While cleaning out the trunk of my daily driver turbo Regal this morning, I stumbled upon the original clear overflow lid that came with my Gran Sport. It has the typical discoloration and brittleness but is complete. The little cover is still intact and functional as well. This got me thinking - with the 3D printing technology available, how difficult would it be to copy one of these lids and or complete tank setups? Keep in mind, I know absolutely zero about 3D printing and am more or less thinking outloud. That said, what say you techies?
The real question would be this, Will the type of plastic available (with this process) be able to stand up to having the lid be opened and closed? Or will the thin "leash" on the lid snap off. You might be able to make the part but if it cannot be used then..................... Years ago I made a mold of those clear top lids as well as the bottoms. I was going to reproduce the entire "clear" part, but the heat from the fire in my friends shop reduced everything to piles of dust. We did make a few prototype pieces but that was it. I know when we were doing this we considered various types of plastics due to the thin "leash". Duane
Interesting and you make valid points. I guess the 3D printer gurus would have a better idea as to which plastic, materials, etc.. Since of the items I've seen produced using these printers is pretty crazy.
Yeah, but they don't have to bend. Certain processes demand you use certain materials. That is one of the considerations you need to think about when you choose which molding process to use. These parts could easily be made out of a clear urethane, as we were going to do them years ago. All you would need would be a perfect lid to use for the mold. Our mold came out perfect. The only trick we had to figure out was how to make sure there were zero small bubbles in the leash. We got that figured out pretty fast, then all was well. If you were going to use this process today, the price of the parts would be pretty high, but for the guys that wanted them it might be worth it. You might also get the current manufacturer to make them out of a clear plastic. They would not look perfect, as the clear lids looked different, but that might be "good enough" for some people. What are the black lid/white bottom repros going for today? Duane
That tells me they didn't come out of the same mold, but I can look at the one I have to get an idea on how tough it'd be to make them. Thanks
This is the repro Frank McIntyre did a few years back. It's definitely close but you'll see the font is in the wrong spot as far as clear lids are concerned. As for fitment, they're pretty good but just a hair longer and some RTV silicone is recommended. At least that was my experience but overall, it's a nice piece. Here it is (on my car) matched up with a clean OEM tank that originally came with a black lid:
The clear tops and black lid tops are 2 totally different pieces. The black lids have no writing on the cap, while the clear lids have writing on the cap. That is why I said, "They would not look perfect, as the clear lids looked different, but that might be "good enough" for some people." There are a lot of parts out there that are "Good Enough" but are not accurate/correct. Just as a guess I would figure the cost of making the correct looking pieces with the process I talked about above, would put the part at somewhere around the $350 mark. This would probably be close to the break even point for a short run of 30 parts. Then you run into the problem of getting at least 30 people to pre-pay for the parts to begin the process. From past experience, good luck with that one. Especially for a part that was only used for 1/3 to less then 1/2 of the 70 production year. Duane
I don't know I don't have one around any more. All I remember was the black lids had no writing on them, and the clear ones did. Maybe someone could talk to Frank and see if he would make another batch, or at least be interested in selling the mold. That might be your best bet at getting them made again. Duane
This could totally be remade via a 3D printer with materials that would hold up ( ABS as an example ) BUT it wouldn't look like anything more than a crude copy. If function is all your after it would be good but 1 to 1 copy not so much. As a side note, here's a cool gramaphone adapted to an amazon echo I made with my 3d printer!
You can make it a resemblance of the original for sure but unless you're willing to spend alot of time in post process ( or are using a SLP printer $$$ ), layer lines will be visible and text doesn't always translate very well if it's fairly small tight text. Anything can be done if you're willing to put the time into but I find alot of times unless it's something that can't be bought reasonably 3D printing for the average guy is about one offs, prototypes, and kitche (sp?? ) items. Again functionally yes, it would be possible fairly easily to make it but it isn't going to be passable to someone with even an average eye looking under the hood. For something like this I'd think you'd be better off making a mold out of the original and then casting with something like this... https://www.smooth-on.com/applications/industrial/
I have 2 original clear tops and neither have the writing on the caps, but all 3 of the Frank McIntyre clear top reproduction caps do have the writing. The original black top I have does have the writing on the cap, but I don’t have one of Franks black tops to look at. The writing on the cap says “Engine Coolant Only” and “Fill Here”.
These are OEM lids. The clear one has the filling directions on the top and nothing on the cap. The black one has lettering on both the lid and the cap, as James mentioned above. I just looked at Frank's lid. Lettering is in both places, as James also mentioned. I never noticed that.
