Reverse Engineering Spare Parts

[nicco]

Hi everyone,

I wanted to throw this out to the world to see if anyone is interested in what I've been working on; I've been busy reverse engineering the air con controls chassis for an AUII or AUIII with manual air con controls.

The one in my car, and all the ones I've found in wreckers, is starting to disintegrate after years of being tucked in under the dash of the car.

I've spent a few years building up my car and plan on keeping it for quite a few more years, so I've been trying to pick up nice parts where I can but this one has eluded me - so it was time to make one.

It also seems that Ford doesn't sell replacement bulbs any more, and the off the shelf ones that the Repco's of the world sell won't fit either, so I've modified it to suit off the shelf, Narva bulbs.

The final parts are going to be made from cast polyurethane and will have all the embedded circuit boards for the lights and buttons and what not. I'm 3D printing the prototypes.

I'm about 90% finished the 3D modelling and have run a 3D printed prototype (with no circuit board) in the car and it worked well. I;m hoping to have the finished part cast up in the next couple of weeks.

If there is interest, I want to make a couple of extras for other people and sell them to cover my costs. Perhaps in the future we could look to make some different parts too.


Thanks,
Nic.

Just a side note, I'm not a business or anything - just an engineer who wants his car to be tip top.

[solarite_guy]

That is so cool.

The situation you describe seems ideal for this sort of thing. As described, there are no toes to step on in this case.

I hope it works out.

[XD 351 Ute]

Nice work Nic!

I'm quite sure that there would be a market for these, but also many other now obsolete and decaying plastics on so many other models of our favourite cars.

Keep up the good work!

Ed

[Interceptor]

look pretty awesome, very interested

[Venomous1]

Great idea.

[eb2fairmont]

Have you thought about 3D printing?

[ford12]

Originally Posted by eb2fairmont

Have you thought about 3D printing?

Gee it's great when someone replies with something like this.
You just know they read the entire post

[GO FURTHER]

Amazing work Nic... Well done!

How long did it take to print that, and what is the material cost involved?

Thanks

[Magee]

I have a similar problem with the back case on my AU 1 Heater control. The plastic mount that holds the cable had broken away due to brittleness. When you turn the temp knob it had no effect as the cable was floating.

Being an older guy I went for an old school solution and made a bracket out of 2 pieces of sheet metal that I could screw to the back of the heater control unit as the picture. Needed to do some fine tuning to ensure it mated to the back case and also did not foul with anything in the dash when fitted.

It looks a bit rough, but since it is not visible when fitted I was okay with it and I know it is lot stronger than the original design of a barbed clip into the plastic square hole.

[GasoLane]

Originally Posted by nicco

I'm 3D printing the prototypes.

I'm about 90% finished the 3D modelling and have run a 3D printed prototype (with no circuit board) in the car and it worked well.

Originally Posted by eb2fairmont

Have you thought about 3D printing?

[Mercury Bullet]

Originally Posted by psychobimbo

Had a friend who works in Defence attend a conference a few weeks back about strategic planning, and a very high government official told them that, because of the two cyclones that impacted the northern parts of Australia earlier this year, there was only 10 days supply of fuel (jncluding jet fuel) left in the country. One more cyclone and petrol would have been rationed.

Awesome!

Once you have the hardware how much would it cost (in materials) to make those parts?

[nicco]

Awesome everyone, thanks for the great feedback. I'm pretty stoked with how it's all coming together. Glad to see there is the interest in it I hoped there would be.

To the questions,
EB2Fairmont; yep, 3d print for the prototypes but I'll cast the final units - it'll make it much easier to get a nice finish and embed the circuit board with casting. It wouldn't be efficient to really make more than one with the printer

Go Further - that compete grey unit in the photos was a 26 hour print.

Mercury Bullet - once the mould is made and ready to go I'm figuring each unit will cost maybe $30 -$40 to make, but the mould making is the most expensive bit. So far I'm probably 20 or 30 hours into the cad modelling.

Magee - nice work!

[Mercury Bullet]

Cheers.

This 3d printing intrigues me..

[whitelion65]

Originally Posted by Magee

I have a similar problem with the back case on my AU 1 Heater control. The plastic mount that holds the cable had broken away due to brittleness. When you turn the temp knob it had no effect as the cable was floating.

Being an older guy I went for an old school solution and made a bracket out of 2 pieces of sheet metal that I could screw to the back of the heater control unit as the picture. Needed to do some fine tuning to ensure it mated to the back case and also did not foul with anything in the dash when fitted.

It looks a bit rough, but since it is not visible when fitted I was okay with it and I know it is lot stronger than the original design of a barbed clip into the plastic square hole.

Not bad.....but I can't see any fencing wire in there......

[snap0964]

Great work Nic !

That was the car that Brad (Tickford_6) did the engine work for ?

[CyberWasp]

Nicco, you have commenced the 1st step in what will become a large and successful new business.
Making 1 spare part successfully and better than the original, will easily branch out into making hundreds of different parts that are no longer available.
Awesome stuff !!!!!

[Work Horse]

You, are an ideas man nicco!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Lrbw4-vkFM

[nicco]

Cyber wasp - thanks! I'd love to one day move into doing this sort of stuff full time, that's for sure. Baby steps for now though, just trying to get the runs on the board first! Ha ha.

Yep Snap (it's Ray, isn't it?) That's the one. The car had changed a lot since the original plan; it's still got the motor Brad built with me, but the snort performance turbo kit had to get binned, so now it's single turbo, with a link ems with e throttle so I've got traction control and launch control, and still the t56. It's been going really well.

[FGX-351]

EA/EB/ED Demister switches was the first thing that came to mind

[nicco]

I think I've got the modelling finished and I've printed the final prototypes. Ended up splitting it up into a number of different pieces that I'll glue together to make sure the bits the needed the best detail could get it.

I'm in the middle of a massive week at work, but hopefully I'll get to make a set of moulds over the weekend.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/15Ghy1XnmzP2ZXy9A
https://photos.app.goo.gl/1vztSOsEsRW0FdD52

I hope you don't mind - I added the photos to your post.

[snap0964]

Originally Posted by nicco

Yep Snap (it's Ray, isn't it?) That's the one. The car had changed a lot since the original plan; it's still got the motor Brad built with me, but the snort performance turbo kit had to get binned, so now it's single turbo, with a link ems with e throttle so I've got traction control and launch control, and still the t56. It's been going really well.

Good memory with names Nic. IIRC Snort went bust and resurfaced again.
3 yrs ago I had a look at a Lear jet APU (Aux power unit) gas turbine done by a Uni from Melbourne - it was 3D printed in Titanium - the only component not 3D printed was the exhaust cowl.
So it wouldn't be surprising at all to see you doing your own turbos in metal in a few years.

[arronm]

Reverse engineer some of these. cast aluminium please.

BA BF dual zone mixer shafts.

[Bossxr8]

Originally Posted by nicco

I think I've got the modelling finished and I've printed the final prototypes. Ended up splitting it up into a number of different pieces that I'll glue together to make sure the bits the needed the best detail could get it.

I'm in the middle of a massive week at work, but hopefully I'll get to make a set of moulds over the weekend.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/15Ghy1XnmzP2ZXy9A
https://photos.app.goo.gl/1vztSOsEsRW0FdD52

Has anyone suggested to you that you should get them 3D printed yet?

[malazn mafia]

Originally Posted by arronm

Reverse engineer some of these. cast aluminium please.

BA BF dual zone mixer shafts.

image

I was always afraid Ford did them in plastic for a reason , and the next point of weakness would be stripping cogs within the HIM itself. Maybe need to redo the HIM internals as well if changing to metal

[au350hp]

Excellent idea. I never understood why plastic is used in moving parts that are hidden behind dashboards. I remember pulling the E series dash out to change the fresh/recirc stalk that was made out of plastic. absolute nightmare.

[Sprintey]

Nic that is fantastic work, well done!

I've thought about 3d printing a cupholder unit for inside the console of ED to bring them into the modern age. Most of my efforts have gone into 3d printed parts for my own machines so far.

You are on the cusp of what the Grand Tourer guys did with XYs, beginning the reproduction parts business. Only it will be for the modern Falcons, E series to FG.

[blackf6]

China has been ripping off parts for years. Even making whole cars. Bloody good job though mate. Come Mad Max you will be set.

[nicco]

Hey everyone, sorry about the long delay in posts - it really was a massive week at work, plus been playing catch up this week.

I did get to make some good progress though; I've got half the mould made for the part!

Photos to come.

Ray - Yep, the metal printing stuff is amazing. Unfortunately, it's a bit out of the price range for anything less than a pretty serious engineering business. Still though, there's definitely some scope for combining a few different manufactuing methods for an effective way to get parts - ie: 3d print plugs and sand casting for cast metal parts.

Arronm - That looks like the perfect sort of part to do next, although yeah, casting out of metal is a bit out my my reach at home at the moment. Perhaps we could look into a high strength, fibre reinforced plastic or something like that.

Thanks everyone else for the kind comments!

Here we go, (almost) all the parts needed including a bunch of 3d printer breathers and a fill funnel


This is my final 3D printed plug assembled and mounted on timber to keep it flat


I pulled a silicone cast from the original unit for the plug to make sure the pins end up in the exactly correct location. This is now keyed into the mould for the new parts


The plug all set up with breathers and fill point in place, the clay is there to fill in the negative space that will be provided by the second half of the mould


Finished first half of the mould!!

[nicco]

I was busy over the weekend doing more work on this; I've got my parents visiting from the east coast from tomorrow night for a few weeks and I've told them they can borrow the daily drive... which means I need the dashboard in the Falcon reassembled tonight. Ha ha.

With that in mind, I made the second half of the mould then had a go casting. I'm using a rigid polyurethane plastic. First attempt didn't go so well. The resin was bit too viscous for such a detailed mould. I couldn't get it completely filled. Photos added for amusement.



I then modified the mould to have a second fill point and made a few other little changes and had another go.

On initial demoulding it was looking good.


But look a bit closer and there was voids all through it. Another fail.


I was cleaning up last night and realised the other resin I had, which is a little bit less rigid, had a viscosity about 1/6 the first one. One last ditch attempt...



Success!!

There are one or two little bits that aren't 100% perfect, but I know how to fix them next time around. There is still all the flashing and what not to clean off still, I literally pulled it out of the mould as I was walking to the car to go to work; so no time to make it pretty.

I also realise that there is no circuit in these casts - that was deliberate; I (correctly, it seems) figured I would have a couple of trials before I got it right.

This one will (hopefully) go in the car tonight and get me on the road for a couple of weeks while the folks are here; then I'll do myself one with a circuit. I might even track down a different resin between now and then with the higher rigidity and the lower viscosity.

In case anything unforseen goes wrong, I've also printed myself another unit (with space for a circuit board) in PETG - which offers a higher strength, flexibility and temperature stability than the PLA the first ones were printed from.

Any which way, the falcon is getting back on the road tonight, and that's cause for celebration in itself!! Ha ha.

[nicco]

So it seems time has got the better of me for now; there are a few tweaks I'd like to make to the final moulded part - so I just threw the original back in for now to get the car back on the road. What I've got is good enough for me to use at the moment, but I'd probably want to make some wholesale changes to it if I were to try and sell any - and I'm not sure if there is enough of a market for AUII/III low spec air con brackets to warrant a couple of hundred dollars worth of tooling up - feel free to correct me on that one though...

On a slightly different note; I'm leaving my job in a couple of weeks then have a couple more before I start my new one. In that time I'd like to have a crack at making something that people are actually interested in. Something like the BA/BF air con mixer shafts would be ideal - something that there are 10 or 15 people interested in getting a replacement for (no metal casting though sorry)

Does anyone have any other suggestions for parts they'd like me to have a crack at?