3D Printing is a great way to make small useful parts to keep your Land Rover or Range Rover going. Think lost push pin on a trail, easily print one when you get home. Blend motor broken, print the gear that will fix it versus the $240 part. Broken Window Motor… I could go on.

I recently did a write up for tunedmercedes.com, for a very similar purpose to demonstrate, useful 3D printed parts for enthusiasts. You can download your own, design them, scan existing parts and print those or upgrade those. Honestly there is a lot of area for an enthusiast to keep their car running well, and maybe make some money by preparing upgraded parts.

Some Example of Useful Parts off of Thingiverse

RRS Snorkel
P38a Visor Clip
RRC Vent
P38a I believe Knob for armrest
P38a Blend Motor Gears
RR Center Hub
Push Clip For Cowl

Various filaments and printing settings like infills will be needed. At this point 3D printing is a skill. Unlike hitting the airprint button off of iOS device, there will be settings and testing.

For anything that uses torsional compression, like a door or visor clip, I would suggest not using PLA, instead using PETG or similar. While PLA is easier to print, it can also deform. With non-deforming filaments such as PETG ABS these filaments an enclosure or all metal head is often needed to support good prints with the higher temperatures needed. Sometimes a big garbage bag can be useful to put around an ender to experiment until you build out an enclosure or buy a unit that has one.

For printing anything in the engine area or near heat carbon fiber reinforced filament is suggested. For example I’ve seen VRP make intake pieces for tuned mercedes out of carbon filament. For carbon filaments, a hardened nozzle is often useful.

When purchasing a 3D printer the two routes to go imho, are something like an Ender 5 Plus, and upgrade it. Or get a prusa for good printing out of the box.

When upgrading a printer, for example hardened nozzle or an all metal hotend, or I’ll look to see what name people are doing, then buy the copy to test out the design. If it works well but is obvious to be improved by build quality, I’ll then upgrade to the name brand upgraded part (e.g. Microswiss hotend vs Microswiss style).

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