Marouk

Wayno - I had a simple rule at my wedding that unless you are paying for it you don't get to push your opinion. Same reason why I don't take 'investment' from others on projects I am not making money on! I'm 90% certain I have dealt with your mate's mate. He is well known in other manufacturer club circles for helping to produce a part at your expense, only to have it turn up en masse at a cheaper price. Shame...as he clearly has the bandwidth and contacts to make it happen. 320 Newb - I'm a firm believer to hold the applause until the act finishes, you never know whats coming!! I've said it before - I'm confident in getting a result, its the time it'll take given the priority of this that's in doubt!!

This thread moves faster than I do, unfortunately. Apologies for the absence. I had been off being distracted in general with work and other projects and then locked myself out the site (long story short - use the right username and email and it unlocks really easy. Use the wrong one and you'll drive yourself nuts). No real progress on the vent rubbers. It is at a frustrating stage where I need a few hours run at it and time is pressed. Hopefully, with the slow down over Christmas, i can get the time to run off the latest mold and see how close it gets us.

If you are implying I was the previous "vendor" then you are off course mate. I'll waste 5 minutes of whoever reads this posts time to cover this off once as I'm concious I've lurked here on the forums for years intermittently and don't have a rep. My name is Phil Muffet. I live in Sydney Australia. You'll find me on LinkedIn professionally, and Facebook (it is on private but the profile pic is a lotus and a now gone but beloved malamute - Marouk). Besides datsuns I have built a nice private collection of vehicles from every decade from the 10's through to 2017. Includes very early fords, buicks, 40's chevs, 50's F trucks, Lotus, Mustangs, Vipers, Harley's, BMW... etc. My ambition is to build out a collection of different driving experiences from every decade of motoring - hence why so eclectic. I got into the 320's 15 years ago when I was given my first because it looked like a little 55 F100.... trust me it doesn't but my wife thought it did. That truck was extensively modified and built very much how the infamous MX520 was built. We built around the same time - a world apart and unbeknownst of each other until years later. Sadly my truck is being rebuilt after a significant crash and the passion for that waxes and wanes. No defined finish - but I'll throw up a thread oneday as we have lots of rebuild photos. While I appreciate some here got burned in the past - it wasn't me. I'm doing just fine with legitimate business and ethics/integrity are something I get deeply offended by when accused of impropriety. Not withstanding I expressly said this wasn't commercial for me - I'm not so bad at business to think the Datsun market is worth trying to exploit even. (A) there is but a handful of 320 trucks left that people care about, (B) Datsun people enjoy their trucks for the cheap/diy builds they represent, and © cost per rubber already if I am trying to make back their money would see them selling for significantly more than I've paid for some of my trucks!! Oh... and there is the problem of me finding the time to even pour rubbers for myself let alone on mass. My project started when I requested from a Facebook 320 group some assistance in finding a decent set of rubbers to scan and get started. I didn't take free ones despite the offers. I paid Ted Heaton for both the rubbers and his expense in posting them to the other side of the world - so as to ensure I wasn't rushed given the broader pressures on my time. Cars are my hobby and done in spare time for which I have very little. WHEN I am successful Ted is on a promise for the first set I don't keep for my own collection as way of a thankyou. Beyond Ted I'm not taking pre-orders. I'm not looking for funding. I'm not even offering to add names to lists that don't exist so when I have a result you can be first in line. I simply offered where I am up to and where I am currently blocked on progressing. Heck I think I even said if someone beats me to it that's fine. ...but cheers for the support and welcome. Phil.

I'm on the run today (karting state titles this weekend) but will post up some images when home next. It's a good device the einscan ($6k locally) and while I can't use it to measure wear, I can use it for sizing and part replacement. The faro is $50k... but not necessarily ten times better. It's used for part wear management.

For this I used the einscan pro (light scanner) with good results. Also have a faro scan arm for work that is more suited to laser scanning.

I'm still working on it...having started what must be over to 18 months ago now. Progress has really slowed of late due to 'distractions' in business (Google Fuji Xerox scandal if you want to see how the next wolf of wall st script will look). I have scanned rubbers, revised the file, and even made a prototype mold. The rubber we tried to pour failed on us and with every excuse to avoid persisting on this - i have let the distractions win for now. The rubber compound for pouring is the current block i need to research to move it forward. I'm trying to avoid high pressure injection to get the economics of low scale production - but i'm learning every aspect of rubber as i go. I'm well over $10K in for the scanner, print, and wasted attempts to date. I'll get there eventually if someone doesn't beat me to it. It isn't a commercial effort for me - rather i like playing with cars in my downtime and the problem solving it brings... and this is certainly testing my patience. No forecast on when it will be finished. I have time off over Christmas, but unless someone knows of a pour-able rubber compound and can point me to it sooner - that is probably the next window for me to look hard at it. Cheers...Phil

Very slow progress... but i guess it is a little. I'm currently in the wrong mindset but trying to shake it off. I have time until i get the two cabins back from the shop and need the parts. it does need to happen else I've blown a lot of cash on the trucks and this little project for an incomplete truck. We have printed for the right side (Australian drivers side) but the rubber part was incomplete. The mold was modified and still didn't work out. This was back in December. I've had a bunch of stuff chew up my time since then and not been motivated to get back into it. Ultimately I need to pull the finger out, improve the mold, and then find the right silicone rubber to use. The compound we were trialing with I've since found out isn't uv stable. I'm about 7K in materials/tools so far, not counting my hours and/or the guys salaries. At some point i'll cross that threshold where i should have just paid someone to do it for me... but its huge motivation to not give up long term! Nothing worse than a wife that wins the argument ("i told you to just pay others to do this..")! So in short - the project is not dead. If anyone wants to help out on the research side as to what rubber compound we might have more success with, i appreciate it. the compund needs to be something i can pour, or injection mould with using a caulking gun. It can't be a heated pour else will be destructive to the mold.

I've cranked mine a few times - but make sure you have the saw tooth pulley! Often over the years as the part is replaced, people just slot the front for the crank. If it kicks back you're getting a broken femur or arm. Heaven forbid it hits you in the head... The right pulley has two 'saw' teeth. If it back fires the pulley forces the crank away with the sloped side of the tooth. If that makes sense...

Still progressing - I've been a little distracted. The paying gigs have have been solid of late so this is ticking over in the background. Compounding this I got distracted by the opportunity to pull the trigger on a boyhood dream and 5 years of actively searching/negotiating - and as a result I now have my very own Dodge Viper. This is less of a big deal in the US I can appreciate. In Australia though there is just a handful of Gen 1's, and we can't bring them in anymore. So finding one is hard. Finding a good one is much more difficult and has taken 2 years to locate, and a further 3 years to negotiate from the previous owner. Thread drift aside, we are have 3 day/long weekend this weekend coming and two of my guys need/want cash so they are going to dedicate a day off to working on it for me. The 3d model and mold/inversion model are both 99% complete. They will spend the day with calipers to fine tune and then run off a print hopefully. My 320's have taken a backseat for a few months now - and i need the shed space back by Christmas for our annual party. Time to get cracking.

very nice work!

Scans produce a 'point cloud'. To get the fine detail (which we need on this part given the intricacy) its millions of reference points... meaning the straights aren't even really straight. I hire guys I consider to be the best in the world of 3D and print... and they laughed at me saying "it might be your money boss, but its our life - no chance we are doing that". Basically the process of cleaning it up outweighs the time it takes to use calipers to measure up a set and draft it from scratch. Which is what we are in progress on. As previously shared - this is in progress being drafted up. The detail work is incredible on these rubbers. Aim is to build the reference model, then oversize it by 0.5% to allow for shrinkage on our sample given it is 50+ years old. We'll print and mold one, test fit, and resize thereafter as we think we need to. Its fascinating that something like this was so readily constructed in the 60's yet due to economics we are now challenged to reproduce. This said - the pyramids would be a tough gig to get past workcover as well these days!

Thread drift... but i'm interested to understand how you might plan to king cab the 320. My little race truck (320 running miata gear not dissimilar to the famous mx520) is such a squeeze to drive i ideally should have someone extend it.

Appreciate the support and sentiments. We will get there... wherever that is!

Hi. I've floated on the forums for a few years on and off, but recently advised of this thread from the facebook group so will share my current progress (can it be called that?) in this space. Long story short is I am currently trying to replicate the vent rubber for my own personal 320's. Ted kindly sold me a set of used and good condition rubbers. We laser scanned them... but alas the models are too detailed and show every flaw time has blessed them with. So now we have a modeler working to draw them from scratch in solidworks. I'll then make a mold and aim to use a 2 part silicone to create the part. We can't print the part directly, or rather we can but it simply won't last beyond a few months if exposed to sunlight/weather. How long till we make one... i don't really know. It's been around 2-3 months i think since i first got motivated and purchased the rubbers. They then traveled first class freight to Australia for a few weeks. Laser scanning was a few weeks delayed then pointless for our needs. The modeler is 2 weeks in, but working on it for free in between designing paid projects for us... so certainly not his priority! My loving wife is supportive, but not so much to yet me add the work to the balance sheet and fast track it. Optimistically - i'd hope to pour the first one in the next 8-12 weeks. This is heavily dependent on business commitments though. Ultimately we will get a result. Its certainly not a silver bullet but fixes my problem. The financial viability of making 6 doesn't matter (5 for me and 1 for Ted who has made it all possible). The model creation and making the first mold is a sunk cost as far as i'm concerned. Thereafter low volume runs would need to viable as individual parts to justify the time in making each set - which is just a calculation based on how much people want them. Cheers...Phil