Differential Rebuild at Andy's Spiders

[bradbig]

I just got back from a day at Andy's Spiders, in the Toronto-area. He seems to be a real straight-shooter. I found him very interesting to be around given his expertise. He installed a rebuilt differential unit for me, as well as related bearings and seals. It appears the seal and bearing for the drive shaft deteriorated over time, letting all the oil out, so it was really bad, which I knew when I bought the car. I found Andy's price and shop-rate very reasonable. He has a ton of used and new and rebuilt and modified parts - everything you can imagine for repair and restoration of a Fiat Spider. I bought some new parts and some nearly-new parts taken of of a dead Spider. He told me he's been at the Spiders full-time for over 25 years now. I'm sure I'll do business with him again, over time. He also had a few restored and/or running Spiders for sale, FYI.

[AriK]

I never heard anything bad about Andy. Someone on this board recently bought an older restoration from 1995 done at Andy's, and was ready to perform some kind of re-restoration after it has been a daily driver all these years. I havent seen any updates on his post. In any case, happy that you're satisfied with the work on your diff. This is what this site is all about, we share our experiences we had and promote the vendors who have treated us right.

[SoFlaFiat]

Back around 1997 when I just started learning about these cars I unknowingly sold Andy a sad state of a car. It was in a scrap yard owned by a friend so I pulled it out and got it running, listed it on eBay and split the sale with my friend. Andy, I assume, is always on the lookout for restorable cars and we shipped that thing to Ontario. I'm sure he made a great car out of it, maybe with more work than expected.
Point of the story, during conversations after the sale, Andy admitted that the car was not what he had hoped but was ever so nice about it and never suggested that I did him a bad! Over the years I have learned much and wish I had known enough at the time to not sell him that piece of junk.
Glad to know he is still at it!!