SAVE THOSE OLE' STROMBERGS! Several of my old 97's had holes drilled in the top air horn. I knew that people did that to run the old gasoline heaters in their ole' Fords. I had a couple fellas say, "Ah, just run a sheet metal screw into the hole and that'll fix it!" Well, I don't particularly like the looks of a shiny hex headed screw sticking out of the top of my 97. I mean, come on, these things are legends. One of these will make a flatty pretty cool but adding more than one will make a flatty crazy cool! So, I was messing around with my Stromberg parts and happened across some little, what looked like, lead balls. Just about the right size to swag down into the hole in the air horn. As you can see, this is nothing fancy but it does "fix" the problem and retain an almost original look. I have had this carb on a running engine for over a year and it has never leaked (except in the usual places). Next time I do this, I'll glass bead the whole carb, including the repaired area. I think it will help it to blend in the color even more so. The little lead ball came from (jump in here and help me) a check valve in the 97. I happen to have some extras. I did notice, however, that some have a steel ball and some have the lead ball. I simply took a drift punch and placed it in a vise. Then I centered the air horn over the punch so that the drift punch was used as a backing device- so as to not warp the air horn. I used a nice ball peen hammer to hammer the lead ball into the hole and to try and smooit out. I should probably take a file to it but I wanted to leave the excess on it to be sure it doesn't leak. There you have it, save those 97 air horns.....
Here's the finished product....sorry the pics are crappy....... Like I said, on the next one I do, I'll try glass beading it after i swag the ball in the hole and dress it down further with a fine file.... EDIT: the one in this pic, someone drilled the hole in the other side of the float bowl......the pic up above (as you can tell) is just another air horn i had laying around and they drilled the hole in a different location...
Thanks for the info. I have several of those myself. Those gas heaters must have been pretty popular around here.
really Nice tech article .. . . but hmmmm Your stromberg looks a little different than mine? ... .. . ... .. . . .
oh yeah, well....i can idle on one side and dump nitro down the other......put some nitro on your plastic contraption!
Hey Moefuzz. Is that your SLA or did you get the pic from somewhere? If it's yours, did you have it made and do you have the CAD files? The company I work for has a SLA and I'd love to have a government job made for myself.
Come on moe, you can tell me, I wont tell That is not an easily engineered sla stromberg 97 cause you can't fake an sla? Can you? That would take considerable time and resourses to make.probaly the only one of it's kind so far Is that real or a mirage or? Do you have larger pictures, If so please pm me
Flathead Youngin, I had to re-upload the pics.... That's not a plastic contraption as per say, Mr Corn Fed and Mr Nukegm recognized what the resin 97 is. SLA or Stereolithography is a prototyping process that produces a solid 3-dimensional object from a computer 3D CAD file. The 3-D Cad File controls a motorized laser that basically heats/cures the object as it descends one slice at a time into the vat of liquid photopolymer or resin. Photpolymer is similar to film for a 35mm camera in that light imprints or cures the image. The laser beam will not penetrate down into the vat of liquid photopolymer but it will 'cure' the very top surface or 'film' of the liquid vat. The Laser follows the 3d cad design exactly and very accurately from a 90 degree position over top of the vat. The object is 'burnt' one layer at a time as the layer traces the cad file. The layers can be described as similar to a deck of cards... Once one layer is 'Burnt/Cured', the object is lowered a few thousands of an inch and the object is again covered by liquid resin. The laser then 'burns' or cures the next dimensional slice on top of the slightly submerged object. Once the object has fully descended into the vat and the laser has cured it's last 'slice', the object is carefully raised from the tank and emptied of any liquid resin then it's off to the infared oven for final hardening and cureing. The resins for this process are about $800 per gallon which translates to fairly expensive prototyping. These images were sent to me by Clive Prew in June of 2004 while he was still in the development stage of what would soon become the all new Stromberg 97's. It was mentioned at the time that the original complete Laser built 97 (as pictured) exceeded many, many thousands of dollars as a prototype. That did not include any prior research or the programing and mapping of the Cad file. Clive is not interested in selling or giving away the delicate Prototype but he was willing to send me some early prototype pics which you see now. The New 97s have been out for several years so there is no danger of giving away any patented or prototype 'trade' secrets. I thought I would share these neat pics with you guys. I do know that these prototype pics were emailed to the cad design team as well as myself in the spring of 2004. I believe that these two images in particular have not been posted anywhere on the www before. The above images are also fairly low res compared to the originals (for obvious reasons). Clive still holds the copyrights to the 3D CAD design that made this SLA Resin Prototype and the subsequent new Stromberg 97's. It is interesting to note that this resin carb should actually be capable of metering fluid and air into a proportional and accurate "fuel to air" ratio. The SLA process is accurate to .003 inches so even the threads of a small screw hole are accurate to the original item which was scanned into the cad file by a laser beam. . The pics were taken on the day that Clive returned to his office with the prototype freshly cured and out of the oven. Clive was in the midst of carefully assembling the delicate Stromberg 97 with the appropriate hardware/fittings/screws/parts that would eventually be used on the forthcoming -all new- Stromberg 97's. Clive Prew had to jump through more than a few hoops in reverse engineering the original Stromberg 97s. I do recall that the ball end of the throttle and/or choke actuating levers presented their own unique problems. The sweat was in the details all of which is history now. ...Flathead Youngin, Sorry if I sent your original tech post a curve ball, It was purely unintentional but due to the sharp eyes of Mr CornFed, a little controversy has stemmed from my innocent pics.... I hope that everybody finds the pics and story as just an interesting 'side note' to your original 97 repair article. BTW, Your cutaway of an 97 is also a neat piece of history. Cutaways of any auto related item are always a wonder to behold. I have saved your tech article and your cutaway pics into my stromberg 97 folder on my hard drive. Thanks for the excellent 97 repair article . moe .. . . .
you didn't hijack this thread.....it's nothing fancy anyway..... now that you say it, i know where i remembered seeing these photos before.......he sent me those photos too (i inquired about being a dealer).........seems like they were on his site for a while too.... that would be cool to have one of those sitting on the shelf......for whatever reason.......
Similiar pics were posted at 97 heaven but I've never seen the pic of the 97 on his desk anywhere else. You'll notice that it's got an oem cast throttle body. At that time Clive was having difficulty in forming and hardening the ball end of the lever so he didn't have a working throttle body made up yet. ...I wasn't trying to become a dealer, I was just interested in aquireing a similiar resin 97. Needless to say, the new carb was still a ways away from production so no resin 97s changed hands. (or ever will). It was interesting to see what kind of quotes people were getting from the few companies that did SLA's or Stereolithography. Small parts were fair expensive to build/prototype (small as in a 1157 light bulb or smaler), The 97 of Clives was multiple images and was hugely expensive.
Moe, thanks for clarifying. And if I might add....besides the equipment and resin being expensive, in the non-cured state is poses some health hazards and is kinda stinky. Not something very many companies want to deal with. I'd guesstimate that it'd cost at least $1000 to have that "plastic" carb made.
Bringin this thread back from the dead here. I have a few holes drilled in my 97's also, and I was wondering if these can be welded in? anyone have any experience with this?
If you want to fill a hole in an aluminum part... drill a hole, put in a piece of aluminum rod and peen it over. Then file and sand flat. You can polish the part and won't see the repair. First time I saw this done, was an old English motorcycle side cover with a hole in it. I was amazed how easy it was, and how perfect the finished part looked.
very cool thread to see, the year was 2007 and talking about semi new technology with 3d printing, the year is currently 2015 and almost everybody and their grandma has a 3d printer of some sort making all kinds of cool crap.
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