For a while now, my passenger side seat-belt receptacle shattered and I haven't been able to find a replacement. The part in question is HJE7017AG. This is the rounded belt buckle receptacle. See the pictures below in this post to make sure this is yours. They are NLA from Jaguar, SNG, Welsh, and any others, and they are out of stock even with breaker sites, ebay and the forum marketplace. However, I was able to glue the part back together to a state that would allow making a replica.

Today, I found a guy who can design a new replica and 3D print it. I will remove the belt buckle receptacle mechanism that's in my car so that he can make that the part he makes works is accurate and works as intended. He quoted me $300 for designing the part. Once designed, he stated that the printing price in ASA/ABS for a single part is estimated to be between $35 and $50. He will give me the final price when he's finished the design and can work out how much they cost him to print. However, he is willing to negotiate the printing costs if it's a bulk buy. He said he can print in high quality and implied painting. However, because my part is charcoal and we don't have Sable, Oatmeal, or any others available to sample, I suggest you attempt to color match on your own after you've received the part.

If there's enough interest, I can ask him to print a batch of them, and I'll sell them to you. Given that the upfront costs are a little steeper than I thought they would be, the price set depends on my breakeven point with this initial investment. In other words, the more people are interested in this initial batch, the less I will charge per buckle. After I break-even on my initial investment, the price will be fixed at between $65 and $80 depending, based on how much he charges to print a single receptacle. A far cry from the $300+ I've seen on some sites that say the part is not in stock.

I'm sorry that I'm going to be selling these instead of giving away the STL file for free, at least initially, and I do feel guilty about that. I don't want to make this a business, but I'm still a student/resident and not making much money, so that initial investment is a little steep for me.

Please respond to this thread or PM me if you're interested in buying one. I plan on taking the parts to him on Friday, May 24 so that he can begin designing them.




You can see where mine was broken and glued back together.

 

Thanks Daniel!

To all members with 2001 thru 2006 x100s. These parts are getting almost impossible to find and if you do happen to find one you are buying a 20 year old piece of crappy plastic. Replacing the whole buckle assembly is crazy at $400 (used). Even if you don't happen to need them right now I suggest you check yours and make sure they are not cracked or have been re glued in the past. This is one of those you snooze you lose items because this part pretty much doesn't exist.

 

Do you know it is the same part for driver and passenger ?
i would take 2 but I will need to ship them to me when I will be in Florida (Destin) next septembre. If this is ok with you
Michel

 

What would be the price for left and right?

 

I had really good luck with these folk...https://octoclassic.com/product-category/jaguar
I dealt with Kamil Grochola. Not cheap, but the quality is excellent. I replaced both the seat tilt lever knobs and escutcheons on my '01 XKR and found the new parts almost indistinguishable from OEM. The AGD (Oatmeal) colour match was particularly good.

 

Yes, it's the same part for both sides. No problem, I could hold on to yours and ship them to you when you're ready.

So far, including the three of us in this thread, and the other person who PM'd me, we've got 4 people interested in the buckles. We all seem to want to have a pair of them, so that's 8 prints in total thus far.

Let's see, he said it was: between $35 - $50 per print + around $300 to model the part in CAD and get the design just right. Including you and me, there's currently 4 people interested. Each wants a pair, so that's 8 prints. That brings the price total of the order to be:

($35 x 8) + $300 ÷ 4 = $145 ; ($50 x 8) + 300 ÷ 4 = $175

Each of us would be paying around $145 to $175 in total, and each buckle shell would come out at between $72.50 - $87.50, thus far.

Obviously, if more people are interested, the amount each of us would contribute would be less. He also said that he's willing to negotiate the price of the individual prints if the batch is large enough.



Great resource! I checked their site and will surely be ordering a few things, but sadly they don't have the belt buckle.

 

I'm posting the links to the website of the guy that will be doing the design and printing. You can see some of his work in the gallery. He is a one-man company, based in San Juan Puerto Rico, not far from where I live, about a 20 minute drive. He was explaining that the costs associated with design and printing for car parts are higher than advertised on his website because these require engineering to get done right because it needs to be functional, unlike most of the art pieces in his page.

https://www.disenamepr.com/pages/gallery

 

So far, we've got 5 interested forum members, each of us wanting a pair of buckles (10 buckles). That means, that up to know, each of us would be paying

• $130 per member, that is $65 per buckle at the $35 print price or
• $160 per interested member, that is $80 per buckle at the $50 print price

Remember, these price ranges are estimates he gave me and can vary based on how much material each print actually uses. The more people are interested, the less each of us will have to pay because we can spread out the costs. Also, keep in mind, that he is willing to lower the price for a large enough batch.

Note to self, I should ask him what that threshold batch size for him to lower the print price is.

I plan on taking my parts to him on Friday. I hope I can give you more conclusive numbers soon.

 

Is by any chance he might be able to do Oatmeal color ???

 

I asked him about this and he said that the ASA plastic that he uses, which is stronger and more UV resistant than the ABS plastic Jaguar used, is by default black. He also explains that trying to color match the print is very difficult. He instead recommends painting and layering with a coat of resin or, less ideally, clear coat. He also mentioned that if he were supplied the interior paint code and attempted to paint it before shipping, this would add quite a bit to the price, to the point that it is not cost-effective for us.

 

I want to give you all an update, I was unable to take my buckle assembly to the CAD designer because I had an unexpected complication with the surgery I was doing last Friday.

I will be going this Friday instead. There is still time for more interested people to get in on this.

 

As luck would have it, I logged into the forum to see if anyone had leads on replacing the seatbelt housings since both of my have broken apart. And look what I see at the top of the forum.

If it's not too late, please sign me up for 2.

Thanks!

 

Great! You’re in luck. I’ve put you down for two!

 

Current tally is 12 buckles, that brings us to:

At:

• $35 per print: 35*12 = 420 + 300 = $720/6 = $120 for each person
  that’s $120/2 = $60 per buckle
• If at $50 per print: 50*12 = 600 + 300 = 900/6 = $150 for each person
  150/2 = $75 per buckle

I asked him about what he said about discounting the print price for a big enough batch, and he said that he discounts print prices for batch sizes of 25 or more. We are about half way to his threshold, just 6 more interested X100 owners would get us there.

 

I'd like two, please
Mike
2005 Jaguar XK8

 

Great, I've also put you down for 2.

 

Update:

I handed my buckle assembly to the 3D printing and design guy. When he was examining it he suggested modifying the design to be screw retained rather than snapping together like the OE piece. He said it would be stronger this way.

He will have to repair my part before he can begin designing a new one. He will be sending me an invoice by Monday, which should give us a more accurate idea of how much we will spend.

There is still time for more interested folks to get in on this.

 

Thank you for your work, very appreciated
Michel

 

These seem almost impossible to find anywhere.

 

The 3D printer guy got started on the design, he began scanning the part and is reinforcing it.

He's sent me an initial invoice of $400 for the design and service, a little more expensive than the original estimates. He did say that the printing price will definitely be towards the lower end of the estimates, at $35 per print.

That puts the price we will each pay, thus far at:

[($35 x 14) + 400]/7 = $127.14 for the pair
or
$63.57 for each buckle.

I have sent him payment for the design portion. He told me it will be 2 - 3 weeks before he can finalize and print this batch as he has some prior jobs he has to finish first.

This means, there is still time for more interested people to obtain theirs.

I have sent him payment for the design. When he's ready to print, I will pay him for the prints.

You will be paying me for the buckles, but as of now, I will not be collecting any money until he's ready to print to allow for more people to participate.

Remember, the more people are interested, the less we each pay.