V8V Written off by tyre fitters...
Discussion
This seems way over the top. Can't believe it's been declared a total loss...
http://www.6speedonline.com/forums/aston-martin/39...
David.
http://www.6speedonline.com/forums/aston-martin/39...
David.
Something I got hold of a long time ago, might shine some light on the subject.
Take one accident-damaged Aston Martin, bake gently in an oven at 80 degrees Celsius for 80minutes or until done, then return to delighted customer. John Simister receives a masterclass in bonded aluminium technology at Aston Martin Works Service. Why choose anywhere else?
This recipe is in fact the secret to ‘cooking’ the orange epoxy-type adhesive that holds together the aluminium structure of a DB9, a V8 Vantage or a Vanquish. These are not cars built from welded steel sheet like most cars, so normal rules of construction and reconstruction don’t apply. Instead the aluminium, be it sheet metal or extrusions, is bonded and riveted to make a structure of extraordinary rigidity and near-immortal life expectancy. ‘There is no reason why a modern Aston Martin should not last forever,’ Dr Ulrich Bez has said. Sometimes, though, that life is threatened by a chance impact with something solid and errant. Your Aston Martin has had a crash. What now?
When it was built at the Gaydon factory, the bare structure, or tub, was cooked at a high temperature to cure the glue. But it’s different when you have to recreate part of the structure, post-accident, because cars are full of things that might melt.
To strip the damaged car to its bones, then put it all back together, would take a long time and be very expensive. Solution? A new glue. ‘A few years ago, if the tub was damaged, we’d have to build the car into a new one,’ says Nigel Woodward, accident repair centre supervisor at Aston Martin Works Service, Newport Pagnell, which returns around 15 cars a month to their pristine state. ‘But now we can repair them and nobody can tell. An expert would really have to dig to find any evidence.’
The new adhesive is orange, like the original, and just as strong, but can be cured at a lower temperature. A heat of 80 degree Celsius won’t damage the Aston Martin’s leather, plastic and rubber components, and has long been used in the repair industry for baking new paint finishes.
The process goes like this. An Aston Martin arrives with structural damage:
Nigel shows me a DB9 Volante that ran over something large and jagged and destroyed the left half of its floor. The car is mounted on a jig to make sure its dimensions are still correct and will stay that way as the damaged sections are removed. Components are removed to gain access to the damaged parts, which here meant the entire powertrain of engine, transaxle and the hefty torque tube that joins them, plus the suspension and the brakes. The damage is then assessed, including possible cracks in the adhesive.
The next stage is slow and laborious. Rivets are drilled out and then, softening it with a heat gun, the technician cuts along the adhesive with various sizes of oscillating saws and cutting wheels, leaving intact the aluminium that will remain in the car. Any damaged structural piece will be removed because, unlike steel, aluminium quickly loses strength if it is manipulated too much.
Welding is taboo, too. ‘We never weld these panels to repair them,’ Nigel explains, ‘because the heat damages the adhesive.’ A non-structural piece may, however, be panel-beaten back into shape in the old-fashioned way Aston Martin knows so well from its past cars. Next, the residual adhesive is ground away and the new panels trial-fitted. When the technician is happy with them, the Aston Martin is wheeled into the dust-free booth where it will later be cooked. The aluminium mating surfaces are chemically cleaned and immediately a thin layer of adhesive – its components mixed in exactly the right proportions within its sachet – is applied to the aluminium to seal it. Aluminium gains a very thin layer of oxide in just 10 minutes if left unprotected, which would greatly reduce the strength of the bond.
Now the full bead of adhesive goes on, the panel is positioned and new rivets clamp it to the rest of the structure. Aston Martin uses self-piercing rivets when the cars are made, but with holes already present this time round Works Service uses monobolt rivets. The end result is the same, besides which the strength is in the bonding rather than the riveting.
After two hours at ambient temperature, on goes the heat and the repair is complete. Aston Martin dealers have their own bodyshops, some able to take on bigger jobs than others, but a repair to a tub comes back to Works Service. But even the works won’t repair a Vanquish tub in which the carbon-fibre windscreen pillars have been damaged, because it’s impossible to replicate the way they are bonded to the aluminium. Other carbon-fibre Vanquish parts can be replaced, and new sections can be bonded in where there’s no structural concern.
The same holds true for the composite rear bodywork of all DB9s, V8 Vantages and Vanquishes: the damaged section is cut off, a new piece is shaped to fit the cut, the edges are bevelled and a new resin matrix, replicating the original, is flowed in to make an undetectable repair.
And for bonding composite wings to the tub, Works Service uses the original, flexible polyurethane adhesive in black. Works Service is a fascinating place. Mere yards from the high-tech repair bays for the new generation, fine classic-era Astons are being serviced and an early-1960s Lagonda Rapide is undergoing a full restoration. Will today’s cars one day find themselves in among the classics? Maybe. For now, though, Nigel sums up the Works Service approach thus: ‘The crucial thing is that people should never know we’ve been there.’
Take one accident-damaged Aston Martin, bake gently in an oven at 80 degrees Celsius for 80minutes or until done, then return to delighted customer. John Simister receives a masterclass in bonded aluminium technology at Aston Martin Works Service. Why choose anywhere else?
This recipe is in fact the secret to ‘cooking’ the orange epoxy-type adhesive that holds together the aluminium structure of a DB9, a V8 Vantage or a Vanquish. These are not cars built from welded steel sheet like most cars, so normal rules of construction and reconstruction don’t apply. Instead the aluminium, be it sheet metal or extrusions, is bonded and riveted to make a structure of extraordinary rigidity and near-immortal life expectancy. ‘There is no reason why a modern Aston Martin should not last forever,’ Dr Ulrich Bez has said. Sometimes, though, that life is threatened by a chance impact with something solid and errant. Your Aston Martin has had a crash. What now?
When it was built at the Gaydon factory, the bare structure, or tub, was cooked at a high temperature to cure the glue. But it’s different when you have to recreate part of the structure, post-accident, because cars are full of things that might melt.
To strip the damaged car to its bones, then put it all back together, would take a long time and be very expensive. Solution? A new glue. ‘A few years ago, if the tub was damaged, we’d have to build the car into a new one,’ says Nigel Woodward, accident repair centre supervisor at Aston Martin Works Service, Newport Pagnell, which returns around 15 cars a month to their pristine state. ‘But now we can repair them and nobody can tell. An expert would really have to dig to find any evidence.’
The new adhesive is orange, like the original, and just as strong, but can be cured at a lower temperature. A heat of 80 degree Celsius won’t damage the Aston Martin’s leather, plastic and rubber components, and has long been used in the repair industry for baking new paint finishes.
The process goes like this. An Aston Martin arrives with structural damage:
Nigel shows me a DB9 Volante that ran over something large and jagged and destroyed the left half of its floor. The car is mounted on a jig to make sure its dimensions are still correct and will stay that way as the damaged sections are removed. Components are removed to gain access to the damaged parts, which here meant the entire powertrain of engine, transaxle and the hefty torque tube that joins them, plus the suspension and the brakes. The damage is then assessed, including possible cracks in the adhesive.
The next stage is slow and laborious. Rivets are drilled out and then, softening it with a heat gun, the technician cuts along the adhesive with various sizes of oscillating saws and cutting wheels, leaving intact the aluminium that will remain in the car. Any damaged structural piece will be removed because, unlike steel, aluminium quickly loses strength if it is manipulated too much.
Welding is taboo, too. ‘We never weld these panels to repair them,’ Nigel explains, ‘because the heat damages the adhesive.’ A non-structural piece may, however, be panel-beaten back into shape in the old-fashioned way Aston Martin knows so well from its past cars. Next, the residual adhesive is ground away and the new panels trial-fitted. When the technician is happy with them, the Aston Martin is wheeled into the dust-free booth where it will later be cooked. The aluminium mating surfaces are chemically cleaned and immediately a thin layer of adhesive – its components mixed in exactly the right proportions within its sachet – is applied to the aluminium to seal it. Aluminium gains a very thin layer of oxide in just 10 minutes if left unprotected, which would greatly reduce the strength of the bond.
Now the full bead of adhesive goes on, the panel is positioned and new rivets clamp it to the rest of the structure. Aston Martin uses self-piercing rivets when the cars are made, but with holes already present this time round Works Service uses monobolt rivets. The end result is the same, besides which the strength is in the bonding rather than the riveting.
After two hours at ambient temperature, on goes the heat and the repair is complete. Aston Martin dealers have their own bodyshops, some able to take on bigger jobs than others, but a repair to a tub comes back to Works Service. But even the works won’t repair a Vanquish tub in which the carbon-fibre windscreen pillars have been damaged, because it’s impossible to replicate the way they are bonded to the aluminium. Other carbon-fibre Vanquish parts can be replaced, and new sections can be bonded in where there’s no structural concern.
The same holds true for the composite rear bodywork of all DB9s, V8 Vantages and Vanquishes: the damaged section is cut off, a new piece is shaped to fit the cut, the edges are bevelled and a new resin matrix, replicating the original, is flowed in to make an undetectable repair.
And for bonding composite wings to the tub, Works Service uses the original, flexible polyurethane adhesive in black. Works Service is a fascinating place. Mere yards from the high-tech repair bays for the new generation, fine classic-era Astons are being serviced and an early-1960s Lagonda Rapide is undergoing a full restoration. Will today’s cars one day find themselves in among the classics? Maybe. For now, though, Nigel sums up the Works Service approach thus: ‘The crucial thing is that people should never know we’ve been there.’
Here's what I give anyone lifting mine before they start work.
www.n90.ltd.uk/insecure/Lifting_vantage.pdf
Hope its of some use to anyone who doesn't want their car written off!!
www.n90.ltd.uk/insecure/Lifting_vantage.pdf
Hope its of some use to anyone who doesn't want their car written off!!
So, I looked at the link you posted for the PDF. Good photos and illustrations for jacking points. But hold on, something looks familiar, hmm...
That's MY photo of MY car on MY lift using MY wood block in MY garage?!?!?! Think I can get one of whatever you make out of this? Nah, probably not...
That's MY photo of MY car on MY lift using MY wood block in MY garage?!?!?! Think I can get one of whatever you make out of this? Nah, probably not...
Edited by DB9VolanteDriver on Saturday 16th July 02:20
Edited by DB9VolanteDriver on Saturday 16th July 02:22
DB9VolanteDriver said:
So, I looked at the link you posted for the PDF. Good photos and illustrations for jacking points. But hold on, something looks familiar, hmm...
That's MY photo of MY car on MY lift using MY wood block in MY garage?!?!?! Think I can get one of whatever you make out of this? Nah, probably not...
It was such a pretty block of wood. It just seemed such a crime not to share the picture of such a noble slip of timber. That's MY photo of MY car on MY lift using MY wood block in MY garage?!?!?! Think I can get one of whatever you make out of this? Nah, probably not...
Now I realise that using the aforementioned photo of this special lumber may have consequences.
But now you can have pride in the fact that your contribution may have prevented some spanner monkey from writing off a Vantage.
You are a hero my friend. A legend in your own lunchtime.
p.s. Can I nick your pic?
"Copyright is a form of legal protection that is automatically assigned to content creators at the moment of creation. In other words, the moment you take a photograph, you own the copyright to it. You don’t have to register it with a special organisation, you don’t have to fill in a form or add a legal notice to the image. The rights to use, amend or sell that image are yours and yours alone."
That's a quote from Mac World and seems to be pretty clear, it's not what I had thought, I assumed it was a free image if I put it on the net.
That's a quote from Mac World and seems to be pretty clear, it's not what I had thought, I assumed it was a free image if I put it on the net.
DB9VolanteDriver said:
Seems like some overzealous dealer to me, but maybe not?
I disagree. I looked into buying a written off 4.3 V8 a few years ago as a track toy. The tub was bent. At that time the only way to repair the car was to take it back to Gaydon where AML would remove everything sound from the car and fit the removed parts to a new tub. A new tub was, I think, £18,000. And then it was some crazy amount of labour to put everything back, say 200 hours. Then painting and so on. It made no financial sense.When I looked into the engineering side of this, I could see that the point is that once you have bashed aluminium it loses strength. So, while the car looks ok, in a crash the deformation will not go to plan and you may end up in a fatal incident rather than a survivable incident.
Anyway, I didn't proceed with that particular plan...
It would be interesting to see how many bonded aluminium vehicles are written off due to the limitations of the bonding technology to be repaired. Certainly sounds as though (per the cut and pasted article above) that AML learned a lesson and changed to use a glue that can be cured without such a high temperature.
If anyone wants to know more about this, there's a great article somewhere on the internet about crush can deformation. That refers to the two big pieces of metal that run from the chassis to the front bumper and which deform in a precise, controlled manner under impact. If they get damaged they can be stretched back to the original shape but then in a subsequent crash, you find out why that's an horrifically bad idea.
There was an owner on here who wrote off a V8 which later was resurrected and which caused a deal of controversy one could argue that the only way the car could have been resurrected at a commercially viable price would have been to avoid purchasing replacement parts and therefore to have refitted stretched out crush cans.
divetheworld said:
I suspect Steve doesn't give a toss either way. He strikes me as a laid back guy with a sense of humour.
Well, I hope he has, coz my last post needs to be taken in jest.
On first look, I thought the PDF was an extract from an actual Aston Martin doc, so I was really surprised that they had been prowling the forums and extracting pertinent photos to enhance their docs. Then, on further review, I realized it was a compilation of photos/illustrations from several sources and not an AM Doc. Oh well, there goes my chance to finagle a Vanquish out of Aston Martin...Well, I hope he has, coz my last post needs to be taken in jest.
Fame is fleeting....
JohnG1 said:
DB9VolanteDriver said:
Seems like some overzealous dealer to me, but maybe not?
I disagree. I looked into buying a written off 4.3 V8 a few years ago as a track toy. The tub was bent. At that time the only way to repair the car was to take it back to Gaydon where AML would remove everything sound from the car and fit the removed parts to a new tub. A new tub was, I think, £18,000. And then it was some crazy amount of labour to put everything back, say 200 hours. Then painting and so on. It made no financial sense.DB9VolanteDriver said:
JohnG1 said:
DB9VolanteDriver said:
Seems like some overzealous dealer to me, but maybe not?
I disagree. I looked into buying a written off 4.3 V8 a few years ago as a track toy. The tub was bent. At that time the only way to repair the car was to take it back to Gaydon where AML would remove everything sound from the car and fit the removed parts to a new tub. A new tub was, I think, £18,000. And then it was some crazy amount of labour to put everything back, say 200 hours. Then painting and so on. It made no financial sense.AM won't bother trying to repair it, they will just say it needs a new tub
Best thing the owner can do it put it on a body shell jig to see if it is actually twisted
DB9VolanteDriver said:
JohnG1 said:
DB9VolanteDriver said:
Seems like some overzealous dealer to me, but maybe not?
I disagree. I looked into buying a written off 4.3 V8 a few years ago as a track toy. The tub was bent. At that time the only way to repair the car was to take it back to Gaydon where AML would remove everything sound from the car and fit the removed parts to a new tub. A new tub was, I think, £18,000. And then it was some crazy amount of labour to put everything back, say 200 hours. Then painting and so on. It made no financial sense.JACK6284 said:
Similar to the Lotus Elise/exige structure, can be repaired but .........
Quite right, and in the early days the AM and Lotus chassis tubs were made in the same factory in Worcester. I think the company name might have been Superform.
Aston make the alloy chassis structures themselves now.
Jon39 said:
Quite right, and in the early days the AM and Lotus chassis tubs were made in the same factory in Worcester. I think the company name might have been Superform.
Aston make the alloy chassis structures themselves now.
Edited by V8LM on Thursday 29th December 17:29
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