Two aftermarket businesses, one manufacturing problem
The remanufacturer serves vehicles the OEM abandoned: classics, commercial fleets, specialist machines. Original drawings are lost, tooling scrapped, and the reference is a sixty-year-old part in worn condition. The work starts before CAD exists, which is why platforms cannot quote it and why our reverse engineering route, scan, CMM verification, material identification, a new drawing set you own, is the natural fit. The strategy around it, batches, shelf stock, upgrading weak original designs deliberately, is our obsolete parts guide applied to vehicles.
The accessory and kit maker has drawings and a catalogue, and lives or dies on repeatability: batch fifty must fit exactly like batch one, because the fitter at the other end is a customer, not an inspector. That is a systems problem, the one our batch consistency guide dissects, and it is solved by locked process routes, named shops and inspection before dispatch, not by hope.
What we make for the aftermarket
- Remanufactured mechanical components: bushes, pins, shafts, spacers, linkage and suspension parts machined from certified stock, often in better material than the sixty-year-old original.
- Engine and drivetrain hardware: machined adaptors, plates, pulleys and housings to drawing or from sample.
- Accessory and kit components: repeat aluminium and steel parts, anodised or coated, delivered retail-ready where wanted.
- Brackets and fabricated parts: laser-cut and folded components coordinated with machining and finishing as one order.
Typical materials, part by part
The drawing decides the material. Where the only reference is a worn original, these are the usual starting points.
| Part | Typical material | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Shafts, pins and linkage parts | EN8 (080M40), EN19T (709M40) or EN24T (817M40) | Step up the grade as the load rises. |
| Gears and hard-wearing parts | EN36 (655M13) or 8620 (805M20), case hardened | Hard surface, tough core. |
| Bushes | Phosphor bronze PB102 (CW451K), or leaded gunmetal LG2 | The classic bearing bronzes, still the right choice. |
| Adaptors, plates, pulleys and housings | Aluminium 6082-T6. 7075-T6 where strength matters | 6082 anodises cleanly. 7075 is stronger and costs more. |
| Fittings, unions and small turned parts | Brass CZ121 (CW614N), EN1A (230M07) or stainless 303 | Free-machining grades keep the price down on turned parts. |
| Brackets and fabricated parts | Mild steel sheet, stainless 304 or aluminium 5251 | Laser cut and folded. The material follows the finish and the weight. |
Original drawings and parts books name EN numbers and imperial sizes. The engineering steel bar guide gives the modern names.
When a part is remade from a sample, the material is identified by PMI and hardness testing. A better modern grade is then chosen on purpose and recorded on the new drawing.
Batch economics, built for catalogue sellers
Aftermarket demand is steady but not huge, which makes the call-off structure the right machine: a production batch at batch price, delivered in catalogue-sized portions as stock runs, cash leaving as parts arrive. Quantity breaks at 1, 5, 20 and 50 come with every quote, and the honest annual usage you share shapes how the job is toleranced and priced. Reorders are the point: the drawing set, programme and fixturing stay live, so batch twelve is a purchase order, not a project.
Pricing follows our standard terms: quotes inside 48 hours, valid 14 days, held firm unless raw material moves more than 10 percent, one price for the delivered, inspected part.
Made in Britain, and it sells
For aftermarket brands, UK manufacture is not just a supply chain choice, it is copy on the product page. It also happens to be the right operational answer for this work: small batches, frequent revisions and tight fits are exactly the profile where the landed-cost maths favours staying close, and where a reject cycle of days rather than weeks protects a launch. Send a drawing, a sample, or the worn original from the shelf, and you get a straight feasibility answer within 48 hours.