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Ok, got the final quote. This is a go for sure. But they are really busy now and it could take around 10 weeks to get it done. Calling them in the morning to arrange the initial payment.

You da man

Great news, the cutting of the mold steel is starting.

Here is a pic of the raw steel parts and a bulkhead to give you idea of mold size.

So think on track for late February - March time frame hopefully.

Dan

Looking good. Cant wait.

Here is the first pic of the cutting.

This the under side of the part, forms the inner cavity inside the bulkhead.

Machining pr0n!

Those bulkheads are the reason I have ended up selling my xx's. I used to race the xx bitd, and would love to have one now as a runner. But the damned front bulkhead is like Achilles heel on that car. When production starts on these, I will most definitely be finding another xx to run! Great to see all the support for this part. I saw on another thread that you'd like to have another parts to share the mold? Why not the jrx series front bulkhead? Those are also hard to find and expensive as hell when they are available!

To late to add anything to the mold at this point. When this process started the Jrx bulkhead was not that rare. In fact, until last February you could still get them at Horizon. What a difference a year makes. It is on the short list of parts to remake.

Ok latest update, the mold is pretty much complete.

They will do a test run of parts in about 2 weeks. So looks like March for sure and I suppose it could slip to April if any issues come up.

Picture of the mold so far.

mytimac wrote:Picture of the mold so far.

Looking good.....! This probably explains the recent increase of XX front bulkhead's that I've seen on eBay......everyone's trying to off-load while they can.....and who can blame them? This new mould for the bulkhead will keep the XX/T going for many years to come!

cant wait either, of the xx and 2 xxt's i got i had 1 good bulkhead, (and 1 good chassis brace thats a mint also). cant wait to rebuild these cars with the new bulkheads.

Wow - just caught up with this thread! Max Kudos to Dan for getting this done for us all - I think you will have singlehandedly saved the XX from permanent retirement on our shelves & keep them on the track where these excellent buggies are at their best!

I actually have a stock of two of the original black bulkhead which I managed to pick up for the RRP - but I shall still buy one of these reproduction as i'm sure it will be stronger. Its funny actually cos in all my years of running a XX Bitd I had never broken a front bulkhead!

My sample parts are complete, so Monday I go to the plant and test the fit of the parts. If everything is good, then I write them another big check to start full production. At that point I will get a more exact date on production as well. So next week look for some more pictures.

Well got to see the sample run of parts today. The good news is that all the parts fit together with the new bulkhead.

But there was some bad news unfortunately. While the bulkhead would be useable in its current form, it is not up to my standards right now. Some place during production they made a mistake in the upper brace hinge pin hole. The hole is far too close to the top.(see the picture below) This means there is even less nylon material than the originals between the hole and the top. We all know that for the XX bulkhead that is in exactly its achilles heal. No point making the part that is going to be for sure worse than the original.

So they are going to go back and review what happened and try to get it fixed. It could be that the hole is in the wrong spot or that they didn't make the top of the part deep enough in the mold so that there is enough material flowing into that spot in the mold.

The guy at the plant who is the pro for this stuff is going to be out hiking in the Utah desert and won't be back into work until the 24th of March.

So it looks like it won't make a March release, it will be at least April for sure.

Sorry for getting everyones hopes up for March.


Dan