Socket

[mangocrazy]

As an aside, I had to get a local engineering firm to machine a 26mm impact socket down to make a special tool to remove a ring nut/castellated nut from the gearbox shafts of my Lancia Beta.

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Cost? £50 plus the cost of the impact socket (about a tenner). And that is a genuine one-off. Any kind of low volume production would reduce unit cost dramatically.

[Skub]

I have a homemade one something like that for the swingarm nut.

It isn't green though,so no one gets to see it.

[Mr. Dazzle]

Come off it; you're trying to defend the indefensible. All it needed was for Kawasaki to use a standard deep 32mm nut and then anyone could remove it with a standard 32mm impact socket and a windy gun. Instead they decided to go for a two-stage 27/32mm nut which necessitates a special tool to remove. Other than deliberately making it awkward for anyone to remove that fancy nut, tell me how that can be justified? To me that smacks of forcing Joe Punter to book their bike into a Kawasaki service centre when they need a new chain rather than being able to change it themselves.

Just speaking from my experience of actually designing loads of parts for high performance vehicles sold to the general public. As I said, you often end up squeezing weird stuff in at the end just to avoid changing a load of other stuff. I dunno if that's what Kawasaki had to do here, but IME cynical operations to force you to buy their custom tool don't really happen that much - for a start, Skub didn't actually buy this tool from Kawasaki did he?

In fact IME you go out of your way to use standard tools, I frequently refer to the snap on catalogue at work. If you commission a weird tool just for the sake of if you have to make a load of weird tools for your factory and supply at least one weird tool to evey dealer in your network. It just doesn't make financial sense, it'd take you ages to recoup that cost through more frequent customer servicing.

That's not to say weird tools aren't a thing, they're just generally a thing when there's no other option. This particular sprocket can be done up with a 27mm socket though.

And that is a genuine one-off.

No it isn't. It's a modificaiton to an existing off the shelf part. If you had to make the impact socket from scratch too as a one off it'd be ALOT more than a tenner.

Any kind of low volume production would reduce unit cost dramatically.

Generally it doesn't. Making 1 or 10 or 100 is about the same and not that expensive, making a million isn't that expensive either. Making 10,000 is where it's right in the ball achey area and costs loads.

Ive done loads of parts for cars where it's say...£1000 for one, £900 each if you make 25 and maybe £750 if you made 100. If you made a million you might do it for £75 a pop, but making 10,000 is really hard to do for much less than the £750.

[cheb]

The manufacturers might not cause you to buy the tool from them but they might just make think it's going to be too much hassle to start the job and discover you need a needlessly special tool part way through the job and therefore take it to a dealer.

Personally I subscribe to the 'Crossed off the list' theory. The manufacturer has a list of fasteners' variations of size, length and head type. As one is used it's crossed off the list and can't be used again on the same vehicle.

[mangocrazy]

Come off it; you're trying to defend the indefensible. All it needed was for Kawasaki to use a standard deep 32mm nut and then anyone could remove it with a standard 32mm impact socket and a windy gun. Instead they decided to go for a two-stage 27/32mm nut which necessitates a special tool to remove. Other than deliberately making it awkward for anyone to remove that fancy nut, tell me how that can be justified? To me that smacks of forcing Joe Punter to book their bike into a Kawasaki service centre when they need a new chain rather than being able to change it themselves.

Just speaking from my experience of actually designing loads of parts for high performance vehicles sold to the general public. As I said, you often end up squeezing weird stuff in at the end just to avoid changing a load of other stuff. I dunno if that's what Kawasaki had to do here, but IME cynical operations to force you to buy their custom tool don't really happen that much - for a start, Skub didn't actually buy this tool from Kawasaki did he?

You're completely missing my point. I didn't say it was a clever ruse to get punters to buy a special tool. I said it was a ploy to get them to get the work done at a Kawasaki service centre (that did have the special tool), thereby making it cost way more than if the punter could do it for themselves. It's akin to many modern cars having their front ends designed such that it's a dealer job to change a headlight bulb. But you knew that, already...

There is simply no other reason why Kawasaki designed that nut that way. It's not 'squeezed in', it could just as easily be a completely standard hex nut.

And that is a genuine one-off.

No it isn't. It's a modificaiton to an existing off the shelf part. If you had to make the impact socket from scratch too as a one off it'd be ALOT more than a tenner.

Yes, it would. It might double the cost

Any kind of low volume production would reduce unit cost dramatically.

Generally it doesn't. Making 1 or 10 or 100 is about the same and not that expensive, making a million isn't that expensive either. Making 10,000 is where it's right in the ball achey area and costs loads.

Ive done loads of parts for cars where it's say...£1000 for one, £900 each if you make 25 and maybe £750 if you made 100. If you made a million you might do it for £75 a pop, but making 10,000 is really hard to do for much less than the £750.

You're just pulling figures out of your arse there. How does China manage to make (for example) CNC machined handlebar levers for every bike under the sun and sell them for £20 a pair? If they could sell 10,000 of every version they make they'd be ecstatic. Even 1000 units is stretching it in many cases. And the difference in unit cost between 1 and 5 is far greater than you state. I've had laser cutting work done where the cost of 5 off is about double the cost of a single. The time and cost is in the initial setting up.

[Mr. Dazzle]

Again fella, just telling you my experience of actually working in this biz.

[Mr. Dazzle]

Personally I subscribe to the 'Crossed off the list' theory. The manufacturer has a list of fasteners' variations of size, length and head type. As one is used it's crossed off the list and can't be used again on the same vehicle.

Its generally the other way around in all seriousness. They have a bit list of bolts etc they're allowed to use and woe betide anyone who goes off piste.

It even goes as far as supercar manufacturers limiting themselves to what saloon cars use. I know at least one of them has cut a deal whereby they promise only use to bolts found on a common garden brand of car in exchange for getting prices at the common garden level.

[Mr. Dazzle]

I'm not trying to he arsey about this BTW, just trying to explain how weird shit like this happens as a result of sound logic. If you've not been through the whole experience of getting a vehicle on the road you might not be aware of the choices that are necessary and which lead to stuff like this. Theres a big big difference between stuff people make for themselves and big OEM manufacturing.

BTW the headlight thing is cause many modern units are nominally sealed for life. If you assume the headlights are sealed for life - and hence there's never any need for the punter to access them - you can fit everything under the bonnet more snugly. This has the upside of giving more boot space but the downside of requiring a dealer visit when those lights turn out to not be sealed for life....this is what I mean, its a logical decision which might not be apparent at first.

You could reasonably argue that being able to change the bulbs should be a given. Boot space sells cars, easy change bulbs generally don't. Its all a balance.

[demographic]

IIRC when Rossi went to Ducati the crew he brought with him were rather exasperated by the many differing bolt head sizes when they could have had far less sizes and still done the same job.


For my money on my KX I absolutely detest M6 Allen bolts (spit) and I'll replace any that dont have a good reason to exist with 8mm flanged head M6 bolts, just so as much as possible can be worked on with one tool.

I have a riders wrench tool that does the fork tops, the carb drain bolt, both axles and the sparkplug.
To be fair that bike is pretty minimalist anyway but I do feel that a good designer does more with less and the ones with loads of differing sizes have been designed by committee.

[Mr. Dazzle]

If you could make it so production cars only had one kind of bolt the operations department would give you free blowjobs for a month.

Not managed it yet

BTW...you want weird bolts? Mercedes F1 buy aerospace bolts that are really fucking strong but imperial sizes, then machine the heads to accept metric tools

[Skub]

BTW...you want weird bolts? Mercedes F1 buy aerospace bolts that are really fucking strong but imperial sizes, then machine the heads to accept metric tools

I can see the logic in that. The aircraft industry being primarily American,imperial bolts are the thing,so allowing the bolts to be loosened/tightened with the same kit as metric threaded bolts makes sense to me!

[Mr. Dazzle]

BTW...you want weird bolts? Mercedes F1 buy aerospace bolts that are really fucking strong but imperial sizes, then machine the heads to accept metric tools

I can see the logic in that. The aircraft industry being primarily American,imperial bolts are the thing,so allowing the bolts to be loosened/tightened with the same kit as metric threaded bolts makes sense to me!

Aye thats it.

Fucking expensive way to do it though! Of course they're not exactly short of cash.

I've still got a little insert they made for a project I worked on with them. Its a titanium insert, MJ7 thread on the outside, MJ5 on the inside, 95' countersunk head. Standard is so boring.

[demographic]

If you could make it so production cars only had one kind of bolt the operations department would give you free blowjobs for a month.

Not managed it yet

BTW...you want weird bolts? Mercedes F1 buy aerospace bolts that are really fucking strong but imperial sizes, then machine the heads to accept metric tools

Yonks ago I had the Demon Tweeks Motosport catalogue, it was chocka with imperial aerospace sized shit. All good kit but measured in Sheckles and Grote's.
That Mars Climate Rover that suffered a spontaneous unplanned rapid disassembly a few years ago gave the idea of Imperial a fucking pasting and lets face it, its only the Yanks and Liberia that still work in Imperial anyway and even most of the US engineering and science realky uses SI units.


I can sort of do both in my work but thats mostly cos plywood is made for the huge US market and we get a bit of whats left.

[Mr. Dazzle]

Imperial is literally just metric times factor...the official imperial definition now is just a metre times some number or whatever.

As skub says, its just down to aero. 737s and what not first started flying >50 years ago and they're still at it. The industry was built up by Britain and America using imperial and its generally too hard to change it now!

Everyone thinks motorsport is high tech and exotic. Its not a patch on aero IME, mostly cause aero has very very deep pockets. The high tech shit in F1 usually lags aerospace, certainly in terms of materials, coatings, machines etc. In fact they now partner each other, aero comes up with stuff then gets F1 to test it.

[MingtheMerciless]

Years ago I got a trade day ticket for Farnborough, the trade stands were fascinating. The standard of workmanship on engines etc made HRC stuff I’d seen at the NEC look distinctly proddy racer bodge by comparison. The “paddock stand” for moving F35 engines about on aircraft carriers was a bizarre high light of complex machining and beautiful welding.

[Yorick]

I was a buyer for fasteners for Lucas Aerospace in early 80s.
Everything went up in the air.

The standards were fucking tight.

[Horse]

No big bike is really "high volume" in automotive terms. High volume is >100,000 a year!

I heard, years ago, that an electronics item qualifies as 'consumer' when 5 million plus are built.

[MingtheMerciless]

On the railway we needed some new RF power transistors for a legacy radio system as they were out of production and no spares existed. We went to the original manufacturer and asked for some more to be made. They asked how many we wanted, it was 1000 (and that was vastly more than we would need), they laughed and said minimum order was 50000!

[Mr. Dazzle]

Thing is...I bet you can get one or two of those transistors - or some analogue of it which does the same job - but it'll cost you 10 times what it previously did.

Getting some prototyping firm to make one of something is generally doable, I've spent the last couple of decades either being the guy asking or the guy making. You can buy one or two of nearly anything, assuming its within the realms of technology of course.

Getting that transistors firm to run off 50,000 is also possible. But as you found out, getting 1000 is not possible.

[David]

I was a buyer for fasteners for Lucas Aerospace in early 80s.
Everything went up in the air.

The standards were fucking tight.

I worked at Light Metal Forgings in Oldbury aeons ago...they were making turbine blades, suspension legs etc.
The QC was amazing even then...but of course, if it breaks, you can't park at the side of the road and call the A.A.