1966 Bedford CA – Front Brake problems

I had exactly the same prob with brake shoe return springs! New springs sorted it out. Got mine from Peter Dobbs email is peterdobbs then at ntlworld.com. He had a few – good price, great guy 😀

Can’t help with drums – try peter too, or ebay.

Sorry, I can’t help with this Scott, but I hope someone on here can. Good luck. 🙂

Adrian Bailey only had rear ones when I asked and they were much more expensive than Peter Dobb’s.

Might as well tell you the story to explain why I think Peter is such a great guy. I hope he doesn’t mind – I got a rather bashful response to my thank you email. Ok – I’ll tell the story but not mention any prices – that way his pricing policy is still his own!

I needed brake shoe return springs for my front brakes (and thought it wise to get rear ones at the same time) and I didn’t know if such things were even purchasable.

So, after several days of internet bashing and suppliers saying they had none, I got a positive response from Peter Dobbs saying he had both the front and back springs but was not able to find out the value until the following day (strange I thought but anyway…), ‘make me an offer’ he said.

So using the pricing strategy I’d come to accept as standard after three weeks of owning the bus; I thought of a sensible price and doubled it, and told him so. To be honest I just really wanted those springs. He accepted my offer and agreed to get them sent out the following day if I sent the cheque in the opposite direction. The next day I had an email from Adrian Bailey offering me JUST the rear springs for 30% more than I’d paid for BOTH sets! So I thought I’d got a bargain. The cheque was already in the post. Then I got an email from Peter saying ‘if you’ve not posted the cheque, email me’. Uh oh, I thought he’d found out the true value and was trying to back out, but I should have a little faith in humanity and all that, he’d actually found out the true value (and got hold of some more) and was going to offer to knock some money off! Good man. To be honest I offered what I could afford to pay so I didn’t really mind, as long as they shouldn’t have been the price on the packet (59p).

Anyway the next time I wanted a part I emailed Peter and without further ado the secondhand part and some new associated gaskets arrived in the post along with a lovely letter – no charge. How nice is that? I was stunned!

P.S. I hope you found that interesting – my friends were rolling around laughing when I told them that story – unfortunately they were laughing in sheer disbelief that I managed to talk non-stop for 10 mins about brake shoe return strings. 😳 They were even more thrilled when the second part arrived and they got the sequel. 😛

Thanks for the contact everyone. I must say, Adrian Bailey can be a bit pricey but until now (other than eBay) I knew of no other suppliers of parts for these vans.
Having the part numbers is also very useful as so much of the British motor industry shared components. I found a brake master cylinder advertised for a Bedford CA priced at about £65 or somehwere close. An ad on eBay had one for another vechile (can’t remember, maybe vitesse?) and I purchased it for £12. Perfect. I recently spoke to a chap on eBay who supplies rear cylinders for Austin A36, I noticed it was the same part number as the Beford. He charges £22 for the pair I think, again, the items advertised as CA I’d seen were £29 + VAT each. Worth shopping around a bit.