New Bulkheads - Time To Step Up To The Plate

[Eric W S]

Cross post on the UK boards. I bet you can get the min needed. UK pound is so strong against the dollar and Morris is not producing enough to meet demand.

[S11A]

You could also hit the UK shops up for stocking these - a container full would probably ship for less than $5K? Not sure about duties and taxes, though.

[S11A]

Doh! Eric beat me to it.

[Eric W S]

Were you reading the posts on the Series II club forum as well? LOL!

Quick Draw McGraw. And I just dated myself as being old (er)

[S11A]

Was there a similar thread there?

I have been buying vintage cartoons on DVD for the kids, and trying to limit the advertoonments that pass for this nowadays.

[Roverdawg76]

Bulkhead...

I'd buy a new bulkhead when I restore my truck.

[Eric W S]

Was there a similar thread there?

I have been buying vintage cartoons on DVD for the kids, and trying to limit the advertoonments that pass for this nowadays.

Yup. Quite a few I think. Some center around availability and others about why no one is making them. last one started because a guy in Thailand scratch built a bulkhead and from the pics, it looks awesome. Scratchbuilt the frame as well. Looks better than a Richards or Marsland. . .

He's looking into a production run as well.

[greenmeanie]

Oh well, just to make you jealous there is this tasty little project on ebay right now.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Landrover-Series-lll-Project-Short-Wheel-Base_W0QQitemZ270209161761QQihZ017QQcategoryZ31348QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

That would be worth importing just as a parts car for the chassis and bulkhead.

Cheers
Gregor

[ajones]

It states on the listing that the bulkhead is new and galv. Wonder who made it?

[junkyddog11]

Problem with this "just partner up with all the big guys" is that they all need a piece of the pie too. It's this wierd business profit scheme thing. Would drive the cost up how much?

We've spent some time looking at this as we have 30 or so Series "donor" trucks at the shop which will all need some sort of bulkhead work. To go into bulkhead production will require some more dedicated space as well as a fairly substantial capitol investment. If all it took was "a brake, a spot welder and work out of your house" then I'm sure we'd have Mr Morris's popping up all over the place as it must indeed be a worthwhile enterprise. As Jim probably figured out at this point, everyone wants to be able to buy a new bulkhead, some would pay realistic prices for it, but in reality there is not a very large actual market for this when existing bulkheads can be easily rebuilt for short money by any backyard Joe with parts that already exist. Or they can send it to a specialist shop who can rebuild it to "as new" spec for about what a new one would cost anyhow.

[Eric W S]

Just to clarify, this isn't an attack, or cynical repsonse or any of that. I just want to continue the discussion and hopefully learn something new and get a "few missing peices".

What is the substantial capital investment? I'm an accountant. I get the idea of distribution charges, retailing and margins, blah blah blah. My previous examples was that you can indeed produce a bulkhead with minimal capital. The barrier to the market isn't the money, it's the skill, knowledge and time.

What I don't understand is the need for a substantial amount of money to get the production started. It's pointless to plan this as an assembly line project. Or even consider thinking about the offshore (China et al). Like you said, this is a small market, so why bother messing around with economies of scale, tooling and pressing? If you can CAD the bulkhead and think out a logical and efficient build process than what else do you really need?

So what exactly am I missing? I don't fabricate, but needs someone that does to clarify things. Maybe a profiatble solution is indeed possible.

Take your example of the bulkheads you have. Why not repair and galvanize one as time permits and ebay it? Say you sell 5 a year, for 2500. Thats a pretty good infusion of cash. For a small business I'd say its more about the cash flow than such things as margin, $/hour etc. In reality your just back filling down time.

[S11A]

Eric,

I think it is a good question.

As to what would go into building new ones, take a look at the links above on ECR's bulkhead restoration process, and Ike's (Pangolin):

http://www.pangolin4x4.com/pangolin4x4/reference/howto/bulkheadrepair/index.htm

All of the individual panels would have to be constructed, and either bent or welded to form the various angles. i.e.- anywhere two planes intersect, the fabricator would have to do something, hence another step in the process.

To get a better idea of the various sub-panels that would have to be fabricated and then welded together, refer to the RN pages on bulkhead repair panels:

http://www.roversnorth.com/store/pc-219-276-page-43-land-rover-series-ii-iia-iii-defender-bulkhead-chassis-footwell-door-post.aspx

The panels shown on the RN page above add up (very) roughly to around $1,000 and do not get you the "dash" area or area around the vents, either.

If the sub-panels are to look correct, a press would be required to stamp in the correct indentations and detail, as well as stamp out the holes (although those could be cut by hand but then that is more money). The fabricator would probably need to make several sets of tooling, one for each sub-panel.

The wikipedia page has a nice animation of how the tool and die work in a press:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_(manufacturing)

[S11A]

An old thread here on the forum:

http://www.roversnorth.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2075

[Eric W S]

Seen those pages. Ike's site alway has the goods.

But do you really need a press? No. In theory, again never done this but it is intuitive, couldn't you get around all that?

All the peices are basically like assembled oragami? Unfold them and construct a wooden template on what shape to cut out and guides on where to drill. The indentations could be rolled by hand if you can match the contour in the footwells. This would be a majority of the work.

Once everything is cut/drilled, and or rolled, you could in theory start spot welding things together.

This is a gross oversimplification as I am sure there are things that would be very difficult to replicate without the factory tooling.

Anyway, possible. May be profitable.

Time to start looking for a good fabricator's class in Chicago. Hell ECR, Junky, Ike, Lanny all started somewhere right?

[S11A]

One item that would greatly influence how easy this is to do would be the gauge of the metal. I am not sure what the number is, but at least some of it appears to be thicker than could be easily indented by hand. It could possibly be bent on a hand brake OK (in terms of gauge).

The straight lines would be straightforward (no pun intended), but the curved bits are going to be more tricky, such as at the top of the door posts and around the vent openings. You could form the tops of the door posts around a large round pipe of the correct diameter before folding the edges in (notch then re-weld the notches shut after folding the edge over).

Eastwood has a lot of stuff for restoration, but I haven't purchsed anything sizeable from them:

http://www.eastwoodco.com/jump.jsp?itemType=CATEGORY&itemID=1397

Not trying to completely discourage you, but if you look at the toe board (RNF0003) it looks like the process to manually form that single piece would be:

1. Cut sheet metal to size and correct outline including flanges to be folded
2. Cut holes
3. Form indentations (corrugations?)
4. Cut 2 notches per main line folds (side to side lines forming main 3 planes)
5. Fold two main lines
6. Fold six side lips
7. Fold top lip down
8. Notch (2) and fold up bottom lip
9. Not sure if you would need to weld the side lips up (probably not)
10. Debur / snad edges to prevent cuts
11. Prime or otherwise coat to prevent rust until final assembly and galvanizing

That is just a single piece, and probably one of the easier ones.

In terms of the entire bulkhead, you would also need to obtain a near-perfect one for use as a template and use it to set up appropriate jigs/fixtures.

Not trying to discourage you, but I would suggest breaking down all the steps in forming each panel as I attempted above, and estimate how long each one would take, as well as final assembly, filling, sanding, and galvanizing.

That brings up another point - bondo for light filling is OK, but not sure how it would take galvanizing. Might have to use lead instead (and even that might not like galvanizing).

On the positive side, you really only need a lot of sheet metal (if the tools are ignored for now). Once you have the process down and items like forming the indents worked out, the cost of materials would be pretty small.