TECH: Butter Dish Air Scoops for Drum Brakes

I've always liked the way air scoops look on drilled backing plates... I figured I'd try to make my own, instead of buying some nice spendy ones.

I spotted these stainless butter dishes at Target, and immediately thought it was something I could work with...
Here's what I did with a $10 butter dish and a few hours of labor...


Just what I thought... this will fit great... These are Wilson Welding's "Lincoln" backing plates.


First I cut it in half, and then trimmed it to shape...


Then I cut a piece out of the bottom tray to fill in the back...


Sorry guys, you're gonna need a TIG for this one...
I welded the filler piece in first... smoothed it all out, then drilled some holes for air flow... the smaller holes are for rivets, to fasten it to the backing plate...


Drilled the backing plate to match...



The scoop looked really cheap with the front wide open... so next, I cut a piece and filled the front in. I couldn't decide if I was going to drill holes or cut slots or what. I drilled the front full of staggered holes, but it didn't look right... so ended up cutting it out to this shape...


I figured I'd better sandwich this screen under the scoop, to keep rocks and crap out...


Here's a shot of it riveted to the backing plate-


Here's some quick mock up shots of what it looks like on there...






Still have some detail filing to do and I'll probably polish them up, once I start assembling everything... after paint and all that. Unless I come up with something else.

 

there ya go!! thats a great tech! good job!

 

THAT is fuckin' RAD!

 

nice tech!good work

 

Damn, I was hoping for something easy, this is beyond my skill level. I wonder how it would look if the edge of the crown, instead of flat, followed the radius of the backing plate, like the part with the screen? Probably hard to get it to match.

 

way cool, and very resourceful. Outstanding

 

Clever bugger!!!!!

 

I better get to Target before the rest of you buy em up. Cool idea man, looks great. I'm gonna cut slots in the fronts of mine.

 

I think it's just the angle of those pics. I tried to make it match the curve. I just beagle-eyed it though, so it could be off.

 

Looks perfect in that shot.

 

Very nice!

 

I agree. Totally fuckin' rad!

 

THAT is ingenuity! Awesome....

 

Ultra sano and thats thinkin outside the box. Well done !!

Rat

 

just be sure you don't get any butter on your brake shoes.

 

wow this is badass! killer tech post, nice craftsmanship and what a freakin mad idea! im diggin it

 

I'm going to Target!

 

Great idea... I'm gonna sneak our butter dish out to the shop when she aint lookin

 

Well done. So when some body looks back there and says "cool air scoops" are you going to nod and say "thank you" or are you going to say "Actually they started as a butter dish."

 

Thanks for the positive comments guys.

They're very easy to weld together. I just set my tig at 28 amps, no filler needed for the bottom... the front might need a little... just cut really thin strips from the left over base part with some snips, and use that for filler. I really only needed filler in one corner, where I cut it back a little too far. It blends perfect when you file it, can't see a seam at all.

I also recommend that you drill the back before you weld it... because it's hard as hell to drill it after it's together. I learned the hard way on the first one. I chewed up a couple bits drilling that stainless.

 

That is too cool, one question though did you break into a cold sweat when you drilled the holes in the backing plates?

 

Great tech post ! I'm just wondering why you didn't cut the scoops long ways and mount them like this:??? (for better cooling)

 

What's missing?
The air can't get out.
You need an exit with area at least as large as the entry, preferably into a low-pressure location. It should also be as far away from the entry as possible so the air flushes through and carries away heat.

 

Very cool...now all we need is a firewall recess made from a WOK!!!!!

 

nice job you rule

 

There are also lots of interesting shapes in stainless and cast aluminum cookware to be found at flea markets with stains, minor cosmetic damage (that scares people away from making food in them), priced just above the scrap rate.

 

Nice work! I've got a set of cast aluminum easter egg shaped cake molds in my stash I picked up for doing the same some day.

 

That's cool. I can imagine the marketing dept at Target scratching their heads over all the tattooed guys coming in buying up all the butter dishes.

PS: I like the Sears tires too (puts an image in my head of some hot rodder waiting in line behind all the Fred McMurray types driving station wagons to get tires on his car), are they still selling those or is it something from a place like Coker?

 

Dude! That is freaking tight! It goes to show what you can do with a little ingenuity. That is really cool, man.

 

Good work, I like the small scoop idea, if you found a smaller dish you could put a little exit scoop on the other side, seen that before and it looks great.