The owners in need of rare parts can get them quicker than ever thanks to additive manufacturing technology. There are hundreds of suppliers ready to service your enquiry faster. And costs only about £16.

For instance, imagine that you need, for your Porsche 959, parts for which you’re unlikely to get online, never mind over the counter? You will have to wait more than a year and you would have had to get one specially made at great expense. However, since 2018, Porsche has been able to produce the part on demand and at reasonable cost using additive manufacturing technology, and, being more specific, using selective laser melting process.

This involves spreading a shallow layer of steel filings in a sealed container. Guided by CAD data derived from scanning an existing example of the part, a laser melts the material in the desired locations before another layer is applied and the process repeated until the component is produced. Another technique, more suited to plastic components, is selective laser sintering, where the material is heated almost to melting point as a laser fuses the plastic powder at predetermined points.

The Porsche company uses these processes to produce around 30 parts for its older models, for which creating tooling and producing them in the conventional way would be prohibitively expensive.

Porsche is not the only one that adopts additive manufacturing. Across the motor industry, companies large and small are using the same techniques to produce everything from prototypes or pattern parts for moulds to one-off, functioning components. They fall under the grand name of reverse engineering because they involve deconstructing a finished component to determine how to remanufacture it.

One company is A2P2, based in Nottingham. It’s at the back of a busy workshop that’s home to INRacing, a company specialising in the restoration, maintenance and sale of historic road and race cars and founded by a chap called Ian Nuthall.

When Autocar made the report, the workshop is filled with rare motors, including a 1959 Tec-Mec Maserati, a 1959 Lotus 15 once raced by Graham Hill, a couple of 1952 Cooper Bristols and a 1965 Autodelta Alfa Romeo GTA.

Alistair Pugh is the founder of A2P2. In contrast to INR’s workshop with its ramps, lathes and even a huge five-axis CNC milling machine, Pugh’s place is a high-tech oasis of calm. In one corner is a 3D printer, methodically layering up, in plastic, a bevel box for a pre-war, chain-driven Frazer Nash. Once completed, it will form the pattern for a sand cast moulding in metal. As it quietly goes about its business,  Alistair Pugh also showcased a 3D laser scanner.

Pugh’s colleague, Alberto, shows how, by painstakingly moving the probe around a component – in this case, the diff casing from a 1952 Alta GP car – he can capture and digitise its every dimension, including the internal faces of the screw bores. The result is an accurate digital representation that can be converted into a CAD file for a 3D printer or into an engineering drawing for a machine shop to follow.

From gaskets to gearboxes: scan it, draw it, make it’, we like to say,” (…), Laser scanning and 3D printing have so many uses, from enabling classic car owners to have a digitised record of their car from which body panels, for example, can be recreated after a crash, to producing replica parts in plastic as a pattern for a sand cast or simply to test fit and function.”

-Alistair Pugh

On that point, he takes the other half of the Alta’s diff casing, produced earlier in plastic by the 3D printer, and inside it places the original crown wheel and pinion, and limited-slip differential so the reporter can see how they fit snugly into their respective places.

But should it all look like just moving a probe and clicking a mouse, Pugh is quick to point out that interpreting the data and knowing what is possible from a manufacturing perspective are crucial. The former graduate engineer speaks from experience, having started out spannering for Nuthall before moving into contract work with Ford, Aston Martin and Jaguar. In fact, it was Nuthall who lent Pugh the £125,000 necessary to buy his first scanner.

He’s now on his fourth and, using it in conjunction with his 3D printer, Pugh has produced a huge variety of components, including a modified and strengthened sump with anti-surge baffles for a Renault 5 Turbo, a bell housing and diff casing for a Volvo 242 GT and even door handles for an E30-era BMW M3. However, one of his proudest achievements is producing a digitized version of a very rare pre-war coupé – with only a saloon version and photographs to go on.

This is an inspiring story of how a long-lost car has been brought back to life by modern technology. However, it’s not the only example of modern technology coming to the rescue of old and not so old motors.

Helping more modern classics

The Bordeaux-based firm, founded by three young engineers only a couple of years ago, is specialized in the additive manufacturing of obscure or simply impossible-to-find parts for old and, crucially, modern-day classic cars. The parts it prints include fasteners, covers, logos, bumper corners and engine cable passes. It can print more complex parts, too, such as the mechanism for the cabin ventilation system in an Aston Martin V8 Vantage. Read more about 3D Printing Automotive parts.

We have done parts for cars from 1929 to 2000 but we do more for the younger ones because those cars were made using more plastic,” (…), “For older cars, we can create parts in composite materials, including carbonfibre, that are more resistant than aluminium.

-Bastien Vanlathem, a co-founder.

“We need an original part, complete or broken, to scan. At the same time, we may correct weaknesses in the design and perhaps print it in a tougher material. Our goal is that all collectors can find the parts they need for their special car.” , ended Vanlathem.

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Source:

John Evans, Autocar How 3D Printing is aiding class car revival https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/features/how-3d-printing-aiding-classic-car-revival published on Feb23 2020, re-edited and published by João Andrade on Feb25 2020;

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