While I have my TrunkBack and Spat off on the 2008 Franken GEM I was thinking about lifting the spat 1/4" to 1/2" just to get a little bit more space between the wheels and the top of the spat wheel well.
The mount is currently a 2…5" round rubber part, sorta like a small doughnut and I was thinking about 3D printing a disc with the same outside diameter of the rubber doughnut and rounding the top interface to the Spat so it curved like the rubber doughnut and the screw hole in the middle will keep it in place.
Another option I’m looking into is a 3D printer filament which has the flexibility of a car tire(Shore 75A) called TPU.
Do you guys think it’ll cause cracks in the Spat because it’s not rubber like the bumper under it or with the rubber under it provide enough give-take to let things flex and not crack the Spat?
Spread that load out bigger than the stock spacers. You can use the rigid material for the stand off then the rubber on top of that and sandwich the fender between two rubber discs. Order up bigger rubber discs to match your spacers.
You don’t need to cup the spacer. I’d leave it flat or use the natural shape of the mount location in that area.
If your fender is already spider cracked in that area then you it would be good to bond another piece of plastic on the lower(and upper) side with another disc to spread the load out past the cracks.
Q: Is there much filament used when printing the doughnut hole?
If I can get the stock rubber bumpers off the metal mount and fit a spacer underneath it would ideal as I could put any ridged material under it. On the 2008 there are no cracks but the self tapping screws used only small plastic washers. ie not very wide.
I would print larger discs than the hole of the doughnut. See the pic of the rubber mounts. OD of about 2.5"
How do the stock rubber doughnuts come off? I tried briefly to unscrew a couple but nother moved at all. The screws used to reinstall the spat on Franken GEM are already about 4" long so anything upto 1/2" shouldn’t require replacing the screws.
If I can get something UNDER the stock bumpers it’ll be easy peazy designing and 3D printing spacers.
FWIW, the 2.5" x 3/8" disc 3D printed solid takes 11.5 meters of filament but I don’t think it need be solid since there’s really very little weight on it. At 40% infill and 3 solid layers of perimeters it’s 6.1 meters of filament. It takes 45 minutes to print one disk at 40% infill.
there is roughly 330 meters of filament on a 1Kg/2.2lbs spool of filament.
When I first saw the pic of your rubber isolator and thought- I truly don’t remmeber seeing that on mine.
My car (09) has some small/wimpy 1/2 diameter rubber disks that remind me somewhat of a tin roof fastener seal.
I went to a parts diagram of the Spat and it just shows a screw with a washer. I’d say people are using all sorts of things to keep the rattles and cracks to a minimum.
In true “frankengem” fashion I’d say you have something unique going on there. This is not saying that I don’t like it. At 2.5 inches diameter and maybe 1 in thick I’d say that thing is worth sniffing out a source for more.
Yes you should and they are pretty inexpensive for the basics(Ender 3) and a bit more for bells/whistles versions with multi color options(Bambu).
I got to thinking I don’t need this to have all that inner area so I removed a 1" diameter section and filetted the edge to get something closer to the stock rubber bumper. 5m of filament, 44minutes print time.
