Has anyone seen or made a set aluminum bumpers ? They would have to be lighter then the originals and I have not heard the greatest things about the fiberglass 914gt reproductions. I have 2 bumper sets, one in brown and the other half rust and half chrome. They are the reasons I am considering making a set of aluminum ones.

How are you going to make them?
Do you have the original bumper press and dies?



Paul

If I had the time I could make them. No time though sorry. Frankly I think the idea is great! Now if we could get a bumper top pad for about $ 125.00 or less....

There actually is an aluminum bumper on a factory car. I think it would be way cool and light.

This is the only factory car or any car for that matters I have ever seen with an aluminum bumper.

I've contemplated it a bit...
depends if my sanctioning body makes me remove my glass bumpers and go back to metal

how were you going to do it?

brant

I think it's a great idea....making it would be the hard part....making it and having it look near perfect would be even more difficult...well, at least for me

A big oak mold and hammerform it..

Alot of cars had them, my Lancia Scorpian for one. Those were aluminum extrusions bent the the curve in plan view. I worked with an Alusuisse extrusion system on Bus bodies. There are thousands of extrusions, just find the right profile. The bending tools or rollers are not DIY though. After the right profile rolled to the shape, you would just need to fab the end cap or possibly bend those as well...

QUOTE (Travis Neff @ May 13 2005, 09:02 AM)

A big oak mold and hammerform it..

Hammer form it, file, sand and polish.

Or reverse engineer it. Foam cast a cast iron mold to use as the master die and stamp them out.

sand cast, poured aluminum (may be a little heavy)

With sand casting there would be too much chance in imperfections in such a long piece.

There is a place in the small town that I have one of my houses in that does the foam casting and I know where a metal stamping press is.

You could take a section of the car that is not currently offered as a reproduction part, make dies and stamp out pieces. Most of the important parts are all ready offered.

If you are not concerned about weight, stay with the stock chromed steel. If weight reduction is your goal, go composite. Aluminum is kind of in the middle yet not satisfying either goal completely.

QUOTE (GWN7 @ May 13 2005, 08:29 PM)

With sand casting there would be too much chance in imperfections in such a long piece. There is a place in the small town that I have one of my houses in that does the foam casting and I know where a metal stamping press is. You could take a section of the car that is not currently offered as a reproduction part, make dies and stamp out pieces. Most of the important parts are all ready offered.

Bruce,
I was kidding, I cast a skeleton shift knob in high school and few could get a bubble free part.

I like the die idea to press new parts, what would a part the size of a bumper or fender cost?

Just for molded plastic bumper shells (with a plastic mold) I got offshore quotes of $20k to over $100k depending on complexity. Who could recoup that much tooling investment?

We could have Chinese made all aluminum 914s done for around 15k each, at 20 or so cars, and they'd be perfect.. except for the big Made in China stickers.


M

QUOTE (Neo914 @ May 13 2005, 09:17 PM)

I like the die idea to press new parts, what would a part the size of a bumper or fender cost? Just for molded plastic bumper shells (with a plastic mold) I got offshore quotes of $20k to over $100k depending on complexity. Who could recoup that much tooling investment?

I'm not sure what the cost would be.

The stamping machine is at a buddys shop (they make commercial heaters) and I have only seen it used to make parts about 18" X 18" . To do bumpers you might need a larger machine (I really don't know).

To make the dies you would have to know what machine (and how the top die attaches to the machine) first. Then develope the dies.

But once developed you could make light weight bumper shells out of metal or copys of the original thickness material.

I have seen video of the large stampng machines used to make fenders ect., but not one that does bumpers. Something to check into for the future.....

Might be an easier way to make it from aluminum..

Some aluminum alloys exhibit superplasticity.. I think when hot

What does that mean? You can heat up a sheet to a certain temperature range to make it very formable and form it into a tool when hot....vacuform

The beauty of it is you can use concrete for a tool. Make a concrete tool, heat up the sheet and vacuum or bladder form it....

Also heard of hydroform.. Concrete tool and high pressure water used to form the aluminum.

Panoz cars use one of these tricks on their body panels.....

Dang,

Now I gotta look this up- again

Ken

OK,

Here we go....

Kinda technical explanation of each process....

Aluminum Forming

and...

Panoz Report

Ken

QUOTE (xitspd @ May 13 2005, 09:39 PM)

If you are not concerned about weight, stay with the stock chromed steel. If weight reduction is your goal, go composite. Aluminum is kind of in the middle yet not satisfying either goal completely.

Unless the rules require a "metal" bumper.....