Design and manufacture of rare or custom parts

[BearMcPear]

I have a simple part suggestion/request.
It's for the rear drum brake backing plate glide clips.
A full set of 12 is £20 (Jan'24).

View attachment 118242
Glide piece

6N0609589​

View attachment 118241

It would be good to hear your thought on such an insignificant bit of plastic. Is it worth the effort to produce such a thing.
The copy part in the bag labled 6858K are not as good quality as the VW part.
The charactoristics of the plastic in the non oem part is hard which is what the design calls for but the elasticity is poor and the four clip fixing leg pins are easily damaged.
The vw part also has a dimple in the middle of the flat disc is maginally thicker.

Your quite right in thinking this is not a rare nor custom item but any advice on where to get a bog standard plastic part made is welcome.

Are the A2 custom parts that others have requested been constructed? I'm hoping to see a handbrake tray on sale soon.

It would be difficult to make it yourself to the quality of even an aftermarket copy of it, sadly.
It might be worth trying a few brands to see which one has good enough quality.

 

[Deleted member 20348]

Your spot on with your suggestion.

They're fitted to a few different cars.
Skoda would be able to supply the part, I should have phoned them. Maybe next time I do the job.

 

[noblet]

I agree with @BearMcPear above these wouldn't be difficult to 3D print to an acceptable standard, but the fit up would be unlikely to be better than your aftermarket parts without a significant amount of development.

Sent from my SM-A415F using Tapatalk

 

[sciroccorrado]

I'm happy to have a look into this. My car has an original handbrake tray which I can use as a starting point, and I have access to 3D scanning and/or photogrammetry to speed things up. In theory these could be batch ordered unpainted and I could use Volico to match to anyone's interior.

Other modifications could be included too, alongside the increased height you have suggested. A couple of ideas from 5 minutes of fag packet scribbling:

• USB PD (fast charging) ports where the 12V port currently lives - faster charging for whatever you like and much neater than leaving a plug in there all the time.
• A custom TPU mat/insert instead of the fabric used from factory - much easier to clean and could be customised with branding or partterns of our choice (A2OC logo perhaps?).
• Mounting for a wireless charger underneath the tray - I know this has been done before with adhesive, but some retaining clips would be much sexier and allow it all to be disassembled more easily. This could also be integrated into the TPU mat discussed above rather than the tray.

I'll start investigating this in my spare time report on progress as and when. As soon as I have some ballpark CAD together, I'll get some indicative prices together and gauge interest from there.


If you are referring to the boxes which sit in the rear footwells, reproducing these would be a financial and logistical nightmare, and I think the result would be cost prohibitive for most members.

I'd definitely be up for one, or maybe with the first option, although I'd prefer a 4th option, with the USB PD unit and the 12v Port, otherwise you'd be without completely then.

 

[A2_HL_jense]

What about Printing a Boot switch with am rear view camara mount to retrofit a aftermarket rearview cam?

 

[BoeingPenny]

I used to make carbon composite layups for rowing boat repairs (not just skin repairs - actual structural ones). Probably the biggest was when a boat had been hit by a car and had an end knocked off. The repair was light and strong and good enough for the job in that you couldn't see the repair afterwards and it had no impact on the rowing characteristics. I had no qualms whatsoever coxing that boat and sitting inside the area that I had repaired under all conditions, but that is because the forces in and around a rowing boat are a lot less than a piece of car safety structure that may on an occasion need to be sacrificial in a one-off emergency.

Personally I wouldn't go near a job like this, and I wouldn't drive a car that had essentially a piece of home-built safety kit in a critical function unless it had an F1 engineering unit behind it with proper CFD of the force paths and so on. Even then one also needs to think about whether this in turn would be in conflict with other aspects of the existing safety cell (I know in a classic Mini that is a bit of a contradiction in terms). Do you not have a roll cage?

You possibly but you miss the point that all early cars HAD NO side impact bars at all , so modifying a door to have some sort of impact protection , I decided was better than none at ALL. A roll cage only so far ! , every little bit helps , the later steel version corrodes and is as much use as a chocolate fire guard. Alloy tube even T6 , still bends and pulls the door in, not what you want , the composite tube worked perfect . I accept your standards are way above mine , a job you wouldn’t touch that’s fine mate.