real talent
Right but did I say I was surprised? A lot of vans are built that way too. The difference is that I let the drive-line offset influence body lines which is what I was explaining. The wheel and the bow & arrow must have been developed independently in different areas only because the designs totally make sense.
Hi Wil, Everything looks factory fresh. Awesome! What exactly is electroless nickel. I am aware that yellow zinc chromate is marginal plating at best, and very short llived. How does the nickel plating compare? Ciao, George
Electroless plating is a chemical process and, as the name implies, is done without an electric current in the plating bath. Since electricity tends to take the shortest path, electro-plating has a tendency to build up heavy in some areas and sometimes VERY thin in other areas, such as in holes and pockets, of a part. Electroless nickel is deposited in a very consistent layer all over the part. I mostly used electroless nickel though because I like the look and feel of the finish. It has a nice vintage look. Chrome plating has been overdone and tends to look cheap in my opinion. The electroless plating we've had done for restoration jobs is holding up well as far as we know. Of course most of those cars are treated better by their owners (almost) than their children. A lot of cars which came new with yellow chomate plating on engine compartment hardware and components we not treated as well so making a fair comparison is difficult.
Hi Wil, To add to George's question - does this plating process leave a gold or silver tint to the parts? Thanks, Mike. PS. Magnificent job by the way!
Thanks for the compliment. I just looked at the photos I posted and I guess they do have a yellow cast but that is just reflection. The actual tint of the electroless nickel on the parts is definitely silver.
We use this process all the time in the restoration of '30s era motorcycles. The beauty of this plating is the control the plater can have with the thickness. Usually is no problem to have both a nut, and a bolt done with the electroless nickle process, and they will still screw together w/o any labor. I find the finish very appealing, and much more rugged than cadmium plating. I still can't get over how much of a marvel this car is. Thanks so much for keeping us all in the loop. RF.
Yeah, electroless nickel is great stuff. I love old motorcycles too. Last summer we had a motorcycle festival here in the middle of down-town of little Frenchtown, NJ and we had 3 four-cylinder Indians and all kinds of other cool bikes. Would love to restore one but got to keep focused on this project or it won't get done. We're getting close though. Thanks for your interest and enthusiasm.
Thanks Wil for sharing. Many parts that have a good nickel plating polish up nicely to a chrome finish. When powder coated in a translucent gold, it mimics the original yellow zinc chromate fairly well with the added benefit of very high durability. However, when the plating is worn off, the metal will not polish up very well, nor will the powder coat look good. I am eager to try this electroless nickel plating. PM sent. Ciao, George
t A lot of the expense in chroming comes from the labor required to polish the parts before plating and good chrome plating gets a layer of copper and then a layer of nickel first. The chrome is applied over the nickel as a hard surface since nickel is soft. Electroless nickel has a softer shine than electroplated nickel and is normally applied to un-polished parts. Shining the nickel up is kind of missing the point. Unless the parts are polished first, you won't get the effect of good chrome plating anyway. Also, with with good chrome plating the first layer of copper is often used to fill voids and pits and then polished flat to help smooth the surface of a part. Nickel by itself won't do that. Basically, except for filing burs off of parts, you generally accept the way a part appears and you have it electroless plated to give the parts a little warm shine and rust protection.
Looks like I will have to stick with Plan A. BTW, you just havn't seen me in action with a Dremil tool and metal polishing compound, have you? Ciao, George
Car pushed out of the body shop this morning. Only the deck lid remains to be put in primer. I can't wait to see colour on the car. Soon. Image Unavailable, Please Login
The car looks great even before any paint. It will take years to get the grin off of your face after you finally drive, even with the stock engine. I can't begin to imagine what it will be like when you put outrageous power in the engine bay. Keep all of us fans regularly informed as I'm sure that I speak for all of us in saying it has been a delight to see the creation and progress of your marvelous project. I hope to get a chance to see it in person when everything is done and finished. Elliot Siegel
Stunning interpretation - lovely design. The only thing I would change (oh dear here we go) are the wheels. I think wire wheels would work well. Just beautiful. Mike.
The DCNF Webers cleaned up faily nicely and I like how the electroless nickel plated parts look on there. The "choke" mechanisms just create problems so they were eliminated and replaced with aluminum covers. The missing piece of flange on the back velocity stack is for intake plenum clearance. The heads cleaned up nicely also. All the old chipped up black wrinkle paint was chemically stripped and then the heads were media blasted with crushed walnut shells. I plan to keep them bare metal and I think I'll paint the cam covers body color. When I bought the donor car I could tell from the compression test that it was suffering from a sticking valve. Sure enough, all the intake valves were very tight in the guides and the guides had to be reamed to improve the fit. The intake valves themselves were still in remarkably good shape but they took a spin in the valve grinder anyway to clean the sealing surfaces up. The exhaust valves were quite pitted (see left valve in photo 3 which is a before and after shot) but the stems were still in pretty good shape inspite of the exhaust valve guide wear. I usually like to get all new stainless valves but since the old valves weren't too bad they got re-used. I don't have an unlimited budget. The exhaust valve guides will be knurled and reamed to tighten them up (not too much). Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Mike, Thank you for the compliments. You're not the first to make the wire wheel comment. The spoke design of the aluminum HRE wheels was chosen to pay homage to the old wire wheels. This car has big modern tires and brakes so it really needed big modern wheels too.
This guy custom builds velocity stack "tea strainer" air cleaners; http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Weber-48-IDA-Velocity-Stack-Filters-Complete-V8-Set-_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQhashZitem51988aa2d7QQitemZ350451573463QQptZMotorsQ5fCarQ5fTruckQ5fPartsQ5fAccessories Would look wicked on your carbs.
Yeah, something like that WOULD look good and would serve a function too. I've sent him a note to see if he has the screens for DCNF Webers. Thanks for sending the link!
Wow, now I understand why you chopped off the exhaust where you did. It was probably just to get the engine out of the car!!!!!!!! I was finally able to attack my QP today, and managed to get the power train laying on the ground. What a beast! Since I'm doing things on the cheap, I may just chop off the front stub frame, and use that for my "special". I'm not anywhere near prepared to start this project, but I couldn't pass up the opportunity when the QP suddenly became available! Wondering of you any shots of your frame being built? Many Thanks for your sharing you project with us all. RF.
It's a bit late for this advise now but if you're taking the engine apart anyway, removing it can be made easier by first removing the cylinder heads, with the header pipes attached, while the engine is still in the car. Yeah, I suppose you COULD just cut the whole front sub-frame out of the car and use it as the starting point for a new chassis. If you want to keep the weight down you're better off just carefully measuring the pick-up points for the suspension and steering rack and starting the whole new chassis from scratch. The pictures I posted on the thread are pretty much all I have. There are quite a few views of the complete chassis you can look at though. I started with the 2X2 square tube that holds the forward lower pick-up points for the front suspension and worked my way back but not before making drawings of the main chassis members and all the pick-up points and building an assembly jig for the bottom members of the new chassis. There's an interesting book from England on how to build a home-made Lotus Seven type car. It's not what I used to build my car and it will not tell you how to build your car but it's very inspirational and shows some techniques for making simple, low cost welding jigs for building a tubular chassis. It's called Build Your Own Sports Car by Ron Champion. It's published by Haynes.
I dont think that wire wheels could handle what power and torque your going to be putting out. The HRE' s look just great and do what you wanted them to just fine( older style /newer design).IMO. Now we"ll have to wait and schedule our calendars for your appearances at some shows? hint, hint...looking fantastic!!
Unfortunately, with everything else we've got going on, the car will not be ready for any shows this year I think but I hope to show it quite a bit next year. I guess I should certainly post show dates and locations on this thread. Thanks for bringing that up. I hadn't really thought about anouncements yet. I guess I'll have to figure out what shows will accept the car.
