Low Cost Parts
Discussion
jchase said:-
"As for the alloy hub carriers, you only need a few measurements, mainly to get the centrelines of the hub and the A frame bolt relative to each other. The tricky bit is finding a machine shop that is willing to make it from a few drawings. I have access to some state of the art 3D CAD packages at college, I reckon only a 1 hour job if you have the measurements. Precision engineers in cambridge are charging aroun £70/hr - so tool set-up etc. would place the hub in the £400 mark for a one off. might be cheaper up north, and in china, probably cheaper than the cost of the material itself!"
The company I work for in Austria (engine design & development) has various outposts in China, India etc. If there is a need for some specialist parts (eg hub carriers) in reasonable quantity, I could make enquiries to see if they could be made more cheaply. Any interest ???
"As for the alloy hub carriers, you only need a few measurements, mainly to get the centrelines of the hub and the A frame bolt relative to each other. The tricky bit is finding a machine shop that is willing to make it from a few drawings. I have access to some state of the art 3D CAD packages at college, I reckon only a 1 hour job if you have the measurements. Precision engineers in cambridge are charging aroun £70/hr - so tool set-up etc. would place the hub in the £400 mark for a one off. might be cheaper up north, and in china, probably cheaper than the cost of the material itself!"
The company I work for in Austria (engine design & development) has various outposts in China, India etc. If there is a need for some specialist parts (eg hub carriers) in reasonable quantity, I could make enquiries to see if they could be made more cheaply. Any interest ???
I work for AVL, who design engines for many of the worlds auto companies - recent ones that I can name have been the Audi TT and the Volvo Diesel. We also do upgrades and revisions for emissions legislation, fuel economy, power etc. We are not into chassis designs. See www.avl.com for more information.
The intent of my post was that there was some concern that it was getting difficult or expensive to manufacture parts for the Wedges (the hubs were mentioned for example). As AVL manufactures or sub contracts manufacturing many items on a one off or small volume (prototype) run basis, we have a number of contacts in areas such as China, India, Taiwan etc where the costs may be cheaper than in the UK. This could include chassis if necessary.
I don't have a particular need for anything (at least not at the moment) but if there is a general need for a particular part it may be worthwhile investigating the cost of having it manufactured elsewhere. Just to emphasise the point, this is not intended as a start-up business for Gerry Attrick Enterprises, but merely as a means of keeping our cars going at as low a cost as possible.
The intent of my post was that there was some concern that it was getting difficult or expensive to manufacture parts for the Wedges (the hubs were mentioned for example). As AVL manufactures or sub contracts manufacturing many items on a one off or small volume (prototype) run basis, we have a number of contacts in areas such as China, India, Taiwan etc where the costs may be cheaper than in the UK. This could include chassis if necessary.
I don't have a particular need for anything (at least not at the moment) but if there is a general need for a particular part it may be worthwhile investigating the cost of having it manufactured elsewhere. Just to emphasise the point, this is not intended as a start-up business for Gerry Attrick Enterprises, but merely as a means of keeping our cars going at as low a cost as possible.
Hey, I've had a few sales presentations from AVL (...never taken them up sorry!) Aren’t you the guys with the offices by the lake?
Anyway, if this goes ahead and you need and CAD work doing get in touch...I'm a design engineer, with an automotive engineering degree, currently using AutoDesk Inventor, but have played with pretty much everything out there.
If you don’t need any CAD work for G.A.E, are there any vacancies at AVL, I’m not putting my degree to any good use at the moment!
Regards
Iain
Anyway, if this goes ahead and you need and CAD work doing get in touch...I'm a design engineer, with an automotive engineering degree, currently using AutoDesk Inventor, but have played with pretty much everything out there.
If you don’t need any CAD work for G.A.E, are there any vacancies at AVL, I’m not putting my degree to any good use at the moment!
Regards
Iain
iainjones said:
If you don’t need any CAD work for G.A.E, are there any vacancies at AVL, I’m not putting my degree to any good use at the moment!
Our main R&D offices are in Graz (Austria) but we also have R&D outposts throughout the world including one at Milbrook, where we are currently concentrating facilities which were spread out in Peterborough and Ridgmont. If you are interested in making an approach to AVL, mail me offline, and I'll give you the information.
Hi Gerry,
Do these manufacturers prefer projection drawings, or can you send them 3D files from proEngineer ? I wouldn't have a clue what type of alloy to specify for this, or how to avoid stress concentrations without a really complex curvy shape that would require an expensive CNC set-up. The old two piece hubs on the Tas were quite heavily webbed and look to have been cast, not much alloy in them at all, and when you consider that they were loaded unsymmetrically compared with the XJS ones, its not surprising they fast fracture so often. It seems the old TVR 3000m has symettric springs and dampers on the rear hubs, just like the Jag. The modern TVR hubs look to be CNC machined from billet alloy, but I've only seen one for sale on an advert, and not bolted to a car. I reckon you could make something that would fit, but who is going to test they actually work?
-Jim
Do these manufacturers prefer projection drawings, or can you send them 3D files from proEngineer ? I wouldn't have a clue what type of alloy to specify for this, or how to avoid stress concentrations without a really complex curvy shape that would require an expensive CNC set-up. The old two piece hubs on the Tas were quite heavily webbed and look to have been cast, not much alloy in them at all, and when you consider that they were loaded unsymmetrically compared with the XJS ones, its not surprising they fast fracture so often. It seems the old TVR 3000m has symettric springs and dampers on the rear hubs, just like the Jag. The modern TVR hubs look to be CNC machined from billet alloy, but I've only seen one for sale on an advert, and not bolted to a car. I reckon you could make something that would fit, but who is going to test they actually work?
-Jim
Hi Graham,
I too am going to convert my street 280 to A frame, see other thread. I have a hunch that you can convert the trailing arm hubs to A frame hubs by simply cutting off the box section bit.
If you are willing to test these on a racer, then I'm willing to build up some prototype frames with my MIG, and erm, if they work on your racer I'll put some similar ones on my road car. What I want to get right is the camber function on the rear, ie how the camber changes as the body rolls. I would try to design something that was very close to the camber function on the front wheels, which I could model in cardboard, or perhaps on proEngineer, if I was feeling masochistic. It would be nice to know the real A arm measurements, to see if they followed the same route, or infact if the camber function should be different, for some reason. There was an old thread that said the A arms come in two flavours, I guess for different camber functions.
-Jim
I too am going to convert my street 280 to A frame, see other thread. I have a hunch that you can convert the trailing arm hubs to A frame hubs by simply cutting off the box section bit.
If you are willing to test these on a racer, then I'm willing to build up some prototype frames with my MIG, and erm, if they work on your racer I'll put some similar ones on my road car. What I want to get right is the camber function on the rear, ie how the camber changes as the body rolls. I would try to design something that was very close to the camber function on the front wheels, which I could model in cardboard, or perhaps on proEngineer, if I was feeling masochistic. It would be nice to know the real A arm measurements, to see if they followed the same route, or infact if the camber function should be different, for some reason. There was an old thread that said the A arms come in two flavours, I guess for different camber functions.
-Jim
I should have the first set of ally front uprights and hubs to test on the 520 that Tower View and I have been working on for a few months. The problem with alloy is that the design needs to be different from that of the steel to exploit ally's strengths. Ally is not as strong and the fittings are tight so there isn't the space that you think there might be.
Steve
www.tvrbooks.co.uk
>> Edited by shpub on Tuesday 5th October 10:54
Steve
www.tvrbooks.co.uk
>> Edited by shpub on Tuesday 5th October 10:54
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