Blog

Christmas Closing 2023

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!

Brickwerks

No email support 24th Aug to 28th Aug ’23


Due to staff holidays there will be no one here with email access to reply to your questions, not an ideal situation but needs must.

All emails will be responded to on a first come first served basis upon our return to work, fully staffed on the 29th of Aug (the day after the bank holiday)

Clearly we’ll have a back log so please be patient in awaiting your response.

The warehouse is open as usual, orders will still be leaving as they should without disruption.

Please make sure that you order everything you need to!

Usual “Day after the bank holiday” rules apply, we’ll do what we can to get your orders out on time but first come first served, busiest time of the year and a 3 day weekend usually spells trouble!


Holiday season


It’s that time of year again, our silly season where customers are fixing their vans to go on holiday!

Just like you we like some time off too and we have a perfect storm brewing for early next week (31st of July to be precise!) where we will have more staff away from work than we’d ideally like.

We will be running reduced staff in the warehouse early next week and this is a heads up to say, please order in time as not as many packages as we’d like to get out the door will actually be going out of the door.

To try and pre-empt a flurry of grumpy customers who email to say “I paid extra for next day delivery”, orders will be picked, packed and shipped on  first come first served basis and we will do our utmost to ship as much as we can with the shipping service you selected at checkout, we don’t want orders sat in the tray just as much as you don’t want a delay in receiving your package.

To save us from replying to the same type of emails over and over again, anyone who decided not to read the big red banner at the top of every page on the webshop will be simply sent a link to this page!

Normal service will resume on Wednesday the 2nd of August as we try and clear the backlog.

Please be careful to make sure you order everything you need as office staff will be in the warehouse packing orders and we may not get to your “I forgot to order something, can I tag it on to my current order” email until it’s shipped.

Happy Holidays!

Simon.


Left or right?


Boots

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.

Simple!


VW T3 Rear Light Wiring Colours (European Models)


Recently a customer contacted us as he was buying a tow bar for his VW T3 from our store and he enquired about wiring in the towbar electrics.

As you know we used to run a VW T3 Specialist workshop and we have a lot of information saved, if we did a job for the first time we made notes and wrote them up to save time the second time we did the job.

One of our internal help sheets was simply the wiring colours for the rear lights and we passed this on to the customer to help with his towbar installation, I thought it would be helpful for other customers so we’ve added it to our blog to save us forwarding the same information over and over again!

As our workshop was in the UK then the following wiring colours are relevent to European models but as the UK drives on the left hand side of the road we only have a legal requirement for a rear fog lamp on the right side of the vehicle. There is no reason why we cannot have fog lamps on both sides but I presume just a cost saving exersize on the manufacturers part, this was common practice back in the day though I’m not entirly sure actually how much money a small brass tab, a bulb and a couple of metres of wire would save!

For our friends over in the USA, sorry, this isn’t for you Vanagon owners, the USA tail lights were wired differently and used what we consider the fog lamp as brake lights!

With VW being a German vehicle manufacturer then the wiring colours and terminations are to DIN 72552.

Position Wiring colour Din no Wire dia Towbar Pin Towbar Colour
Earth Brown 31 1mm² 3 White
Brake lights Black/red 54 1mm² 6 Red
Fog light Grey/white 55 1mm² 2 Blue
Left hand side light Grey/black 58 1mm² 7 Black
Right hand side light Grey/red 58 1mm² 5 Brown
Number plate lamps Grey/green 58 1mm²    
Left indicator Black/white L 1mm² 1 Yellow
Right indicator Black/green R 1mm² 4 Green
Reverse light Black/blue RF 1mm²    
           
Left Rear Light   Pin      
Black/Red   1      
Grey/Black   2      
Brown   3      
*Grey/White   4      
Black/Blue   5      
Black/White   6      
           
Right Rear Light   Pin      
Black/Green   1      
Black/Blue   2      
Brown   3      
Grey/White   4      
Grey/Red   5      
Black/Red   6      
         

VW T3 Towbar
Universal Towbar socket


T3 Radiators – What’s a few mm?


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.

VW No Style To fit Core Construction Discontinued by VW Superseded to Notes
025 121 253 Late 1.9l DF and EY 34mm Plastic tanks 01/06/12 NLA Just use 025 121 253 A Instead
025 121 253 A Late 1.9l DG 34mm Plastic tanks 01/02/12 NLA Upgrade for DF & EY
               
068 121 253 Early 1.6D CS 35mm Metal tanks 30/09/80 068 121 253 A Dropped before introduction!
068 121 253 A Early 1.6D CS 35mm Metal tanks 01/12/02 NLA Repair or Convert to late style.
068 121 253 B Early 1.6D CS 35mm Metal tanks 31/01/83 068 121 253 A  
068 121 253 C Late All except DF, DG, EY & SP 42mm Plastic tanks 15/05/87 068 121 253 E  
068 121 253 D Late All except DF, DG, EY & SP 42mm Plastic tanks 30/09/94 068 121 253 E  
068 121 253 E Late All except DF, DG, EY & SP 42mm Plastic tanks 01/10/09 NLA Upgrade for DG/SP in Hot Climates

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.


Easter Bank Holiday Closing


Eyup!
Easter is just around the corner and just like you we’re resdy for a few days off!
We shall be closed on 7th of April (Good Friday) and the 10th of April (Easter Monday)
Roll on a 4 day weekend!
We’ll be back on the 11th with a backlog to clear so a bit of patience please, we’ll do our best to get your parts away in the post ASAP. afterwards but please expect a bit of disruption.


Closed for Stocktake ’23


Hi.

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!


Stocktake closure

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.

VW LT 1976-1996 Parts and model information

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!