dprantl

It seems to me that the WW liner project is much more important than the cowl cover. The cowl covers are much more robust, and new ones cost a mere fraction of one WW liner. The other day I noticed that 50% of my liner bit the dust on the passenger side because it touched the rear tire while moving... ouch.

Dan
'91 928GT S/C 475hp/460lb.ft

DJF1

+1000! I need a set quite urgently!!!

Jerry Feather

I have my direction re-focused on the liner project and got some progress made yesterday and today with the two GTS mounting brackets that Herman and I mocked up when he and Barb were here. I have made a handfull of them, but still have to try to devise a best way to duplicate these more quickly. The one for the top of the left WW is pretty straight foreward, but the top one for the right well has to clear the Charcoal Canister, so it needs a jog in it that makes it pretty complicated to form. Any of them can however be gang sawed at about 6 or more at a time in the band saw then sanded together on the belt sander, but then each takes some hand work to finish up before forming in the press brake and the other brake. Each one has to be tested in the wooden jig to be sure they are close enough to work.

These are made out of .063 inch thick aluminum which is a little hard to work with, but is stiff enough to do the job I thinkj we need done to hold these liners in place, especially for up to 160mph.

When the weather warms up a little more I'm going to do something similar with the two brackets I have designed for the front and rear of the S4 left well and then I'll need to design the two for the right side. Aside from those 6 there will be some little brackets for more direct connection to the liner each of which basically move some of the existing points over a little.

I expect to have most of this preliminarily done by Spring Fling so I can take it all there and see if I can get a set to fit. In the meantime I'm going to try to send a set to Gary Knox who has been my inspriation on this project and see what he might be able to do with it in the field so I can see what kind of problems the rest of you might be running into and which of those I can eliminate ahead of time.

Jerry Feather

leonard928

Great progress Jerry. Hopefully there's someone on the Forum who can help with the mass production of these brackets?

Definitely a customer in waiting x 2 down here (and probably more)!

Thanks for your inspired work on this!

77tony

Spoke with Jerry a few days ago, and he plans on coming down to Rockport for the Spring Fling. He also stated that he will try and make it down a day early or stay a day later so final fitment will be achieved. Brackets look great Jerry, and looking forward to seeing you at the "Spring Fling" T

DJF1

\bump... any news??? my left rear liner is coming completely apart....

Rich9928p

The same with my GTS, and I'm at a bit over 55K miles.

Jerry, we need you!

Jerry Feather

Thanks guys for the continued interest. I too have some continued interest and actual involvement with this linter project and will try tomorrow to post some progress pictures.

I have refined the design and have developed the method to produce some additional mounting brackets and now have the left inner liner mounted firmly in one of my S4s. I'll take it out and put the brackets on it to show how they work. I'll also try to take a couple of pictures of how the brackets mount in the car.

I have the right inner liner half mounted in the same S4 and am working on a design of the front mounting bracket for it. It may turn out to be fairly simple or it may be fairly complicated. I can't actually tell just yet which. The mounting points in the right front of the car are different from the left side.

Then there is the rear bracket, or the need for one, at least in the S4 and earlier cars. That is a problem because except fot ethe very bottom there are essentially no mounting points in the right rear.

I still have the GTS top brackets that I hope to finally fit in Tony's car at Spring Fling in a few weeks, then it they are correct I will be working on some at least limited production.

The last thing I have to develop, and I may get to that this weekend, is the tooling to use to drill the number of holes that will be used to mate the outer halves to the inners when the inners are in place. I have the connecters for that, but still have to make the steel strap that will be used to hold the halves together in the stand I made before, that has the holes in it to drill through. When I get that going I'll post some pictures of it also.

Jerry Feather

Jerry Feather

One other thing. I have also located and purchased some boxes that I think will be suitable to package and ship these liners when they are in production. They were not quite as expensive as I thought they were going to be, but they are not the exact size that I was planning on either. However, with a little cutting and glueing, I can make them come pretty close to the minimum size needed. Small size is going to be important, especially for international shipmenmt.

The reason I am posting this is because I am sure there is a lot of doubt out there about just how serious I am about making this project work. I know it has taken a long time to this point and will take some more, but I am not retired yet and cannot devote all of my time to these plastic projects that I am working on.

Jerry Feather

Jerry Feather

And, there is another aspect of this project tthat I am working on and that has to do with the sound deadening aspect of these liners. I have continued to do some research about sound deadening and find that the direction I was going to go in was a little off. Earlier in this thread, I think, someone had suggested that using Mass Loaded Vinyl might be the way to go. My initial reactiuon to that was based on a nmisunderstanding about that product and what it is intended to do. I thought it was intended to dampen the sound.

I now find that there are about three ways to deaden sound or noise. One is to dampen it, and in an automobile or airplane that is done by putting very heavy material on about 25 lpercent of the panels that are inbetween the source of the sound and you. That tries to keep the panel from vibrating and transmitting the sound further.

Another way to deaden sound is to absorb it, and that is the one I have not understood so well. I had been planning on putting about 3/8 inch or 1/2 inch of fairly dense closed cell foam on the car side of the liiners, or part of them, to absorb some of the sound and then suggest stuffing the recesses between the liners and the car with small bags of other material like fiberglass for further absorbtion. However, what I have learned is that the noise from the rear wheels is very low frequency and thus will need from 10 inches to 70 inches of material to absorb it. So, with my idea I wasn't going to absorb much, I don't think.

Now, I find that the third way to deaden sound is to block it. Actually I was counting on the liners themselves to block some of the sound, and I was probably right about that, but I now find that the best way to block the road/tire noise will be to use the mass Loaded Vinyl (MLV). I have found a product that has about an eighth inch of MLV on top of a quarter inch of closed cell foam that may be ideal for our purposes. I had the company send me a small sample so I can determine how flexible it is and I think it will be formable enough to glue to the car side of part of the liners. It is fairly expensive, but I am going to order a large roll of it soon so I can start working on a pattern to use to make it fit the lilers. I hope to have some of it avilable when I go to Spring Fling next month so I can fit that to Tony's GTS also.

Jerry Feather

Jerry Feather

Now I wonder if some or all of this is going to appear as "feature creap" which I have been suspected of engaging in in the past.

Jerry Feather

Alan

Jerry as a former (and future) customer - I know you will get there on this one.

I, like most, understand first hand that there is just limited time to work on such products - so it just has to take that time... Keep at it and make it great (I know this is what you are doing).

I do know it will be worth the wait when done.

Alan

DJF1

Thanks Jerry for your continous efforts. If your GTS rear liners fit and you go shortly into production of them, please put me down for a set as I need them badly...

77tony

Jerry, Will be here to assist you in any way. Looking forward to seeing you and your new product at the Spring Fling. 77Tony

Gary Knox

Jerry,

So glad to hear about the progress. Quite a few of us are more than interested in the full development of this replacement (and upgraded) product.

Gary