Unobtainable parts

Tom W

Active Member
Hi everyone,

I’m thought I’d do a little research on P6 parts. Which bits are we really struggling to get, either at all, or where the available parts are just rubbish.

Some from me to kick things off:

  • Moulded rubber parts that are a proper copy of the original, with all the right inserts etc. Not costed down to the cheapest manufacturing process that delivers something approximately similar.
  • Bonnet badges.
  • Seat foams.
What do we need, and how much would we be prepared to pay for it?

And if anyone knows of a source of anything listed, that has been identified as unavailable please post it here.

Thanks,

Tom
 
I wonder if a seat foam mould could easily be remade from an unused foam. Heater boxes can be folded from sheet fairly well I'd think.
 
Seat foam was originally dunlopillow. Upholsterers can replicate the same “feel” with modern foams.
 
The main problem about getting parts made is the amount of club members we have .
2 / 3k members and the amount of each item to be made.
Most companies are not interested in small runs, cheaper if 1000s are made and club members like the MG at 20k plus.
Looking back to The 90s when heritage parts were made by the late Steve walker we had at least 4k membership and Steve still had problems selling it all many claiming it's all to expensive, he took a massive risk to get the funds to get it made.
Sorry to sound defeatist but if we want top quality original spec parts and not the cheap crap many complain about it's going to be difficult to get p6 suppliers to invest.
 
The main problem about getting parts made is the amount of club members we have .
2 / 3k members and the amount of each item to be made.
Most companies are not interested in small runs, cheaper if 1000s are made and club members like the MG at 20k plus.
Looking back to The 90s when heritage parts were made by the late Steve walker we had at least 4k membership and Steve still had problems selling it all many claiming it's all to expensive, he took a massive risk to get the funds to get it made.
Sorry to sound defeatist but if we want top quality original spec parts and not the cheap crap many complain about it's going to be difficult to get p6 suppliers to invest.

All of the above is unfortunately true. We’ve made few plastic parts for P6s and because I have one myself the costs are pretty much what it costs us to make them compared to our other parts for higher end classics. Our advantage and one that will become more so is we manufacture using additive manufacturing techniques (3D printing). As it becomes more mature and common place prices will start to go down. By the way my company is called Additive Restoration and you can find us on Additive Restoration 3D printed car parts and on Facebook at Additive Restoration Feel free to PM me if you have any questions.

Admins: Please let me know if this is ok or if you want it removed.
 
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Sdibbers why this should be removed when you are helping other P6 owners its very good and I will have a look and thank you for posting Sdibbers.
I agree with all said above from all members, I don't think its down to one person to spend 3k or 4k investment,
unless of course they want to do this, I personally think if some bright spark in a Rover P6 club no matter what the club was, that has a lot of members was to say ok we have this idea of making X item we want to make will cost X and you pay before item is even made.
 
The main problem about getting parts made is the amount of club members we have .
2 / 3k members and the amount of each item to be made.
Most companies are not interested in small runs, cheaper if 1000s are made and club members like the MG at 20k plus.
Looking back to The 90s when heritage parts were made by the late Steve walker we had at least 4k membership and Steve still had problems selling it all many claiming it's all to expensive, he took a massive risk to get the funds to get it made.
Sorry to sound defeatist but if we want top quality original spec parts and not the cheap crap many complain about it's going to be difficult to get p6 suppliers to invest.

There aren't even that many club members. If you assume that the P6ROC has 1,000 and the P6 Club has half that many, but 40% of members are members of both clubs.. then the number is far less.

Steve Walker tried to do some decent parts runs back in the day. Club members agreed to buy, agreed to the price, and then f*cked him over when the parts eventually arrived, by objecting to the cost.

People need to stop being pikeys.
 
Club members agreed to buy, agreed to the price, and then f*cked him over when the parts eventually arrived, by objecting to the cost.
I think the situation is a little different now Chris. Two factors in particular come to mind:

1) The values of our cars are higher now than then, this makes part manufacture more attractive to vendors.

2) Modern technology has changed the game on small batch manufacturing - see my post above. Additive manufacturing has matured a lot over the last 20 years. The next five years will see affordable direct metal printing and I’m willing to bet elastomers (alternatives to rubber) will become suitable for direct replacement too.
 
Hi, sdibbers is to be commended for his efforts in resolving some parts issues and offering them on to others. However cliveP62 is right in the difficulty getting it all together to make it worthwhile for anyone to take on. I remember the time and efforts taken to get uprated anti roll bars made, there were just about enough people interested to get a short run produced at a price that was comparable with commercially available items and IIRC it still came to nothing.

Colin
 
Hi, sdibbers is to be commended for his efforts in resolving some parts issues and offering them on to others. However cliveP62 is right in the difficulty getting it all together to make it worthwhile for anyone to take on. I remember the time and efforts taken to get uprated anti roll bars made, there were just about enough people interested to get a short run produced at a price that was comparable with commercially available items and IIRC it still came to nothing.

Colin
I made my own design of ARB for my car a few years ago. I came to the conclusion that the costs or manufacture with correct tempering etc would result in a $300 part if I sold it to others. At the time I realized that wouldn't make it economically viable.

The trouble is gauging real demand for parts, whether for Rovers or Ferraris! I spend a lot of time researching and developing products before we even get them to market. Sometimes we have a win, sometimes we have miss. Its a bit of a black art. For me the easy bit is the engineering and fabrication. The tough part is distribution, finding an established company that sells parts for a certain marque is best. They already have a name, people tend to seek them out when they need a part. It does a lot of the heavy lifting for us. I wonder if that would be a good approach for us as a group. Find a way to partner with a larger supplier that already has the economy of scale for manufacturing, a vendor network for manufacture and a distribution network and sales front that would make sense. Either by helping the likes of JRW, MGDB or Wins Int'l grow to that size (if the owners want that headache!) or by helping another vendor move into the P6 arena (Rimmers, Moss Etc). I'd offer, but I'm on the wrong side of the pond and don't have deep enough pockets to fund that sort of expansion.

With AR I have sort of a three branch approach.
1] 'Volume parts' Parts we can setup 'on-demand' manufacturing with a manufacturing partner. Mostly our 3D printed plastic parts range.
2] 'Special projects' These are normally parts for very rare high end cars. We know that only one or two of them will ever be needed. The cost of development, machining, fabrication is still high. But I can't spread that cost over a number of sales. That's how we end up making parts for Zagato Alfas, Cunninghams, Enzo period Ferraris etc.
3] 'Restoration support' I offer services to restoration houses such as body scanning, body buck creation for their body shop guys etc.

Enough of my rambling.... What's your thoughts?
 
Interesting discussion, thanks folks. I think 3D printing and other low volume manufacturing methods have moved the game on substantially from where things were 20 years ago. Even if you don’t print the final parts, it’s still useful for prototyping, and reducing tooling cost. Printed prototypes can be used to showcase new parts, generate interest orders and generally finesse the design.

cheers, Tom
 
Even if you don’t print the final parts, it’s still useful for prototyping, and reducing tooling cost.

Printed parts have matured to a level where they are as good (and sometimes better) than injection moulded parts. Metal parts are dropping in price and increasing in quality. There’s an interesting webinar on printed parts in auto mass manufacturing available here if anyone is interested. Webinar: Additive Meets Traditional Manufacturing | Stratasys Direct
 
Hi, I missed the point earlier, are you saying that metal can be 3D printed? I do notice that steel isn't mentioned, only stainless, does that mean that the process doesn't imbue sufficient strength for higher load applications than trim parts for example?

Colin
 
Hi, I missed the point earlier, are you saying that metal can be 3D printed? I do notice that steel isn't mentioned, only stainless, does that mean that the process doesn't imbue sufficient strength for higher load applications than trim parts for example?

Colin
You can print in steel, there’s a couple of technologies that do. Prices are fairly high still but they’re dropping with time. You can also print in stainless, titanium aluminium and quite a few other materials.
 
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