options.
This will be temporary until after the Christmas period as the last thing we want is a large number of packages sat in depots for prolonged periods over the Christmas/New Year period.
Most areas will see a very competitive Fedex option which at the moment is proving to be the most reliable service.
Royal mail strike days this week are:
Friday 23rd December
Saturday 24th December
Realistically our last shipping day is Thursday 22nd December for all orders.
The Communication Workers Union have today announced new strike dates for December so our updated list of strike dates is below
All Royal Mail services will be affected around these dates with no collections taking place on those days, fewer deliveries being made, and delays with all services outside of these dates as sorting offices try and catch up.
We do not recommend selecting Royal Mail domestic or International services for any order that you need in a hurry.
With backlogs causing delays and the RM prioritising 1st Class and Tracked24 services over cheaper services, there is potential for long delays with mail leading up to the Christmas period.
November
Saturday 12th November
Monday 14th November
Thursday 24th November
Friday 25th November
Wednesday 30th November
December
Thursday 1st December
Friday 9th December
Sunday 11th December
Wednesday 14th December
Thurdsday 15th December
Friday 23rd December
Saturday 24th December
We now have a FedEx service in addition to the Royal Mail options for most areas and this is cheaper than Tracked24 and only slighty more expensive than Tracked48. We recommend using this where available as delivery aims for all Royal Mail services will extend over the following weeks.
We will update if anything changes.
Hi.
As you’ve probably seen in the news, Royal Mail are planning further undustrial action.
Friday 30 September 2022 and Saturday 1 October 2022
Thursday 13th October 2022
Thursday 20th October 2022
Tuesday 25th October 2022
Monday 28th November 2022
Further dates have also been announced by the CWU for functional strike action which impacts parts of our operation on the following:
Processing, Distribution, International, Collections, Admin: 3rd, 9th, 15th, 24th November and 1st December 2022
Delivery: 4th, 10th, 16th, 25th November and 2nd December 2022
Network: 2nd, 8th, 14th, 23rd, 30th November 2022
Obviously as around 65% of our packages go out with Royal Mail then it’s going to impact our delivery service to you.
We’re working on alternatives at the moment but please be aware that if you select Royal Mail as a delivery option on or around these dates it’s going to impact the speed of your delivery.
As always, we’ll do our bit and get the items picked, packed and into bags for Royal Mail to collect but selecting an alternative courier at checkout may be in your interest.
Please also note that we may swap some orders placed with Royal Mail to other shipping providers to keep parts moving.
After waiting for half an hour after our usual Royal Mail collection time it was pretty obvious that our driver wasn’t coming.
After a quick call we managed to persuade the sorting office to stay open so we could take the mail there ourselves.
Today’s Royal Mail orders have now been deposited in Huddersfield where we believe the Tracked 24 will be dealt with as usual but there may be delays on the 48 hour and international packages.
We’ve been told that due to the weather that we probably won’t get a collection Tuesday the 19th either so again, we’ve arranged for us to take the mail to the sorting office however there is a much earlier cut off time of 12pm.
Were truly sorry about this and we’ve done what we can to mitigate any delays but please be understanding and appreciate that this is out of our control.
Just a quick warning to let you know that we’re planning some downtime on the webshop
For all of you “I’m going to France tomorrow and I needed that part desperately” types then you need to be a little bit more organised and order your parts in good time!
On Tuesday 19th of July you’ll notice the webshop go in to maintenance mode where the propeller heads will be furtling around in the nether regions of our webshop to make some changes and improvements, hopefully back on later that day.
As we all know things like this never go smoothly so please order in good time or be patient afterwards as we play Whack-A-Mole with issues as they arise.
It goes without saying that if you’re really stuck then I’m sure the usual suspects can help you out, Heritage Parts, Just Kampers, Slaughterhouse Customs etc.
Fingers crossed we’re back after the dip with a few more features and less niggles with the shop.
Simon.
Irritating cookie pop up.
Yeah, cookies, we have to have this stupid, annoying message here, we know you don't care and frankly neither do we.
If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with them.Yeah, whatever..
