Steve painted my 55 for me, so I'm going nuts getting the rest of it looking nice. I got the bumpers redone, cleaned up the stainless trim, and I got a new pair of small chrome air cleaners. But the wing nuts that came with the air cleaners are lame looking, and I need to seal them so water won't leak in. The solution? Make some huge nuts! Should be a fun high school shop project. I had a few inches of 1" aluminum hex stock left over from one of the kid's robot projects. I cut it in half with my old Sears King Seely band saw, then faced the cut ends in my old South Bend lathe. I center drilled one end, then drilled with the #7 drill bit 3/4" deep. I tapped with the normal 1/4-20 tap, then a bottoming tap. I make sure to use high quality old tools when I do this stuff....try finding a US made tap handle at Sears for 39 cents today? After getting the hex stock cut, faced, and tapped, I needed to taper the lower end to fit in the recess in the air cleaner top. I came up with this wacky use of the compound rest, set at 70 degrees. Hey, it works....I took off about 7 thou each cut. After finishing the machining, I wrapped some 180 grit sandpaper around a file and smoothed the tapered part, and hit the flats on the hex with the 12" disk sander. Then off to the buffing wheel for a while. Yes, I need to go out to the shop and finish the other one.
here's the "installed" picture. Can't see much of my nuts, but the rest of the car came out all right. I was gonna put the aluminum slot wheels back on it...till I noticed a good sized lump in one of the rear tires! oops. So, you get the "1979 PHR" glamor shot.
Wow!! your motivated lately. when the heck did you do that, you were here at the shop last nite at midnight, they were not on there, Looks good
Well................ I don't know if I needed to see Squirrel playing with his nuts this early in the morning................... Doc.
Made me think about the first time I took Boy Wonder squirrel hunting. We went with another dad and his boy... The first one we got was rather... um... well-endowed. Hell, that sumbitch was well-endowed compared to a Great Dane! Boy Wonder STILL laughs about that "manly squirrel." Sorry for the hijack. That air cleaner fastener is NICELY done. I like the taper on it going down into the lid. Most guys wouldn't have thought to add that detail.
Dudes, remember to keep your nuts torqued! you wouldn't want your air cleaner lid to fly off when you're motoring down some little two lane in Kansas at 65. Trust me, it'll scare the shit out of you
Well if you showed her Squirrel's nuts it's not her fault for 'Pecan' at them! BTW, nice job on the air cleaner "attachment fixture' Squirrel.
I was sitting in the passenger seat of Squirrels car when one of his huge nuts came flying at my face. I was completely unaware it was gonna be that kind of party.
Hey Squirrel, missed you at Cars in the Park, were you there? Great show! Took the '50, ran perfectly
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