Temperature should not change anything, the material is okay to use up to 350°F / 177° C. I dont have information on the rubber, but most rubbers are heat resistive. Thanks again for testing, I am excited to see the results.

How is the gear testing going??


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Hey,

As of now, it is on hold. The last gear failed after some heavy use. I am talking to some people about stronger plastics I can buy. I also have a contact that does injection molding but I haven't talked to him yet. Sorry guys, I will update you all once I figure it out.

If anyone has anything else they want, let me know. Doesn't have to be car related.

im in need
 

I have two cali top cars one with skipping gear other works great but im in for two sets if you get these done mine are not heavly used they are my Daughter's cars one 96 one 97 im ready when you are

Hey hotmilk400, did you ever get the ti roof gear made in better plastic? I checked your ebay page but didn't find anything. Also how much is "heavy use"?

Is this dead in the water? I just bought a 318ti w/ california top yesterday. Gears are dead though, of course. Would love to spend less than $400 to fix it.

I could do it with "real nylon" and make a 1 to 1 copy of the original gear with the material, but it would cost me about $2k to start up, maybe $3k. I would need to do a pre-order to raise the money. The cost would roughly be:

50 People: $40 for a set of two
100 People: $20 for a set
500 People: $4 for a set.
1000 people: $2 a set.


You get the idea. I would do it for "free" for the pre-orders since I would make money later selling them on eBay / Amazon, but I would need people to back it up front first before I went forward. If people show enough interest, I would try it. I know I could sell a few but maybe not 50 at $40 so I do not want to take the risk. I am also financially drained at the moment.

Let me know if you guys are serious and want to do it. At this moment, it is really up to everyone to show me a demand that exceeds 50 people willing to spend $40. haha

I would consider getting my friends company (he is the owner) to injection mold these (in the USA of course!) I could also set up a kickstarter so that if it fails, no one pays for anything. If it hits the goal, everyone gets charged and gets a gear. I would need everyone to promote it since otherwise no one will see it. haha

We are switching our company's plastic products to his company to be made. I have a close enough business relationship with him to get him to do a small production run on a weekend. We also got him a few a new client, so he owes me.

Anyway, yeah, about 2k is a road block. Might even be $3K, i would need to send the engineer the designs for a quote and talk to them about it.

I'm in, if we can make it happen. The market for this does seem to be pretty small though unfortunately. Kickstarter might not be a bad idea.

Hey hey! I just bought my first ti today and it has the California top with stripped gears. Has this gone anywhere else? I'm with everyone else here; I don't want to buy a new motor that will only last a few years.

I would even happily buy a set of the lesser quality gears just to get my top going for the time being if it would help along the process to better ones

Hi Andy! Welcome, the motors will last awhile, most of us have motors that eventually failed after 10 or 15 years depending on how smoothly operating the top is.

There was a member here who was an Ops manager for an Aerospace engineering company who arranged to have a replacement set made for him in Aluminum. The company is still in Utah, but I've not have the time nor need to pursue having a bunch made up for us. Not sure if anyone is willing to chase this down, but if we can place a bulk order, it would drive the unit cost down for participating members with the difference sold on eBay for a higher premium. Just needs someone to research and coordinate. Once we understand the details, advance orders could be placed to help offset the initial order. Depending on pricing, I'd be interested in 4-5 sets.


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Hmm ok, well what's the contact information? I wouldn't mind buying a bulk order and selling them myself on eBay. I'd sell to you guys for cost plus shipping. I was searching eBay and all I found was gears for the seat or something.

I guess my last post didn't go through. Does anyone have the contact info for that company? How much is a bulk order? I would be willing to place a pretty big personal order and just sell the excess on ebay and to you guys...

Hi Andy, I see your message this morning. Let me look through the historic threads in this forum as that is where I found the information. I'll check when I get home this evening.

Thanks for stepping up. Cheers! :cool:

I have a buddy who owns a CNC shop that is interested in making these.
Is metal a way you guys wanna go with these? I think metal will work but we run a risk of wrecking the motor instead of gears.

If someone else is working on this, I won't worry about it, but If people still need these, I can def help everyone out. I am getting the details now and having a protoype made when he has downtime at his shop. I owe BlackBMW a few sets of gears anyway from the last attempt we made so it looks like he may have gears headed his way.

Any feedback is great. Once the protoype is made, i will let everyone know about cost.