Great result ! Love it !
Another project done, using the POP3 scanner:
Creating restoration underbody panels for the classic BMW E36.
This model of car, as some of you may know, is widely popular amongst enthusiasts, for their style, handling, power and its FR layout. It is a really good platform for various motorsports. However, even the youngest one of these is over 24 years old already and as such, most of them developed rust damage on the underbody.
There are parts for the exterior you can buy as aftermarket reproductions already, but some others, more deeply hidden structural parts never got reproduced from larger aftermarket suppliers. Body repair shops and panel beaters were struggling with this for many years now, trying to repair or replace the damaged parts as best they could, but usually the end results are not that pretty.
In this case we took on the job of redesigning some parts for the inside of the sills, to be reproduced using laser cut steel sheet and CNC pres brakes. Specifically the jacking points / lift points and another sheet metal part that covers the very front of the sill, inside the wheel well, and is also a structural part of the underbody. Additionally another brace plate was designed to streghten the connection between the front lower control arm and the underbody frame.
First we had to scan a specimen in somewhat decent condition, that has its sill opened up. This was done to obtain position data of all the parts, but also to have scan data of the front cover of the sill. To extract good data of the bolt holes, we screwed some longer bolts with un-threaded shanks into the holes so that we could fit cylinders on them, therefore getting their center axis and puncture points on the mounting surface.
Next there was a good condition jack point on its own, needed to be scanned as the base for reverse engineering it to be reproduced in small batches.
Next, the front of the sill, the suspension brace, as well as some area of the sill internal strenghtening plate were redesigned:
At first the front cover of the sill was redesigned to be bent purely on press brake, but later the plan was changed so that the lower, originally curved and debossed surface gets to be press shaped with forming tool instead. So we took the scans and remodeled the surface in question and printed the forming tools out of regular pla with a pretty dense infill and 5mm thick outer shell. After the prints got done, they got lasercut 6mm sheet metal backing plates to spread the load. These worked out pretty fine.
Now all these parts are tested and can be purchased from this shop:
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Great Thread , lots of useful information, thank you !