I recently had to drop the fuel tank on my wife's 88 coupe. The clips that hold the A/C and heater lines in place were badly rusted and needed to be replaced, the only problem is nobody makes them.
What to do? 3D printing to the rescue. I took some measurements of the original clip and modeled it in Fusion 360.
I printed the model to check that it was going to fit.
There is an operation in Fusion 360 called "extrude to object", I used that feature to easily extrude a flat part into the positive and negative sides of the model to create a die set to make some new clips. By doing it this way, there is a gap designed into the dies equal to the thickness of the sheet metal blank.
I printed the die set in ABS plastic with a 70% infill and a 1mm top and bottom thickness.
I cut a blank from 22 gauge galvanized sheet metal, coated it in spray wax, and loaded it in the press. I really wasn't sure this was going to work, I thought maybe it would bend the metal a little bit and then the plastic would break. But to my surprise it worked great! The metal blank easily formed into shape without any damage to the plastic die.
So here is a pic of the new unfinished part next to the original piece. The locating tang isn't there but I think it should work just fine without it.
To finish the part I bent up the lip in my brake and drilled a hole for the screw. Here are a couple pics of the finished part next to the old ones.
Have you been using the Fusion 360 for a while, or are you new to it, and either way, how difficult would you estimate learning it to be for a novice to CAD?
I know there's no way to gauge how quick/well somebody else is going to "pick up" a new software, as each of us is different and have different abilities and/or levels of comprehension, but I only asking for speculation.
Curiosity more than anything. Just seems the possibilities are fairly open, your post here kind of supports that. Great innovating on your part!
The entire 3D printing thing is more proof, (at least to me..) that "Today's science fiction is tomorrow's science." Wasn't all that long ago that just the concept of "3D printing" was nothing more than "science fiction".
Great job, thanks for documenting, explaining and posting.
Have you been using the Fusion 360 for a while, or are you new to it, and either way, how difficult would you estimate learning it to be for a novice to CAD?
I know there's no way to gauge how quick/well somebody else is going to "pick up" a new software, as each of us is different and have different abilities and/or levels of comprehension, but I only asking for speculation.
Curiosity more than anything. Just seems the possibilities are fairly open, your post here kind of supports that. Great innovating on your part!
The entire 3D printing thing is more proof, (at least to me..) that "Today's science fiction is tomorrow's science." Wasn't all that long ago that just the concept of "3D printing" was nothing more than "science fiction".
Great job, thanks for documenting, explaining and posting.
HAGO!
I've been using Fusion 360 for a couple years. The great thing about Fusion is that it's free to hobbyists and there are a lot of instructional videos on YouTube. I learned by following along with a 3 part how video for beginners put out by a guy named Lars Christensen. The video goes through modeling a simple rectangular electrical junction box and covers pretty much everything you need to get started. Lars works for Autodesk and has a YouTube channel where he does how-to and tips&tricks style videos.
I've been using Fusion 360 for a couple years. The great thing about Fusion is that it's free to hobbyists and there are a lot of instructional videos on YouTube. I learned by following along with a 3 part how video for beginners put out by a guy named Lars Christensen. The video goes through modeling a simple rectangular electrical junction box and covers pretty much everything you need to get started. Lars works for Autodesk and has a YouTube channel where he does how-to and tips&tricks style videos.
Thanks for the info and taking the time to respond to questions.
Will check it out, though I'm very short on time available and they still tell me..."You can't teach on old dog new tricks!"
But hey....I DID used to be a "digitizer" LOL! :-D
I was over at Seajai's place this past weened. We replaced the dew wipes and window glass in a Fiero of mine. I also witnessed the production of a set of 4 of these stainless parts. They are very nice, I am now the first customer, as I bought a set of 4
[This message has been edited by 2.5 (edited 08-26-2019).]
The brackets are now available in the mall. Can someone with an 84 - 87 Fiero let me know if the brackets are the same as the 88, or are they different?
