| Chassis Drawings yet again
Anyone with some fairly detailed MK I tub component dimensions that wants to part with a copy is welcome to a no charge "first off the tool" pressing of the component/s concerned. Floor pan would be a good start for us - we need to prove whether or not the tooling technique we have devised to make such a set of pressings will work or not - so at worst you will get back a detailed engineering drawing. If you have something and are prepared to send it - please confirm we do not already have it - two might work for comparison but I don't want to give away many of everything. Rough pencil sketches or just listed dimensions is fine.
It is not the intention to build complete cars past the three we want ourselves - but we do intend to sell as many chassis component sets as we can to recover some of the costs. And please - no drawings of anything but original - we do not want to pinch anybody elses hard work and we want "original" tubs for ourselves. Using a discontinued design from the past is quite different to using something someone is putting hard work into now - even if the objective is also to recreate the past glory.
We are an electronics design team between projects (the last took us 3 years) - we are not a car company. Our guys would like to play a while at something "really worthwhile" while their last design goes into production and before the next one starts. We have people with years of experience at high and low cost tooling in pressed metal and plastics ranging from bathtubs to frypans to vinyl discs. Most have ripped apart and modified or rebuilt cars in their youth and all are engineers.
I have two draftsman that can work more or less full time for a few months - so any innacuracies in sketches or dimensions can be found and corrected in the virtual space CAD assembly. To date we have the front suspension drafted and the rear under way. Attached jpg draft was for goemetry and just awaits the guy working with it to finalise bearings, springs and the upright so he can detail the part drawings accurately. (A 3D model with threads and detailed working ball joints yet!)
Second guy has drawn a floor pan from a photo to test his CAD sheet metal skills - dimensions are not included and are obviously horribly wrong.
Our mechanical guy awaits the chance to prove the low cost/low run tooling he proposes will work. I don't think longevity is a parameter he included - but if they break after 50+ it ain't so bad - and his labour force is available at cost minus for a while.
'Tis a wonderful world this age of cheap precision hydraulics, CNC cutting/machining equipment, 3D CAD/simulation/animation, EDM/wirecutting, PC's and low cost controls - it allows all sorts of things done on a smaller scale and cost not achievable just a few years ago. (We are also not against using the old Heath Robinson technique of casting special machine tool frames or bolsters in concrete).
Our first guess at a tooling cost for a complete chassis came out a seven figure number - some brainstorming suggests we could produce really good pressings for a lot less (about one fifth) - we would like to try.
Frank Williams | 
Linear Mode
