Please excuse me if this is taking coal to Newcastle, but don't forget a quality moly lube on all your stainless chassis bolts. Nothing worse than having to cut your stainless apart because it has galled (cold pressure welded) together. Ask me how I know... P.s. I'm going to hide under the bed until I've completely re-thought my T ideas.
Tony i might have to rethink the 58 chevy bezels as the chrome shop tried to replate but they are too thin in places, I need another pair if you know of any ??? I don't think repro's are available ??? Yes the master cylinder was rough cast but to be honest didn't take much work to get smooth.
I lube all my bolts even the steel ones thanks for pointing it out as not everybody knows. Don't hide but get a build thread going, We all like piccys and build threads
There is no such thing as too thin to rechrome. It just needs some heavy copper plating to thicken it up first.
Josh i know what your saying but these have been rechromed before and badly, In the corners there are pinholes where they have been polished to death in the past, didn't notice till they were stripped
Hi Langy, I got two from the states,one in good,(still Pitted condition),the other was suppose to have a small dent. Well after unwrapping them and finding that the one that had the dent in it also twisted it.AAAAAAH. Made some plates up and some 3"exhaust pipe 75mm long put a plate on the bottom and placed the exhaust pipe in the tailight pods.Placed the top 1/2"plate on top warmed it up with an LPG burner and just clamped them together with some big G clamps,not twisted any more.You can repair pot metal,cooool. If this didn't work I had already tailked to Neil out at the foundry where I get my CARTER COMPONENTS cast up and we were talking about casting one up off the GOOD one. http://s219.photobucket.com/albums/cc214/32OLDSTER/ Trouble was is that it is POT Metal,or Die Cast.This is done with a two part mould.What Neil suggested was to fill the inside wall of the tailight up to the thickness of 3mm.Then you can sand cast them. All the release angles are already there,designed and machines into it. This is how my Carter Hot Rod Parts have been done.Sand casting you can only use the sand once so it is only good for low production stuff.But I have made many moulds for my car and are one ofs. To put a little skim of filler inside your good tailight even snad and prime the pits up on the outside and then cast up some new ones.The part will only come out as good as the mould. More fun for you Steve enjoy.I hope this helps you out.
Pot metal can be cast in a suitable RTV silicone mould, because of the relatively low temperature it is cast at. That would save you the trouble of filling the back to make a mould for sand casting. The only issue with casting new ones (regardless of method) is that they will be a little smaller than the original.
Tony i'm investigating getting them cast at the moment, I've found a very good guy that can do them, just have to work out the cost, I may still remake them in stainless, just weighing up my options
Yes thats right nofin, you have to allow for shrinkage, in sand casting.Or any other casting,beware Steve the Caddy tailights are a nice neat fit now if you cast em up they will definately shrink and you wont be able to fit the Caddy tailights back in unless you machine the Bezels back out to clear the 59 tailights. I had a few dramas with that when I first started making my CARTER HOT ROD COMPONENTS. Something that size,which is the same size as my Diff Covers I make,shrinks about 2 to 3 mm over the entire length.Careful this is only a guide the shape and metal thichness can make it vary. My CARTER STYLE WINDSCREENS shrink over 10 mm.AAAAH yep I got a shock at that one.I had to totally remake the mould.lots of fun. That is a 9" Diff cover next to my name at the top of the screen. Dresses up the back of my Hot Rod Diff with out spending $8,000 on a Quick Change diff that I will never jump under and change the ratio in anyway.
Yesterday was such a nice day I decided it was time i cleaned my block ready for reboring and hot tanking, Put it on a stand and first job was to remove the various core plugs and gallery plugs and then started zip wheeling the crud off, The caddy block is a high nickel block and quite a good smooth casting, They don't rev very high in normal operation so are not generally worn even after high mileage, I'm boring it 60 thou but decided to mic up the bores and lifter bores etc etc anyway out of interest, I don't know how many miles it had done but there was nothing wrong with the bores at all, they all measured stock with no ovality at all, amazing !!! Shame to bore it really. Once the crap was off I started to smooth the various casting flash off but got sort of carried away anyway here it is roughed out, just needs a going over with a finer flap wheel and a few corners to smooth out and it should look nice painted. . <!-- / message --><!-- sig -->
WOW you do some nice work! I am impressed. That T is one bad ass looking ride,makes mine look like a pile of shit,LOL. Stainless steel is forever.
sorta got carried away...hahahahahah per usual, looks killer and since im curious, how many hours do you have in it to the rough stage?
Turned stainless steel rings in the backing plates! Now that is detail and very impressive! I love this build my favorite hands down.
Not as many as i thought i would have, done 4 hours yesterday, I reckon on about 6 more hours should see it smooth enough for paint. The worse bit is the corners, die grinder with tungsten burr gets most of the uneveness and then i finish off with pointed felts with 120 grit on them. i reckon it will look good in the same Off white as the master cylinder or possibly Copper flake, I can't decide at the moment
I got my steering box bits back from the platers today so bolted it back together, The sector shaft is missing as i'm using a cowl steer setup and it needs to be 5" longer, Its hardened so Steve (rusty coupe) is turning the relevant ends on it as my lathe tooling wouldn't touch it Its a series 2 Land Rover box which will be mounted on my interior steel framework, the extended sector shaft is supported at the cowl side by a flanged 1" bore rose bearing which again will bolt to the steel frame. It was in pretty good condition when i got it so just needed a good clean out, a couple of new seals and adjusting correctly. Outer column is the original land rover with a stainless tube slid over the top, inner column is again land rover, both will be shortened the required amount when mounted. The rough casing was smoothed off with a tungsten burr in a die grinder, a normal grinder and flap disc and small flap wheels for the corners, It then got 3 coats of black 2 pack epoxy primer and finally 2 coats of 2 pack Off white, Bolts replaced with polished stainless and cover and end plates chromed.
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