TR Replacement Fog Light Lens. Plastic?

I had a horrible experience with that company.

The turn signals, I received, weren't even the correct dimensions. They had no reflective paint and arrived chipped (they shoved them in a USPS flat rate box to save money). He is super quick to take your money and you won't hear from him if you have issues. PayPal protected that transaction. He eventually contacted me only to make it seem this was my fault his parts were too long and didn't fit.

 

I had a big rock chip in my fog light. There was just a pin hole on the outside and a big chip on the inside of the lens. I repaired with a windshield glass repair kit. 1. took light out and removed the bulbs. Cleaned the inside with air. 3. Laid the unit lens side down on work bench. 4. filled hold left by missing chip on the inside with resin, places a piece of plastic film that comes with the kit on top if the resin (this flattens out the resin and makes it match the curve of the inside of the fog light)Try to get enough resin to fill but not over fill the chip. 5. carefully set in sunlight (lens side down) in sunlight and let cure. 6. Remove plastic film. 7. Once cured do a standard lens repair on the out side. I think you will be happy with the results. I can not detect unless I get down on my knees and look very close.

 

No experience with that company whatsoever but after reviewing the website, they are using urethane casting technology to reproduce parts. That's a process we plan to get into down the road. It's my understanding that fantastic results can be achieved but the creation of the mold can be very time consuming.

 

I'm not suggesting it's hard, I'm suggesting it's time consuming which is costly. I've seen parts cast that are of fantastic quality.

 

So how long would it take to make the tool?

 

Yes, I know it's a "Mold" but often molds are referred to as a "tool"

IMHO, 2 hours to produce that mold seems very quick. I'm a super detailed guy so my work takes me time. I also own a engineering and manufacturing business so I have a lot of experience with many different processes.

 

As a side note, a 3D printed part won't touch the quality of one cast. I'm sure you already know that, just posting for others.

 

In the injection mold business, the mold is 99% of the time called a tool, but it's machined. Anyway, we beat this enough

I agree with you completely as we just had an injection mold made for 430/599 switches we are reproducing but it was a simple part so the mold was affordable. I would estimate a mold for this part to cost $25,000-50,000. That's why people use urethane casting to low quantity reproductions.

We will be getting into the technology for no specific part(s) yet. We are just running into more and more obsolete parts that need to be reproduced.

 

I'm not swinging anything, just posting my experience of nearly 30 years. Man, I'm getting old.

Yes, polycarbonate for sure. So we agree on that

 

Correct, no direct experience with urethane casting. I've just been reading about it, watching videos and discussing with other professionals about it for the last year. One of them, the head of GM's development group.

I do have plenty of experience in design, CNC machining, dies and a substantial injection mold knowledge but I've never personally made an injection mold.

I believe its imperative to learn about all manufacturing methods due to the businesses I'm in.

 

Thank you. And I do for you and all others in manufacturing and associated fields.

 

I have a lens that is beyond repair and have been searching for an OEM (Carello) assembly for over a year now. The plastic reproductions I have seen in person are somewhat milky/translucent--not 100% clear like a glass lens. For me (and at the price they are asking) that's a show stopper so I keep driving with my broken lens until I find a good replacement.

I've been contacted by a member (Carlo, screen name "StartedFromThe Bottom") who has been extremely helpful--he has RH US market OEM glass lenses on hand and just located a LH lens for me (you can't have it, I've been searching for over a year!!). If you need a US RH lens he had several earlier this year. He also has other market lenses in stock (the glass pattern differs between markets). His site is www.ferrariparts.eu

 

Tim, that is actually Carlos's dad's site. So help me learn - original are glass not plastic?

 

Thanks for the clarification Dave--and I see I even mis-typed his name above (left the "s" off Carlos--sorry Carlos!). Yes, on the Testarossa the fog light lens was originally glass (don't know about 512TR or F512m) and not meant to be removed (like the turn signal lens) although you can separate it from the housing by cutting through the adhesive caulk (though haven't tried yet).

 

How big is the hole on the outside of the lense? Mine was the size of a pencil lead.