Our Brazil trip go full force… we’re still here till end of the week and the schedules are just overfull!

Yesterday we paid a visit to the machining plant of Hübner (Auto Linea) to see how our engine cases and cylinder head been machined after the casting yesterday.

Hubner is a massive factory (I’ve been here several times before) that works real hard on larger diesel applications… The owner, by everybody known as Mr Nelson, is a Fusca lover hence he provides so many of us with high quality products to keep our Volkswagens alive…

The factory is al split up in departments what they call “families” here, well here is the VW engine and cylinder head “family”

The machining of the two cases has to be equal (both sides the same) so only can be done simultaneously…

Jerry was pretty impressed here!

After machining the cases been assembled with the necessary studs and center pens by these lovely ladies! Believe me or not they’re crazy about Fusca!

Full pallets of engine cases everywhere,

We also came here to discuss the new Magnesium case they have in the pipeline. till now all of their cases been made from aluminum.

The improvements from the original case are many… where under more material behind the pulley…

and a reinforced area behind the flywheel, where the original cases tend to crack.

as said Hübner makes a lot of heavy-duty diesel engine blocks and heads so the machines here are out of proportion… a (little) tour for your service!

Here a couple of Sunnen honing machines…

Just a drill? These run all together to drill a cylinder head at once! imagine!!

This is an alignbore machine…

Many machines need many tooling right? CNC tooling are not cheap at all, this is the capital of the company! A team of 5 people take care for only these tools!

a new CNC machine was installed, for a production for Scania of a certain motorblock for the assembly line!  is this big enough to be impressive, I used Jerry as a refence…LOL…:)

at the end there is the shipping department off course!

Mandatory lunch… and yes we still love the Churascheria (Brazilian BBQ) Thanks for the invitation Alison! I think the only vegetarians in Brazil are the cow really…:)

Alison drove us to the factory of our 6 volt voltage regulators… they gave us a very warm welcome!

Some even have  BBT sticker on their computer here, are we friends? You bet!

These are the internals of modern voltage regulators, a whole package of technology!

Production is almost clinical here, no dust allowed!! Some areas are even restricted for visitors…

Test, test, test!!! The number of test equipment here is enormous, every little step needs his own control!

In product research and development department we got simulations for our next production run of 6 volt voltage regulators, as we’re about to run out of our first production. We discussed the improvements and gave it a GO!

This is research engineering (for modern cars) unbelievable what these guys put on just a mini mini circuit board!

But also the production work is here… this is the printer of the circuit boards!! Very extremely high specialised!!

and more testing!

This is the assembly of the circuit boards, they get so small now it’s hardly impossible for humans to put them together, this machine is crazy amazing, it goes so fast! The rolls in the front are the little components….

and more testing… end control is all control as they say…

That was another day… we fly back to Sao Paolo now, for a drive to several larger factories tomorrow..

Our uncle Sammy with a big smile in an old 1951 Plymouth… Sammy is not a real Uncle, but for BBT he is… we go back a long way and Uncle takes really good care for us!!

Hey Uncle, can we drive along to our next adventures?

Tomorrow I leave the Blog for the BBT Friday product update team but will try to make another report for You on saturday and sunday!

stay tuned!!

Yesterday we visited the foundry of our trusty cylinderhead and engine case supplier Auto Linea. BBT and Auto Linea go a long way back now!

We visited their aluminum foundry, and again, this was an impressive operation!

These are some samples of products Auto Linea cast in this plant. In total Auto Linea has 4 plants..

Let’s start with the raw material, comes in like this..

and is severe tested, also with a spectrometer before it goes in to their storage… also the liquid aluminum from the foundry is tested in this lab…

Let’s start with the cylinderheads first..

This is the machine, or one of the machines to be more precisely, that make the insert sand castings.

These are those castings! Yes, its sand!! Unbelievable how nice they can form this! Do You recognise in and outlet ports?

Ok the (aluminum) soup is cooking… ready for action!!

They put the sand casting in the steel (outer) tooling and close the tooling on this machine…

and they “serve” the hot (aluminum) soup!

What they pour in the tooling…

When they re-open the tooling they get something like this…

Off course there’s massive differences in tooling, left You see an export cylinder head (like we sell) and on the right you see a way cheaper cylinderhead for the Brazilian domestic market!

The better the tooling, the better the product…

The first batch of the new tooling arrived @ BBT HQ just before we left, so anytime soon You can read on this Blog about the new Cylinderhead that’s way better as the old one…

The “cleaning” happens here before shipping the head to another plant for machining a mere 250km up north…

In the next building we could follow the process of the foundry for the engine cases.

They been made in a different way what called “a cold box”…

These are the forms…

That been filled with sand…

Very special sand that becomes hard when they spray it with a certain gas… this is how the open sand castings look… before they close them…

The (aluminum) soup is also here cooking…  time to pour it in the moulds…

and this is how it comes out of the moulds… half an engine case at the time…

after that they been shot blasted for 15 minutes in this huge machine, with stainless steel bullets…

and finally they get sorted and stored in the transport boxes to be transported up North for machining…

on the way out we spotted this TL right before the factory door…:)

The aluminum foundry of Auto Linea is in a city called Blumenau… it’s a very Germanized  city and they have the second largest Oktoberfest in the entire world. this is where the Auto Linea export team brought us for lunch…

Just wanted to share with all of You this little old German town…

Jerry seems to like serious German food…:)

and as many beers on tap as You can dream off, no, we didn’t tried them all…

For the sweeties between all of you, these was the desert buffet…:)

yes, the food is very good in Brazil…

The afternoon we had a harsh 5 hr trip up north to the city of Curitiba, we faced quiet some heavy tropical rainstorms what delayed our travel time enormously… but we did arrive safe and and sound, ready for the next…

Tomorrow we report about the machining plant of Auto Linea, been there before, but its is a massive operation I don’t mind visiting every Brazilian trip.. also to discuss production, new products and quality issues…   so… stay tuned

Yesterday Jerry and I visited a brake drum and a rubber factory in Brazil

The brake drum factory was quiet impressive as they did their own casting…

They start from scrap and ore and melt it down in kettles…

1200°Celsius… pretty hot!

To being poured in distribution kettles… this is liquid metal!

The big distribution kettle pour anothertime in smaller melting kettles…

Driving around with kettles with liquid metal… weird job they do here…:)

These kettles been pouring the liquid metal into the sand castings…

whereafter the castings going through a tunnel to “distress”…

Same time on the other side they form the sand castings…

After the distress of the  castings they been send through enormous tumblers to break the sand casting…and free the new born casted drum…

All metal is severe controlled on quality continuously throughout the whole process.. hardness, structure, graphite quotation, it’s all very closely followed up… here we see our friend Cartlos at the Spectro meter to determine the structure and exact composition of the (liquid) metal. To give You an idea all steel is at least controlled twice before they pour it!

With these raw castings as a result…

No less as 38 CNC machines take it from here to transform the raw castings into high-end brake drum and discs…

Very small series been still drilled the “conventional” way…

But most been fully CNC machined… a production of close to a million pieces a month!!

Outside it was pouring rain (and hail!!) welcome to the summer in Brazil!

Next was a rubber factory… window and door seals…

This is the components “mixer”! Very impressive!

And the rollers, to make the base rubber for the extruder…

To get the rubber to the extruders…

And this was the molding machines where they make the Beetle door and hood seals!

What a day!! Another set of lessons about the production from the spare parts for our beloved Volkswagens…

This Volkswagen Gol was waiting us to bring to next city of Blumenau

Tomorrow we visit and aluminum foundry… so stay tuned!