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Had some minor sputtering once the car was warm when taking off at low idle. After checking valves, fuel delivery, and points/condenser/timing/distributor/coil/plugs, I made new wires. Seems to have done the trick. I changed the routing so they don’t take that hard turn between the manifolds and shroud anymore, so now they’re shorter too. I suspect I probably fouled a wire from handling them repeatedly during maintenance. Went with the same Lowbrow 8mm cloth wire, this time in black.
Y’all have a good weekend.
My car has the air vent baskets in the nostrils, but had been missing the flat screen that goes over them. I found a solid pair that were a little grungy and clean them up. I had been wanting to try DIY electroplating so I gave it a go.
Soaked the screens in straight vinegar for several days to remove the crud.
After soaking, before wire-wheeling:
I used two pieces of zinc, vinegar & salt, and a cell phone charger to make a zinc electrolyte solution. After that I connected a copper wire to the screen, then the negative side of the cell phone charger to it. Positive to the zinc bar. Placed it all in the solution and plugged it in, letting each screen go for about 45 minutes, while turning it every so often. Below the solution is cloudy from the bubbles coming off of the screen, which is the zinc being pulled to it.
The screens were sort of a flat gray color when done, and a little splotchy. A very quick pass with 000 steel wool put some shine on and evened them out.
For a first attempt I have no idea if I did this right. They look ok and appear to have a zinc coating, so I guess time will tell if it holds up.
More DIY zinc electroplating. I have a Pre-A style oil breather that uses a spring to connect the breather to the engine block. The spring was lightly coated with oil when I bought it so I knew it was raw spring steel, and over time it has developed some flash rust.
This time instead of a vinegar pre-soak I dipped it in muriatic acid – it was cleaned and etched in a matter of minutes instead of days. Neutralized with clean water, then used the same cell phone charger, zinc/vinegar/salt electrolyte, and zinc ingot bar to plate it. 20 minutes total, rotating every 5 minutes for even coating. Light polish with steel wool when done. Seems to be a easy way to refresh parts without having to send them off.
Plating process – negative side of charger connected to part that’s being plated, positive to the plating source (the zinc ingot). The bubbles are the zinc being attracted to the spring:
What the part looks like when plating is done. It’s dark b/c it’s wet; if it were to dry it would be lighter with a flat matte finish.
And after a light polishing with steel wool. It doesn’t take much….it’s more like a few passes of wiping it with the wool.
I also made some nickel and copper electrolytes, but have yet to try and plate anything with them. I’ve toyed with the idea of re-plating my copper Hurst shifter, but I’d hate to screw it up. I’m on the hunt for a cheap broken one to try it out on.
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