Our family car has a roll-up trunk cover which protects its contents from prying eyes. The sliding mechanism relies on two pins, protruding from brackets in the cover, to slide forward and backward within the trunk.

Recently one of the pins broke and I replaced it with a 3d printed part.

No affordable replacement

I searched online for just the bracket but couldn’t find it. The entire cover OEM assembly was $150. Looking on Amazon, knock-offs were $60, but I already tried them before and knew they are very flimsy.

Design

It took less than two hours to remove original bracket, dimension it and design in FreeCad a functionally equivalent replacement. After three design+print iterations, it fit perfectly.

Most of the time was spent getting the dimensions right, ensuring openings are big enough, but not a loose fit. Pin length, position and shape also needed to be precise.

The grain and layers of the extrusion process are aligned with workloads in tension, maximizing the strength of the piece.

Sharing

If you are in a similar predicament, you can print your own bracket for <$0.20 - I shared it on: thingiverse.