SOCTFL - Left hand floor pan

[NickA]

I've started this as a new thread as it's not related to the new Cylinder Head topic. Just something Phillip Wardle wrote in his reply about the heads:

All,

Further to Peter's info (post 65), the total investment made by the Club in the Cylinder Head project now stands at £20K spread over the last 11 years. This should be placed in context with (say) the estimated tooling cost of £18.5K for the left-hand floor pan (not yet pursued) and £7.4K to produce the correct window channels (tooling and first-off production).<snip>

It's the bit about the left-hand floor pan. I thought both left and right hand floor pans were available; I bought a set ten years ago from SOC Spare that were an exact match to the existing floor and I believed were pressed with the original tooling. I notice the Brothers have got pressed floors as "This item is pending future manufacture, please Call for an update."

Just curious really as to what happened to the tooling that was used in the past to produce good quality pressed floors?

[73stagman]

Just curious really as to what happened to the tooling that was used in the past to produce good quality pressed floors?

The likely hood is that as with all this type of tooling it wears out or gets broken.... and may not be readily replaceable

[Philip Wardle]

Just curious really as to what happened to the tooling that was used in the past to produce good quality pressed floors?

Dear NickA

SOC Spares owns the tooling for LH and RH floor pans and, as you say, this was used to create some very high quality panels in the past. Unfortunately the LH tooling now needs to be replaced, but the RH is still producing good panels. If and when a project goes ahead to create new LH tooling, and assuming a production solution based on a 3-part steel draw tool, it would probably be possible to fund it with a loan and recover the investment over a period of years so that the money could be re-used for more projects.

On the other hand some will say (as with cylinder heads) that £18.5K is too expensive, and we can manage with the LH front and rear reair sections available on Ebay. Others will say that rubber press tooling would be cheaper, which it is, but this is more likely to have to be a grant rather than a loan because the economics are different (lower ratio of tooling cost to unit production cost). Also there is a concern that in coming years the installed capacity of rubber presses in the UK will diminish further and render this approach unsustainable.

Best regards
Philip