The Triumph Dolomite Club - Discussion Forum

I may be interested depending on price.....!

Dolly racer 33 wrote:About 6 interested parties at present& that includes me & 3 of my customers so at present not viable> I will not spend £20,000+ to sell less than 10. I need 15 to 20 orders before I would contemplate starting the job.

I'm watching with interest and would love to have one and build a strong engine.Price for everyone interested is going to be the main factor though obviously.I'm interested but on the other hand I'm not minted.

Michael.

Would be interested at the right price.

I too would like to throw in my name in there. I would love to get my mollies on one of these.....though as per previous posts....dependant on price...

What in peoples opinion would be a resonable cost for something like this?? I know its a case of production numbers and so on but any idea how much to make a pattern for instance. It would be interesting to find out. I'm way out of my confort zone on things like casting and forging costs.
When a pattern is made does this have a service life a bit like a press die? Or is it just that alot of work is taken up (cost) to make the pattern in the first place. The same pattern would be used to sandcast all of the potential blocks though, yes??

I will not spend £20,000+ to sell less than 10

Another one interested here - I guess that they will be between £3 and £5K (inc) - Burtons can sell you a new YB block for £3K so that's got to be the low end of the scale!

I'd love to be proved wrong and have them below £3k - (in which case I'll take two)

xvivalve wrote:Undoubtedly, the pattern(s) would be by far the expensive bit. I wonder if any originals survive; stranger things have happened. Any idea of who the original casting firms were?

I believe it would have been Beans foundry in Tipton. They used to make diesel engine blocks when i worked for Petter Diesels.

"In 1956 Bean Industries was purchased by Standard-Triumph to become the in house manufacturer of castings for the Triumph and Standard motor ranges. During Standard-triumph's ownership the unions at Tipton negotiated an 18 pint a day beer allowance for each foundry man. Temperatures with in the foundry building would often reach 130°F so it was important to keep drinking.

In 1960 Standard-Triumph was taken over by Leyland Motors which itself became part of British Leyland in 1968. throughout its years with British leyland the foundry retained a degree of independence by 1975 it was known as "Beans Engineering" producing engine blocks and other castings for Leyland lorries and coaches. The giant British Leyland group was broken up and privatised by the conservative government in 1988, Beans itself was bought out by its management team. Unfortunatley Beans closed in 2008 after being bought by a succesion of companies". A sad end to a company started in 1826.

to reverse engineer a casting for a block is quite an involved process as all dimensions have to have a contraction allowance added and the water jacket would require a mould for the sand insert. An expert pattern maker would be able to advise on 'runners' and 'risers' i.e how the mould is fed and for gases to escape to prevent micro porosity.

Would BL heritage have copies of the drawings? this may be a good place to start.

There may be drawings but given the original shoddyness of the build would you want them? Stag Club recast heads a few years back, they worked out at abour £2500 each. Lots of historic racers don't use the orignal engine but use recast copies, it's often the only way.

Engines made by Mr Bean and His Very Merry Men. All Triumph engine questions have now been answered..

You would have to scan the block initially. Modern methods of this Cad/Cam system means you can laser scen the original item &draw it in 3d on your PC subject to the correct programme being available to you. I have just had this done for a Group A rover cast aluminium upright & it cost £1,000, the block is 10 times the size. The upright pattern will cost £2,000 so you can see what the block will cost. Guide prices I have so far are between £20,000 & £30,000. I will use the motorsport/X block I have as a pattern. The CAD drawing puts in an allowance for shrinkage & the number of castings you can make from the pattern is largely dependant upon the pattern.

I am not looking to get rich from this exercise but by the same token I am not looking for it to make me poor. As I said I need around 20 firm commitments, even deposits before I invest a large sum of money into this project. If there are 20 people, blocks could be around £1,500 each plus VAT.

As Standard blocks are NLA it makes sense to manufacture these blocks.

Old engine blocks used to made from grade 17 cast iron this had a uts of 250 N/mm2, cheap and economical at the time but you could look at using SG cast iron which has a uts of 900 N/mm2. see what the foundry say re cost/benefit ratio.

The precision founders that I'm currently doing some work for tell me they had their knuckles lightly rapped for running off some copy cylinder heads for 'a fast version of ford cars' a few years ago; seem to know their 'stuff' , cast in both aluminium and iron and carry out their own machine work as well.

I've spent more time talking to the MD about our respective cars than I have about what I'm going to do to their buildings so far. I'll happily effect an introduction if you want to firm up your figures Ken; I'll not interfere beyond introduction, its way out of my depth!

Brilliant thread....What a knowledgable bunch you all are. I knew asking the question of cost and methods could return a plethora of excellent thought/ideas...keep these coming I say. Also learned the history of the casting company that Standard employed etc.
An interesting and most important point you raise there 'racer 33' about standard blocks being NLA it makes sense to manufacture these blocks. Thinking of the future, we really do need to get behind these efforts of people like yourself as its this kind of attitude that stops our cars 'stagnating' (no pun intended).
I did not realise that spheriodal graphite cast iron is over 3 times the tensile strength of the cast that is used on Dolomite castings. So if the blocks could be maufactured from SGiron, the shrinkage rate and amount would different due to the density (I assume the density is different)? must research this sometime. Just a few thought to ponder.
Sounds an interesting process the whole scanning and creating a 3D model..
Oh and it sounds like Bodgers up for 4 blocks @1500GBP a piece!

PS. Still interested at that (licking the finger and sticking it in the air) price...

It might be worth contacting the British motor heritage trust and asking them if they know where the molds are for our blocks, you never know they might just know.

Assuming the costs are in the region of what has been banded about, I would be up for 1, maybe 2 depending on final cost.

Assuming the costs are in the region of what has been banded about, I would be up for 1, maybe 2 depending on final cost.