Can anyone on the forum 3D print (or cast) metal parts?? (1 Viewer)

[Kernal]

If you look at the proximal end of the rod (opposite the end with the broken tip) there's a slot in the side and a small steel blade which is spring loaded and then sticking out the end is a longer steel blade.

Or to put it another way, there are three moving parts inside the rod, a spring(?s), a short steel blade, and a long steel blade.

So would that complicate making the part on a mill versus casting??

FWIW:
That longer steel blade is what connects the rod to the ignition lock cylinder via a vertical slit in the far end of the ignition cylinder .

When the ignition key is turned the cylinder rotates which in turn rotates the rod which then turns the ignition switch. The cam looking shape on the distal/far end of the rod (red arrow) is what pushes the steering wheel pawl/lock out of the way.

 

[PIP]

If you look at the proximal end of the rod (opposite the end with the broken tip) there's a slot in the side and a small steel blade which is spring loaded and then sticking out the end is a longer steel blade.

Or to put it another way, there are three moving parts inside the rod, a spring(?s), a short steel blade, and a long steel blade.

So would that complicate making the part on a mill versus casting??

FWIW:
That longer steel blade is what connects the rod to the ignition lock cylinder via a vertical slit in the far end of the ignition cylinder .

When the ignition key is turned the cylinder rotates which in turn rotates the rod which then turns the ignition switch. The cam looking shape on the distal/far end of the rod (red arrow) is what pushes the steering wheel pawl/lock out of the way.

This part isn't a look at a picture and figure it all out kind of thing.

Machining from solid is different from casting. Design changes will be made to accomplish that.

You've got a part that Toyota made hundreds of thousands of for 80 series and probably shares a design with all other Toyota vehicles across the board for a given time frame so the design features are shared across millions of parts. That's why they went with die castings and a few stamped steel parts. To make 100 you have to make design changes to make them with different processes. That's why anyone who can make them needs to have the parts in their hand and stare them down for a bit before they could say what it will take to make a new one.

I make automotive products for a living.

The very first thing I do is not figure out how to make the parts. The first thing I do is make my best educated guess of what the scope of the problem is and therefore the potential demand for the product. That's not an easy thing to do. I talk to shops. I scour forums applicable to the product(s). I might even make some prototypes and do some social media marketing to gauge excitement.

This ignition part doesn't seem to have much interest. It wouldn't meet my requirements to make a prototype and a batch to test market.

I recommend revisiting the issue if Toyota obsoletes it.


Oh, another thing- Castings vary. Stating that these fail around 250K miles is anecdotal. From what I know about this kind of thing you'll have something like .02% that fail in 250K miles and then the rest never have a problem.

I make families of components that do important jobs inside engines and the cast parts they replace have a similar failure curves to your ignition parts. The problem is not that parts fail at XX,XXX miles, it's that .02% of the engine parts fail at random destroying your engine and costing you a month of downtime and $5k- $15k in expenses. In the case of that existing product, it's not something I depend on customers purchasing after they have a failure, it's a product they purchase because they don't want to take the chance that not spending $200 will cost them $15k down the road.

 

[Kernal]

"It wouldn't meet my requirements to make a prototype and a batch to test market."

Ok, thanks for the insight and background.

If anyone else has ideas on how to get this part affordably made please chime in.

Interesting video of how to make a small cast part starting with a 3D printed plastic part. If someone made a mold with a couple dozen of the rods poured at the same time??

 

[PIP]

"It wouldn't meet my requirements to make a prototype and a batch to test market."

Ok, thanks for the insight and background.

If anyone else has ideas on how to get this part affordably made please chime in.

Interesting video of how to make a small cast part starting with a 3D printed plastic part. If someone made a mold with a couple dozen of the rods poured at the same time

What alloy and heat treat do you propose?

You want a functional part right? Do you know the material properties of melted beer cans?

To get a functional part you will be using a real patternmaker. They charge about $100/hr. To get a functional part you will be using a real foundry pouring new aluminum with certs of the alloy you specify. Real foundries charge by the minute. A lot. Your patterns need to be good. Once you have your rough castings you need to clean and machine them. After that they go to heat treat. Heat treat minimum batch charge is around $300.

There are some great aluminum alloys that don't require heat treat, but I can guarantee none have the material qualities needed for that part- They are brittle.

You could ask this on r/machinist or Practical Machinist. You'll get a lot more responses.

 

[OGBeno]

“It’s so E-Z”.



There is a reason Toyota is Toyota.

 

[TurboDennis]

Another option would be to outsource the modeling to a 3rd world country where labor is dirt cheap. Or maybe hire a high school/college student to do it. This would reduce the modeling costs to next to nothing. Once you have an accurate 3D model, you can use a variety of methods to reproduce the part for reasonable cost.

 

[CharlieS]

I'm reasonably sure this is going to be a bad idea, but might be worth trying for giggles in your free time - could you use the part as a cast, to do a home made investment casting? I was watching some people make small things using a sand cast, filling it with wax, making a plaster mould, then pouring their metal in, filing it to fit after it cooled (or something sort of like that). Or pay someone to do it as a prototype?

I just randomly googled up these folks. No idea what it'd cost.

Prototyping | Invest Cast

Invest Cast specializes in turning ideas into reality through our prototyping process. And we do it fast, too. Invest Cast offers complete prototyping capabilities in a wide variety of metals, without tooling, in as little as 24 hours.

www.investcastinc.com

 

[PIP]

Aluminum shrink rate is 6%. You cannot use a finished part for a pattern.

 

[1FZj80]

superglue...

 

[Rollinns]

“It’s so E-Z”.



There is a reason Toyota is Toyota.

I agree, I like 3d printing and would like to get into metal casting again sometime in the future, but I also like to have functional vehicles when practical. I've not seen a lot of threads abut this part (I also haven't been looking), so I don't get the impression that it fails often enough to be on the maintenance or baselining checklists. It's not clear if this will fatigue in a way that avoiding used parts is recommended (like the heater valve on the firewall).

I understand you have to buy the complete assembly (you can't just buy the broken part), a few questions:
1. What is the part number of the assembly?
2. Has anyone confirmed the assembly is still available new?
3. Would a junkyard part work?

If you are doing this to help out the MUD community by figuring this out, possibly improving the part and offering it for sale or sharing the info for free I support that, everyone here likes better parts and I've shared info here myself, so I get that as well (the factory service tool set for rebuilding an A442F was $980, I reverse engineered the kit via pictures and measurements, made it myself, rebuilt the transmission and released the DXF files for the kit here for free, but I also know there's very limited demand for that tool kit). If you want to learn some new skills by learning CAD, pattern making for casting, metal casting, metallurgy, etc. I think that's great and I applaud you. If you are looking to save money, you **may**, but it looks like it will take a lot of time and depending on how much experimentation is needed to get it right, it's not likely this will save money.

If you just need the part functional as cheap as possible, you could drill the end of the pot metal, and drill the broken piece with two holes. Then cut a few drill bits to use as dowels in the holes for support. 2-part epoxy it all back together, sand it down as needed and it might work.

The original question from the OP seems to be does anyone have the ability to reproduce it, the answer seems to be yes but at the cost of a lot of time, money or both. If you could accurately 3D print it in plastic to verify fit, finish and functionality, then have it 3D printed in metal: SLM 3D Printing Technology - Shapeways - https://www.shapeways.com/3d-print-material-technology/slm The outside of the part seems to be decently complex but nothing too hard, but I've yet to see much about the inside of the part.

If I need this part in the future, I'll likely check Toyota first, depending on how this thread plays out, if you bulletproof the part with significant improvements, I'm happy to support you by buying it from you.

 

[PIP]

If you could metal 3D print it, you could repair one with welding.

If you used a heat treatable filler you could re-heat treat and age the weld repaired part. Sounds simple, but I've never done it. I'd anticipate a learning curve and the requirement to have the equipment to test the properties of the repaired part.