Bright, Shiny, and Polished Objects

[andy harwood]

Since polished Lotus parts seem to be really popular here, thought I'd put up some photos of a friends bright and shiny Rod, and a couple of things he is working on. Hope you enjoy

[BDA]

I especially liked the chrome rod! But the Airstream is kind of cheating since it's already shiny!

[dakazman]

  Okay Andy you got me at shiny.
Is that 1100-h14 aluminum or steel on the rod? The airstream I know is aluminum.
Nice motor too! The picture is blurry but it looks like a three duece setup?
Dakazman

[surfguitar58]

Oooooo! Shiny...

I am in the midst of my own shine project - stripping paint and cleaning up my new (to me) 365 tranny. To my knowledge, the OEM trans was bare aluminum casting, right? (Mine was painted grey at some point.) Someone on this site polished their trans housing to a high sheen, and it looked great! But my goal is just to make the rough cast aluminum look new again.

I hit the unit with Gunk engine cleaner and pressure washed it to degrease it. Interesting the pressure washer alone took much of the paint off the bell housing, but not the transaxle. Next I painted Alumistrip (sp?) aircraft paint remover in sections and pressure washed that off, very effectively removing the paint, but leaving a weird blackened finish on the French aluminum transaxle, but not the British Aluminum (aluminium?) bell housing.

My next step, after Amazon gets here Monday, is to try Eagle One etching acid wheel cleaner, which the interweb tells me works great on alum castings. I'll post pics of the results in a new thread later.

Tom

[andy harwood]

BDA, the 'chrome' rod is polished, not chrome. the photo is from '13, at Charlotte Motor Speedway. It was a photo shoot for HotRod magazine, which did a article about the car. The Airstream, while probably shiny when new in 1960, is fairly oxidized now, and that is from the first photos Steve took of it, after a small bit of polishing.
Dazak - Both the '29 and the '32 are original steel bodies. Steve just sold the '29 a couple weeks ago. The blurry motor pic - is a reflection in the body of the '32. Is a 4 barrel intake. Steve has only got as far as #220 grit on the '32. I think he goes to #3000....
SurfGuitar, looks good! I can remember in the late '60's - early '70's using Gunk Foamy on my Triumph engine cases, and seemed to clean well, with out blackening
*photos are the 'oxidized' Airstream, and the interior of the '29. Which is a fantastic car, and a professional job too!

[dakazman]

Hey surf, were working on the same things just finished the he blasting part of the gearbox. I am going to leave it unpainted also. I tested a section of just wire brush, it looked good! The engine and bell housing is coming along being sanded to  400 . Still a ways to go.
Dakazman

[surfguitar58]

Hey surf, were working on the same things just finished the he blasting part of the gearbox. I am going to leave it unpainted also. I tested a section of just wire brush, it looked good! The engine and bell housing is coming along being sanded to  400 . Still a ways to go.
Dakazman

Looks great D'man! That is the finish I aspire to. Did you sand blast? Glass bead? Soda? Depending how my acid etch approach works out, I may be investing $60 in a Harbor Fright blast gun and a bag of grit.

I spent part of today wire brushing specs of paint the stripper missed and getting into the crevices. Two of the deeper crevices were clogged with original French casting sand from ~1972. Adding lightness!!!

Tom

[TurboFource]

When I restored our 1975 Honda QA50 I soaked the carburetor in a Pine Sol water mix and then scrubbed it with #0000 steel wool, the carb looks highly polished!

[dakazman]

 Turbo, thanks on the pine sol tip, using steel wool will buff up aluminum.

Surf , I used the 19$ harbor freight hand held wand. I use a mixture of play sand and black aluminum oxide. I have a 5 gallon paint can that I keep using over and over. I sweep it up and run it thru a screen. The media is bad to breath. I use a respirator and full face mask under a hood. I look like a sandman afterwards.
 I also have the 50 lb setup but like the small tank unit better.
After blasting I go over it with brake clean and an exacto knife to remove grease build up. Then blast again. Step 1 complete. 
Step 2 - remove burs and pry marks,  gouges from jack stands with a file or a 80 grit 2”sanding pad. Blast again to match. Brush it with a steel brush.  Done.😀
Unless you want to polish.
Dakazman

[BDA]

I would be very careful about checking for blasting media in the tranny. I remember when I was racing I brought my head to a machinist and asked if he was going to bead blast the combustion chambers (I had seen that and thought it looked cool). He said no because it was a huge pain to ensure that all the beads were out - even if he masked it really well. I didn't really believe him but I let it slide - after all, who was going to see that pretty blasted finish? Then when I was sand blasting parts for my Europa, I was amazed at how sand got EVERYWHERE! Regardless of how well I thought I had masked.

[Certified Lotus]

I would suggest never media blast anything that wasn’t going to be completely disassembled where you can not only clean with high pressure air jet afterwards but also use a solvent cleaner and then high pressure air jet clean.

If you do chance media blasting a part that is not going to be disassembled, use duct tape not masking tape to insure the best seal of areas that have access to bearings or internal parts.

[BDA]

You said it better than I, Certified. Duct tape is better than masking tape but to my mind duct tape is not insufficient. I don't know what is sufficient.

[TurboFource]

Be careful also with threaded greasy holes when blasting! Threaded holes, grease, blasting media and a tap are not a good combination!

[dakazman]

  I should have stated that also !
I am going to tear down . The seals are shot, completely dried out and in pieces.  When I blast i usually use aluminum tape not duct tape. The wood plate was put on to protect the mating surface to the bell housing since my input shaft disconnected as I previously stated. It doesn’t have any dowel to connect to main shaft.
   I may send it out for overhaul, since I do not have the tooling to do this job.  I wonder if aamco does this gearbox. I will open it up to inspect and order parts.
Dakazman

Ps  correct turbo, all threaded holes must be cleaned out with fluids and long t-pins before tapping.
Learned that the hard way years ago.

[surfguitar58]

Sounds like there are plenty of reasons to be cautious about blasting, although, do these concerns also extend to soda (baking soda?) blasting?

This may be a moot point for me as I am pretty happy with the finish I got with Eagle One etching wheel cleaner and some wire-brush and Scotchbrite pad elbow grease. The "better living through chemistry" approach also leaves all the casting marks unobscured. It appears the transaxle housing is die-cast and the bell housing is sand cast, possibly of different grades of aluminum.
Tom