Early Mini but especially Mini Van Farmers rubber mats.

[HuwGreenMiniVan]

Fitted instead of carpets that is. Does anyone know how much investment it would take to machine the moulds, that is if you find a set to take patterns off, and find the code of rubber they were also made from? I think it is about time someone should. Had a look around at rubber parts manufacturing firms, and I might have found one, and they have the CNC machines to make moulds. Am I right in saying the mini van/standard Mini had a rubber mat that stretched the width of the cabin, or did I dream it? Can't find drawings of them anywhere these days.

Anyway, the firm that could do it,
http://www.nene-rubber.co.uk/index.php

[mab01uk]

Some photos here of later rubber mats on the Mini Pick-up forum that have been on ebay:
http://www.minipickup.org/forum/viewtop ... 58&p=11731

http://www.minipickup.org/forum/viewtop ... 103&p=3195

The earlier ones had more of a ribbed pattern (rectangular(non staggered)brick type) and the front wheelarch sections only came about half way up leaving bare painted metal on view above up to the parcel shelf.

[HuwGreenMiniVan]

Pity there ar no BMC factory drawings of them with rubber material specs around now.

[mk1]

Having paid for tooling on a number of things over the years I can confidently predict that the price of a tool to make the early pattern moulded rubber floor mat would be ASTRONOMICAL!

If someone was daft enough to do it, I doubt they would ever get their investment back.

Having things like this remanufactured is great in principle, but 99 times out of 100 once you have done it some smart alec will tell you that your repro is .035mm too thin or the shade of black is wrong & people don't want to pay the price. It seems crazy to me, but it is always the case.

In the case of these mats if you were to add together all Mini Standard owners & all early van owners you would have a potential target customer base of maybe 50 cars in the entire world!

[HuwGreenMiniVan]

Maybe a mechanical/materials engineering student could make one as their end of course project, subsidised? Could be a good idea that to have students designing and manufacturing parts for classic cars as their final project for their course, with the help of engineering firms they might have worked for over a summer? But I might be dreaming of a perfect land there, you could say... And said moulds and specifications for materials and methods sold to the highest bidder.

[Tim]

If the mats aren't too contoured (i.e. lie flat when not in the car) it might be possible to make a mould and cast them in polyurethane yourself. You would need a near perfect one to take the mould off, then box it up and cast a mould using one of the many two part mould making silicones that are readily available now. The original wouldn't be damaged in the process. Then you'd use a two pack polyurethane rubber to cast the rubber mat from the mould. There is a big range of casting polyurethanes so it might take a while to find the best one. Without proper equipment it would be much easier to make a single sided mould and leave the back with just the natural surface finish. It would take a lot of research and testing but theoretically its possible.

Tim

[HuwGreenMiniVan]

But Tim, as Mark says, if they are too shiney, or don't feel right under the foot, the mini classic mafia might put a contract out on us...

[Tim]

That's why you have to do lots of testing. You might also want to incorporate a layer of kevlar in case the mafia try to get at you from underneath.

Tim

[HuwGreenMiniVan]

or maybe get us into a dark room and tie us up with piano wire, and force feed us the rubber mats. Stranger things have happened in the classic car world, rumour has it....

or maybe I should stop watching these certain films,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1TmeBd9338

Now I am not saying all Mini classic car enthusiasts carry on like this, well, maybe some of them...

[mk1]

I have done & still do make a lot of different RTV moulds & poly casts of one type or another. There is no way in hell that I would attempt to make an entire floor mat using this method. The chances of getting a bubble free mould are practically nil & the chances of getting a bubble free product are absolutely nil. Although the sure grade (hardness) of RTV rubber is better than it used to be & assuming you could live with the bubbles the chances of getting a durable result are also nil.

Speaking from experience RTV moulds are not the way to go on this.

[Tim]

Speaking from experience RTV moulds are not the way to go on this.

Oh well, worth a thought.

Tim

[mk1]

Tim,

I wasn't knocking your suggestion, I just didn't want anyone to waste their money trying this method.

I made a few heel mats a few years ago using the hardest RTV I could find. They looked & felt great out of the mould & stitched on very well, but a few months down the line they just started to break up. They were just not up to the sort of punishment a heel mat gets.

[Tim]

No worries Mark, it was only an idea, I'm happy to hear from someone who has tried it and failed.

Tim

[mk1]

If there's one thing I'm good at, it's failing

[towners]

Tim

hows ya french?

french ads site

http://www.leboncoin.fr/equipement_auto ... tm?ca=17_s

might be still available?

Paul

[Gray]

Air bubbles are quite easy to remove, just a matter of vacuuming the rtv before pouring then again after, the bigger problem here is the size of the mat would be hard to fit in most chambers but I have used just heavy duty plastic sheet taped over a surface before with a valve taped into to the sheet. That method we use to use on glider wings to degas the repair.

[mk1]

I know all about degassing & have made my own chamber, but making one big enough for the mat would be a "Challenge" & even if it worked OK on such a thin substrate & didn't cost about £500 in RTV rubber to do, you would still not have overcome the material strength problem.

I hope someone tries & succeeds, but having done all sorts of "similar" projects I certainly won't be trying.

Fancy a go Gray

[HuwGreenMiniVan]

Excellent ad find, towners. http://www.leboncoin.fr/equipement_auto ... tm?ca=17_s
With my school french, I just about understand the description. Google Translate is excellent for translations, and using that, this is what it says,

"Mini mk1 black plastic mats, very rare

Posted by mat mini mk1 October 22 at 10:15.

City: Lyon 69001

front carpet mk1 mini black plastic, a very rare find in this condition, ready to use, not too damaged for age .... make offer"

But wrong side of the steering wheel though.

[Gray]

It would not be the easiest mould to make but not the worst we have done by far, we use to get alot of free sample sets of silicone to test so were always a bit generous with it's use
What I found a total pain moulding was battery terminals, the lead would set as you poured it in with very little chance to get air out and that was even preheating the rtv in the oven