Project COG is back in business

Many moons ago a cog in the AC timing actuator failed as I detailed here:

I thought it would be easy enough to get a 3D printed version as a replacement. Oh, how wrong I was. I tried some trusted contacts who were in the 3D printing industry. They referred me onto a number of businesses who unable to print a cog for me.

After more than 2 years trying to get a commercial 3D printing business to print a replacement cog for me, I decided that the only way it was going to happen was if I did it myself. Thus, began another long quest to learn about 3D printing.

A few weeks back my 3D printer selection arrived. After assembling it and doing some test prints, I turned my attention to the real reason for my purchase, to print a simple cog!

Attempt 1

As you can see from the above, this attempt didn’t go well. The issue was the fact that due to the small size of the cog the print lifts from the bed.

Attempt 2

Things are looking better now after some adjustments to the printing process. I can at least see that it is starting to look like a cog, but again the print is detaching from the bed. More adjustments.

Attempt 3

YEAH BABY! We have a winner. As you can see the print completed successfully. I needed to some minor clean up on the finished product but I tested it in the Timing Actuator and it seems to work fine.

Oh man, has this been a long (and expensive journey) all to get a replacement for this tiny cog! However, there are a few minor tweaks I need to make to the model so it needs less clean up after printing but I don’t expect that to be too hard. It’ll also be a good way to learn more about the 3D modelling process.

I can now finally say that I have the ability to produce a solution for the 63307100 Timing Actuator gear failing from about two years ago! Even though I do have a number of cogs made by others that work the one I just printed myself now holds pride of place.

During this process, a few readers of this blog contacted me about obtaining a replacement for themselves if I managed to produce them. Well I have and you are welcome to reply to this post, or contact me directly via email and I’ll send you what I have made. Note, that I am still tweaking as we speak and I have not yet actually put the cog into the car so I can’t guarantee that it works on the road, but I’m pretty confident it will. But, if you want to try it and let me know if it indeed does work, contact me a I’ll send you a print.

Hopefully, after a few adjustments I can offer these to people who experience the same issues.