Inca rebuilds automotive fixturing

Said Mike Cain, managing director: "We had general arrangement, circuit and most key part drawings, however, due to in-use wear, modifications and service changes through the life of the units, we were involved in a considerable number of reverse engineering exercises. We also had to make full use of our machine tool build experience to ensure perfect alignment of the various datums enabling uninterrupted production to continue immediately following the shutdown." Prior to the shutdown Inca's engineers surveyed the fixtures on-site and produced as many items as possible to reduce the lead time for the rebuild. The company was totally responsible for stripping out the fixtures from the machine and shipping to the factory in Chartham, near Canterbury, and following the rebuild, return, refit, re-commission the machine and gain quality approval prior to factory start up. As part of the rebuild a complete strip down of each fixture was performed with all wear parts replaced. Location areas were either coated with ceramic or hard chromed and ground, all bearings, seals and linear ways were replaced. Each hydraulic cylinder was stripped and either refurbished or replaced, valves checked and all hoses replaced with new. Outlined Mr Cain: "The critical part of the whole operation, apart from the tight schedule, was the resetting of clamping heights which was achieved by replacing and regrinding spacers and shims against a master component and then re-aligning each fixture." Inca's engineers also had to build a test rig to power up the fixtures, check sequences and pressures and finally clamp the master components in place. The completed fixtures with master components located and clamped were then placed on Inca's large co-ordinate measuring machine and then measured to validate settings and generate a full inspection report for the customer.