Canada A/C Cowl vent firewall pivot bushings 3D print

[StingRay]

I'm just testing the waters on these. Is there any interest?

As I've sorted through my parts I came up short on good usable A/C cowl vent firewall bushings. I drew these up in 3D cad and have a friend printing the firewall threaded bushing and nut in Onyx carbon fiber reinforced nylon. They won't be as pretty as the originals but will function as they should. So far I've found them unobtainable.

This carbon fiber reinforced nylon is neat stuff. The printer will print about the size of a loaf of bread. It's a $15K Printer!

The bushing plate visible on the firewall is pretty simple and I'll cut some out of UHMW on a CNC Router. It won't be color correct but will also do the job it needs to do. I could do them in Nylon like the originals if there is a demand.

Price is yet too be determined but will be realistic.

I'll post pics of the finished printed parts when I get them back tonite and should have an idea on price at that time.

Fingers crossed that the print turns out as good as I hope.

Chime in with any comments. I'll get some made if there is interest.

If I can find sample of the cowl vent spring and kick panel spring I'll look into getting a small run of those reproduced. I can't seem to find these anywhere either.

Update

Well the results were pretty good but the default fill rate of 50% isn't enough to resist the shear of chasing the threads. One of the two sheared where the threaded section meets the base. I'm checking to see how much of a cost increase there is to add material. I will investigate having the bushing cnc machined in brass and the nut possibly still printed. The nut has a recess so a standard nut is not applicable.

Just a fill increase is probably enough. Fill means how solid it is. Apparently the default is 50% so it's honey combed. That doesn't leave much for a cross section at the thread root. Filling 100% makes it completely solid.

[CUSTOM/10]

Good Idea !!!
Most of these are dry rotted and just break, if you can find one.
I made one out of a brass fitting and a piece of nylon tubing as a bushing, because I couldn't find a good one.

Gary

[StingRay]

I thought of making one on the lathe but that brass fitting is a good idea. I ran into an old friend at a recent car show and he'd printed air cleaners for the Weber carbs on his truck. I was blown away by the results and strength of the material. Easy to make them in quantity too.

[Utahboy]

I would definitely be interested in getting some. Looks good.

[CUSTOM/10]

This brass fitting needed some lathe work to make it what it is now, it's not just an off the shelf item. So it would be too costly & time consuming to produce.

Originally Posted by StingRay

I thought of making one on the lathe but that brass fitting is a good idea. I ran into an old friend at a recent car show and he'd printed air cleaners for the Weber carbs on his truck. I was blown away by the results and strength of the material. Easy to make them in quantity too.

[StingRay]

Won't look that pretty printed.