Innovative Design Wins Customer Approval
An E.R. Wagner Engineered Products Division hinge design, development and manufacturing proposal has been approved for full production by a major USA pick-up truck manufacturer. The approved version is a low profile, inconspicuous and robust hinge system with a solid tether.

E.R. Wagner was approached with a concept for an integrated storage system hinge. The original concept needed to rotate an external lid 90 degrees and hold the lid open at 90 degrees. Our engineers were intimately involved in the design, development and testing cycle. There were dozens of design iterations as the E.R. Wagner engineering staff worked seamlessly with the customer. Design Engineer Nate Duncan explained, “We started by looking at a piano style hinge and moved on to a linkage system. From there we looked at an enclosed stamped assembly and finally a ‘low profile’ style hinge.” This version was further developed to accommodate a positive stop and torsion bar system. The hinge was modified structurally to maximize its strength and to reduce potential stress hot spots. A large pivot pin head was added make the hinge more aesthetically appealing. This design allowed the customer to fully integrate a storage system into the truck box.

                         

To further enhance your product design and innovation, please contact E.R. Wagner Engineered Products Division at 800-558-5596 and ask for Nate Duncan.

Unlike the automotive market, where changes seem to make news every year, heavy truck makers expect suppliers to provide high-quality components that assure their models will perform reliably year after year. Rapid change is unusual, but when businesses change hands, suppliers can find themselves scrambling.

Such was the case when a well-known heavy truck maker purchased a line of heavy-duty trucks from another major manufacturer. Some very old tooling was part of the deal, and E.R. Wagner (which has worked with other divisions of the truck maker for many years) was charged with making the old tooling meet new parameters.

"Our customer inherited a basic truck design and a lot of their suppliers," explains Jim Kasper, E.R. Wagner Engineered Products Sales Manager. "When the supplier of a heavy-duty door hinge started having difficulties, they turned to us."

A deal was struck, and E.R. Wagner acquired all of the old tooling, as well as mills and drills for machining the parts. Wagner engineers had their hands full, and faced "more issues with the tooling and equipment than we ever anticipated," Kasper explains.

Upgrading and refurbishing the old equipment required a significant investment of time and money, but it helped support a customer through a difficult transition. E.R. Wagner continues to invest in this product to improve the performance and cost for our customer.

The classic American "muscle car": Big power and performance, limited on interior space for passengers and cargo. These high-performance machines provide the closest thing possible to a pure driving experience – and the snug two-seat cockpit is a part of that. Even simple "luxuries" must be as streamlined as the car itself.

So when the manufacturer of one of the most legendary models of them all wanted an interior console lid that folded neatly out of the way when not in use, E.R. Wagner designed a hinge that rises to the challenge.

"This is a hinge that lifts and rotates the console within the same space as it stows, similar to some cabinet hinges," explains Dan Danoski, E.R. Wagner Engineered Products Engineering Manager. "It makes very efficient use of the available space – and is more complicated to develop than it looks."

The basic design is called a "four-bar hinge," Danoski says, similar to what you find on cabinet doors that lift out as they are opened. But this one was designed specifically for the console application – in close cooperation with the company that supplies the console to the automaker.

"E.R. Wagner had primary responsibility for the hinge's design, and our engineering team was involved very early in the design of the console itself. We provided CAD drawings and produced a number of prototypes before going to production tooling." In addition to the space requirements, the new hinge needed to provide a smooth, solid action. In other words, it had to be "high performance." Just like the world-famous automobile it was destined to become a part of.