remanufacturing components in aluminium.

[Stealer Of Souls]

Has anyone ever seen/done/heard about people remanufacturing components in aluminium. Particularly suspension components.

Now that my main AE85/6 is at the point where I think I'll just enjoy it, I was working over the plans for my other ae85 and wondered if aluminium replacement parts was possibly an option. Particularly if I could do any welding and light fabrication work myself.
I'm thinking that I'll take my time and build this one as a semi-serious race car.

What are the issues? What are the requirements? What are the different grades of aluminium and which ones could be used?

Like a lot of ideas, I'm sure this one will die a horrible death...

[atmosports]

It is possible. But it is not cheap & aluminium fatigues pretty badly hence why all aluminium aircraft stuff of any importance is lifed & thrown away. If you did give down this route I'd be looking at 5000,6000,7000 series alloys depending on how you are going to be making the compoment with regards to weldability/machineability etc. Bear in mind that if you make something out of a 7000 series alloy & then bend it, you will more than likely break it if you try & straighten it or if you bend it again. Also you will pay through the nose for this stuff & be greatly restricted by the sizes/grades you can get here in NZ.

You can probably make what you want cheaper/easier & stronger from Steel & if your smart in what you do you'll get close to the same weight as in Aluminium.

[soopachargen]

what about chromoly?

[matt dunn]

what about chromoly?

we used to make lower arms and stuff for the race cars out of them,

but i dunno how your certifier would like it though.

[fivebob]

what about chromoly?

Hydrogen embrittlement might be a problem.

As for Aluminium, 6061 would be the cheapest suitable alloy, but even that is pricey. 2024 would also be suitable, provided you don't want to weld it, and 7075 isn't easy to weld either. Both 2024 and 7075 are expensive, and 7075 is more prone to fatigue.

Unless you want to spend a lot of money getting parts CNC machined you're probably better off frabricating things in steel.

[atmosports]

Chrome-Moly 4130/4140/4340 etc steels are fine even for road use & providing any welding is done correct(Generally TIG) shouldn't cause any hassles with certification as we've done it many a time without any drama.

[Stealer Of Souls]

How's crome-moly placed for pricing. I hear it's pretty pricey stuff.

Since the thought was weight reduction, the other part of the thought was removing material from the centre line of any components (probably by drilling holes). I've seen this done on trike suspension and the likes. How do you think the certifiers would like that?

Also.

You can probably make what you want cheaper/easier & stronger from Steel & if your smart in what you do you'll get close to the same weight as in Aluminium.

What do you mean here? Is this a case of reducing the safety factor built into OEM parts? Or redesigning the object for better performance?

[atmosports]

What I meant with the above is that is most cases you can get a steel component done to the same weight as an aluminium one when you take the strength into consideration as you generally have to use much thicker sections fo aluminium to get similar strength. Flywheels are a good example of this, you can make a steel flywheel as light as an aluminium one & still have it stronger in most cases.

I'm not one for drilling holes in everything, especially structural stuff & critical components like suspensions/brakes. Sure having it all lightweight is good, but so is being alive tomorrow.

Sure Chrome-Moly isn't cheap compared to normal steel tube but then compared to some of the other materials I machine on regular basis chrome-moly is really cheap in comparison. You get what you pay for & if you want to make something lighter/stronger you've got to be prepared to pay the extra to do it. It does pay shop around when buying chrome-moly as the price varies a lot & it also varies depending on the sizes you want 7 how much your buying.