Thinking of getting into the parts manufacturing business

[george graves]

I'd love to give you some real-world advice, but it will just seem like I'm trying to "crush your dreams" and being rude.

[digger]

The Chinese can make them. But they will look for relatively big orders.

what could possibly go wrong

[Vincenze]

what could possibly go wrong

They may not crack like the products made by West German workers.

[digger]

They may not crack like the products made by West German workers.

it is one thing to not crack after 15 years its another thing to have the same fit and finish as OE. it would be easier and better to do a group buy and goto BMW and get them to reproduce out of SA again with a suitable business case

[82eye]

no one is gonna do a re-pro dash from scratch. the best you will get is a hard cover. there are some dedicated businesses refurbing originals now. even they have to be able to repair several types across multiple models to make it worthwhile. there is zero business case to concentrate on one car and model alone.

[Vincenze]

it is one thing to not crack after 15 years its another thing to have the same fit and finish as OE. it would be easier and better to do a group buy and goto BMW and get them to reproduce out of SA again with a suitable business case

Jordan offered the factory to buy as many dashboards as they could produce.
There was no reply.

It doesn't look complicated from inside.

[strickland]

We should start an old-fashioned letter writing campaign. Flood their physical mailbox.

[Northern]

So FLG has posted a re-wrapped dash on his facebook page from somewhere out of russia... looks decent enough

[packratbimmer]

Has anyone mentioned sheet metal patch panels? Wheel arches, floors and rockers to start. Should sell like mad at this point. Shells are getting harder to find.

[Vincenze]

Has anyone mentioned sheet metal patch panels? Wheel arches, floors and rockers to start. Should sell like mad at this point. Shells are getting harder to find.

Some are available from European suppliers.

Here is a Chinese company that starts to produce many rare parts like body panels, glass, moldings, seals,

https://www.mvpvintageparts.com/uploads/1013989771.pdf

[strickland]

I just learned about E30 Garage Norway. They reproduce metal NLA body panels. Not cheap but the parts look good.

https://e30garage.no

[Gaarath378]

Some are available from European suppliers.

Here is a Chinese company that starts to produce many rare parts like body panels, glass, moldings, seals,

https://www.mvpvintageparts.com/uploads/1013989771.pdf

Wow. I haven't heard of these guys before. Quick search on here and I didnt see any results, has anyone bought from them before?

[Northern]

Hadn't heard of the mvpvintageparts place before.


Throwing my little bookmark list here:

e30garagenorway - https://e30garage.no/products/ - Make a lot of needed pieces, but the prices are high.

valcasgarage - https://www.valcasgarage.com/category/bmw-e30/ - Lots of steel work, cheaper than e30garageNorway, but don't 100% overlap. I think they make some stuff and source others.

e30rescue - https://e30rescue.com/shop/ - Steel panels and some other bits.

specialclassicparts - https://www.specialclassicparts.de/ - lots of hardware/brackets, a few small steel replacement bits.

Tim's classic parts - https://www.timsclassicparts.nl/en_GB/ - a lot of different stuff.

ABS Dynamics - https://absdynamics.com/search?type=...e%2Cpage&q=e30 - some bumpers, window louvres.

Classic Hero Parts - https://classicheroparts.com/ - basically repro bodykits/wheels

Geoff Steel - https://geoffsteel.co.uk/ - Carbon roof skins and other composites.

[McGyver]

OP, coming from manufacturing, it's going to be really tough to get into manufacturing. It's crazy to see george graves pop up here! Of everyone in this thread, he have the best advice based on his experience, and I assume he would tell you to not even try.

In my opinion, you're going to run into two main issues. Price - Either you make stuff yourself or have it made in small batches to get very little profit, or send it to be made in China where the minimum order will be massive and you'll have to sink a ton of money into inventory that may not sell just to get a reasonable profit. Replicas - There are plenty of companies out there with deeper pockets that are willing to take a new product, value engineer it to make it easier to produce, and then sell for less than the original designer.

To be successful, you need something that is very difficult to copy or has low enough volume to not be worth the effort.

• There is a guy in CA that rebuilds gauge clusters and AFMs. That service is highly technical and cannot be copied and outsourced. You could collect cracked oil pans for cheap, repair them, and add a baffle before selling them for more. You could design the baffle and order the material from a place like send-cut-send. This would allow you to branch out across makes and models.
• I wanted to Podi gauge cluster for my e30 that would have 2 pods showing 4 readings. Podi stopped making them and I ultimately bought a reproduction of an Alpina gauge setup. You could design/assemble the brains of the system that could read/output a variety of sensor values, and then design unique housings for different platforms. Perhaps copy designs of NLA tuning companies for different platforms.

Here are some things that people are making. Maybe they give you an idea:

https://stim.tech/

https://zada-tech.com/

https://www.e30ig.com/

[hozzziii]

If you could work out a dashboard reproduction you could get rich off us E30 scrubs!

you mention the hardware / vent issue. There must be a way… Like a jig to hand-fit the hardware, after you recieve them from the factory? Not ideal but it may be possible. I’m imagining negative space in your factory produced mold, where you could finish by hand-mounting those trickier pieces before shipping them to the customer. And have it consistent each time.

I wonder if anyone from the original factories is still around, or BMW archival research on the original manufacturing process. They must have had a proprietary machine jig. I’m guessing a crew member inserted the metal parts, THEN added the plastic goo into the mold.

I think the air vent routes and the mounting brackets are there before the foam is inserted. Because it's unnecessarily difficult to add parts to polyurethane foam after it's expanded and hardened, like you'd have to put some generous amount of glue in there and cut and redo stuff, that's just messy. But if you put the stuff before adding the foam with some hook shaped bits that get buried in the foam, then you got yourself a good piece.