Been helping out a pal with the same old car as me, who lives in California.
He's been doing some engine work on it, and wants to replace the exhaust manifold bolts with stainless steel. They are available on UK Ebay at about a tenner a set - 16 bolts, plain and locking washers. But the supplier won't send to the US.
It does seem odd to me he can't source them in the US. They are 5/16ths UNC, and threaded all their length so not even a normal bolt which might be a bit more difficult. IIRC 5/16ths UNC is as near as dammit the same as american coarse.
Whatever. I've ordered them up to be sent here. What would be the best way to send them there reasonably quickly and at the best price? Given the low value, could they be sent as a gift to avoid the delay of duty having to be paid? I'd guess they will arrive here in a jiffy bag.
Coming from the US to UK I've found the combination of USPS + Parcelforce to be rather unpredictable in 2020. I had one parcel from Denver that went to San Francisco then down the bay to San Jose and back to San Francisco from where it was "exported". Two weeks later it was exported again from Atlanta and it took Parcelforce several days to acknowledge the UK arrival but after that the usual trip to Coventry followed by a demand for tax etc and payment it arrived next day. That took almost exactly one month.
I buy things quite often in the USA and I have an address who will collect things for me and then put them all in one package. Almost everything I buy is shipped via USPS in the US but I tend to use Fedex to get it across the Atlantic (the consolidator has good rates with them).
Almost every carrier in the US is suffering delays; USPS tracking says "Alert: USPS is experiencing unprecedented volume increases and limited employee availability due to the impacts of COVID-19. We appreciate your patience." The consolidator I use says "Carrier delays: Your shipments are being processed and leaving our facility on time. However, Fedex is experiencing delays scanning shipments at their respective locations." and those Fedex delays have affected a couple of US domestic items where vendors have used them instead of USPS. UPS carried an item for me into the UK from the USA recently and it sat at Stansted for about a week before delivery even though I paid dues before it actually arrived in the UK.
In many ways I don't think it matters who you send it with - they are all suffering at the moment. Parcelforce/USPS is probably cheapest but slowest. Fedex and UPS expensive but quicker. Might be worth asking DHL.
Whatever you do, don't try and cheat customs. Whilst it is possibly true that bolts are not high on their list of things to stop being imported that doesn't mean they will ignore them. Most of the stuff I import to the UK is model railroad related and the consolidator is very careful to ensure everything is accurately declared but that doesn't stop UK customs having a rummage occasionally and I can't see US customs being any less rigorous.
My daughter-in-law in New Jersey, sent a parcel to me on the 15th of December, First Class postage. I'm in Scotland. The parcel was sent to _Canada_, bypassing JFK, which is where that stuff is generally processed. It cleared Canadian Customs (Why? It's just passing through, and it shouldn't have been sent to Canada, anyway), and was then sent on
- to another location in Canada.
I have never known shipments from NJ to be sent through Canada. It's been sitting there for days, and when I check the Royal Mail site it claims they've been told it will be with them soon.
A clue is that the current supplier cannot send to the us. You may find it very expensive and slow unless you have a friend who can get to the us like a pilot or flight crew and post it there. I've heard a lot of horror stories which i won't bore you with. Your friend may, in the future find it easier to pay one of those companies who allows you to have delivery addresses in various countries and then they do the onward shipping and usually manage to find the best way of doing ti at the lowest cost. I find it hard to imagine that such hardware was not around in the US. Maybe its the qty which is the problem? Brian
I think your friend could have got these from another source. Even China ships UNC bolts.
The best way of playing the carrier market is with a site like this:
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There are others but I doubt there's going to be much difference in price. It's not going to be cheap. Just make sure the details of the contents and declaration of value is made visible on the package.
Are US rules on pattern car parts different from EU ones? That should be irrelevant if you just specify the screws' dimensions and the material they are made of rather than any specific car-related purpose. But how available are metric screws in the US?
All the more reason one should be able to get the bolts from any American engineering supplier, including Ebay. Just not with the car's description attached to them.
It's for a Rover V8. Originally a Buick engine. When made in the UK, the treads are all Unified - mid 60s. And mostly UNC - which in some sizes is as near as dammit AC.
Not really trying to cheat customs. In the reverse direction there is quite a delay while you pay the duty owed. And a high 'paperwork' fee. What I was looking for was the most cost effective and quickest way to send them - without paying silly money for a courier, etc.
Many years ago there was an import tax on pairs of glove being bought into Ireland. A wholesaler had a brilliant idea. As there was no duty on single gloves he would import a consignment of left hand only gloves and a separate delivery of right hand gloves. Bingo, he had pairs of gloves with no duty on them.
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