Does your rear seat rattle? Check this out... (1 Viewer)

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CruiserTrash

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UPDATE:
I made a web store for these seat bumpers and will have some other products following. If you're interested in a set, here's the link:
--->Cruiser Trash Parts<--- (link updated 6/27/2022)
* * *

My rear seat makes all kind of noise because the latch is loose. I tried wrapping in tape and a cut up PCV hose, but both would fall off pretty quickly. The problem is that the post on the seat is much smaller than the opening in the latch..... Over the summer I found out that 60s came with small rubber bumpers that fit into the latch and held the seat post tight - I had never even seen them before. It took quite a bit of digging, but I was able to get 1 or 2 from Classic Cruisers, and sourced a couple more off junkyard 60s that popped up local to me. Some were in bad shape and others were mediocre. I would really like brand new ones, but I'm unable to find a part number for them - on diagrams they appear to be part of the entire latch mechanism, which is NLA.

Cue my molding & casting experience. I've done bronze sand casting and cast concrete into silicone rubber molds for work in the past. These little bumpers didn't look like they would cause any problems for a silicone mold process, so I did it last night. This morning I cast a test piece out of a hard resin as a proof of concept, and it worked great. Because the originals I used to make the mold are a little beat up, I'm going to work on the first clone a little bit to iron out the imperfections - maybe some putty to take out indentations and then spray it with a clear coat to make a next-generation piece. After that the task is finding the right material to cast the finished product - I'm looking at 2-part urethane rubber for that. The viscosity is good for a poured cast, it can stand up to abuse since it's urethane-based, and it comes in different grades of flexibility which will help the piece bend into position and absorb bumps in the road better. If that doesn't work, there's about million other products I can use.

Since I'm going to all this trouble to make myself a set of these little rubber bumpers I thought why not see if other folks would be interested. Consider this a feeler post. If this is something you might want, let me know below.

Photos below:
1: An original OEM bumper in place.
2-5: Some pictures of the molding process.
6: This is a first-generation hard-resin clone. (I didn't take any pictures of mixing up the resin and pouring the casting because the working time is 5 minutes - I needed to be quick)
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I’m in. I hate the rattle from the back seat.
 
Thanks Put me on the list.
 
Wow, looks like I've got work to do! They won't be ready immediately - like I said, I'll need to make sure I'm happy with the material first. I also need to make a larger mold for producing a little bit more quantity.

I'm cooking up a few trial batches this morning .... updates to follow.
 
interesting, so if you took that a step or 8 further, you conceivably could repro all the little bumpers n stops that are in a 60. or any other vehicle for that matter.
way to get after it sir
Yes, and I have an eye towards that already. Particularly I've been thinking about how to make gaskets for the exterior vents (carb cooling fan and d-pillar). 3D printing is fantastic, but I don't think you can make things that are soft or rubber. Different strokes.

The problem with the vent gaskets is that over time they all shrink. I can doctor up a first generation piece with bondo or whatever to improve a final casting, but I can't correct dimensionality.
 
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Back at it this morning. Since it looks like I'll need to make quite a few sets of these, I'll need a way to do that efficiently. I'm making hard resin clones so I can mold a whole bunch of those at once. Then I'll have a mold that I can use to pour multiple sets with the urethane rubber at once. I got my Ouray coffee mug I picked up at a tourist spot when I was SAS5 to keep me fueled 🙂
 
Yes, and I have an eye towards that already. Particularly I've been thinking about how to make gaskets for the exterior vents (carb cooling fan and d-pillar). 3D printing is fantastic, but I don't think you can make things that are soft or rubber. Different strokes.

The problem with the vent gaskets is that over time they all shrink. I can doctor up a first generation piece with bondo or whatever to improve a final casting, but I can't correct dimensionality.
You could 3D print your rubber partsand gaskets and then use them for casting your molds. Then cast them in rubber. Then you’ll always have perfect 3D printable files to make perfect replica molds for the future as your silicone breaks down.
 
not being a dick, but why can't you? i haven't looked at the vent gasket, but it's basically a flat piece correct?
I can't "stretch" a mold to make a part bigger. The only way I could correct dimensionality is to make one from scratch out of something workable by hand - essentially make a new one from scratch. Modeling clay? A printmaking vinyl slab and carve it with an Xacto knife?

I believe the original has a lip that comes up around the outer edge of the vent. Even if it does not, I would like it to have a small lip - maybe 1/2mm. So yes, it's all doable. If I could find a gasket that HASN'T shrunk I would save myself hours and hours of labor though.
 
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@kirvesmies

Here's the gasket and vent in profile - or at least what I would want to make.
 
@cps432 Great idea. I was chatting with @ChaserFJ60 about that idea earlier. I just don't want to commandeer his already limited time.

Part of the reason I've always liked the moldmaking & casting process is that you can go from original to clone pretty darn quickly if you have the right fast-setting materials. If I'm going to be making a lot of these things a perfect 3D-printed original would be good though. As you can see I'm still in the small scale, kitchen counter phase of production 🤣
 
@cps432 Great idea. I was chatting with @ChaserFJ60 about that idea earlier. I just don't want to commandeer his already limited time.

Part of the reason I've always liked the moldmaking & casting process is that you can go from original to clone pretty darn quickly if you have the right fast-setting materials. If I'm going to be making a lot of these things a perfect 3D-printed original would be good though. As you can see I'm still in the small scale, kitchen counter phase of production 🤣
get a bigger kitchen :flipoff2: :flipoff2:
 

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