How is this for unobtainium?

[grannyknot]

I didn't know Nissan even produced it, I went to our club's Fall swap meet and the Nissan dealership parts guy was selling it at his table.

I might just hang it on the wall. All three Z's I have taken apart had serious rust on this piece.

If you don't recognize it, it is the panel that the gas tank filler tube goes through.

Chris

[Patcon]

That's a great piece and $50 was a good price. I can think of several cars that could benefit from that piece. The swiss cheese low number car someone is redoing here on the forum or Blue's low number car, depending on if he needs it...

[Mark Maras]

 Wow, who would have guessed that part was avail. Makes me wonder what else they still have that we don't know about. I think I'd invite the Nissan parts guy out for a few beers and pump him for info.

 That looks like a great pattern piece to me. Before you frame it, some detailed measurements could be useful in the future.

[grannyknot]

Does anyone know if 3D printing has come far enough yet that this piece could be 3D laser scanned and then let the software flatten it into a pattern.

I would hate to wreck it.

[zject]

Great pattern part!  Make sure someone gets all the specs on that before you use it!!!

[psdenno]

Making a pattern would be the easy part - mostly flat,surfaces.  Stamping a copy would be the problem.  I would imagine that a welder could replicate it to some degree out of seven or eight individual pieces on a jig.  But it would be labor intensive.

Dennis

 

[Namerow]

Hi Chris:

Just thinking out loud here...

Eyeballing it, I see fab based on welding it up from five separate pieces: left, centre, right, full-width apron, and the little reinforcement gusset between the apron and the 'left' piece. Creating the curved flange on the 'left' piece looks like the biggest challenge, but one of those Eastwood shrinker/stretcher tools would get it done.  With cutting, forming and welding, it looks like maybe 5 - 10 hours of work.  Let's be optimistic and call it 5 hours and value your time at, say, US$50/hr (includes shop overhead cost), so that's $250.  Add in materials and consumables at another $50 and you're now sitting at $300 per piece. Add a profit margin, too, so it looks like an 'advertised price' of $350 would be about right.

Forget about stamping this from one piece -- there are some pretty big draws involved here.  

At this point in time re access to large-scale 3D printing equipment, I'd say forget about that, too.  Nevertheless, I'll check with my university contacts later this month to get a second opinion.  It's a fast-developing technology and you never know what lies around the corner.

[grannyknot]

I have no plans to use it in the near future (unless needed for the 72Z you sold me John) It will probably hang on the wall for a few years until the next rusty Z gets pushed into the garage. I emailed Charlie at Zeddfindgs to see if he wanted to have a go at it but never heard back from him. I may make up a card stock pattern.

Chris

[Patcon]

Dave Patten @ Futofab would be another vendor that makes repops...