Servus! (Southern German, more so Bavarian for "hello", can be used any time. Pronoucned "Zer-Voos")

After taking the throttle bodies and linkage apart, I have noticed that the materials are looking really bad. They used to be yellow (galvanized) but have badly corroded. No holes or so, but the surface isn't nice.



Painting them won't help much, as the surface will not look nice for long...

How would you treat them? I was thinking of having them galvanized (again)... Of course first blasted but I'm not sure. Chrome would be great but that is really expensive today and not many places would do that now...

So, again, how would you treat them?

Cheers

Damien

 

Daim
I do not think they were galvanised. I have an idea they are cadmium plated, which could be redone I expect.
Greg

 

Well they were definately yellow'ey when new. Like the throttle linkage rods and the fuel pressure regulator brackets. I'd like to get them back to that condition. I've just found a price list for chroming in a local company... That isn't as expensive as I thought... Hmm... Maybe it is time form some bling?

 

They would have been yellow passivated zinc. Should be easy enough to find a place that does that or you could do them yourself with a home plating setup. When l restored my xjrs l replated everything as l went. Puts the finishing touch to the job at hand.

 

I would give the DIY re-plating a try. I've heard good things.

On my car all those linkages, the throttle pedestal, etc were in poor shape. Since I was working against a strict self-imposed budget I merely used fine sandpaper and steel wool to remove the ugly stuff and bring out a uniform finish to the metal and then sprayed them with a high quality low gloss clear coat. The end result is, IMO, an attractive 'purposeful bits of machinery' appearance.

Cheers
DD

 

I'd assume they are yellow cadmium plated. Just like the "AN" aircraft grade hardware and some hardware store grade 8 type hardware. In any case you could have it replated but you would want EVERY thing apart. Look at how many pieces you really have there. Every bolt, nut, washer etc needs to be apart. Nothing still bolted together. No plastic bushings (if there are any) etc etc. I have recently had some Fairchild exclusive hardware and parts re cad plated for my Ranger aircraft engine in my Starduster Too biplane. (It's a 1940s 440ci inverted inline 6cylinder...I know not a v12 ;-) but Ranger did make a v-12 that wasn't used much in planes but has been used in some cars recently...Blastoleen (spelling?) has a really beautiful car with a Ranger v-12 in it.
Anyway the hardware came back beautiful and was only maybe $80 for a three gallon bucket size of hardware. (Price I'm sure varies around the country and world). But be very aware of hydrogen imbrittlement. After plating (this applies for chrome, cadmium, I believe zinc etc etc) you must "bake" the hydrogen out of the plated parts. I'd assume any plating company would be very aware of this but since its hardware make sure. I've heard strength can be reduced in a part by as much as 50% if the hydrogen is not properly baked out. (I'm not sure temps or time but didn't seem above what even a regular oven could do...I'm remembering hearing it's like 3 hours at 450f then so many hours at 350f then 250f for so many hours etc slowly bringing parts down to room temp.

I trusted my plating company but asked if they cook the hydrogen out to avoid any hydrogen embrittlement and he assured me he knew exactly what to do etc. just something you should ask and know if you're going to try and do this at home.

 

I'd powder coat them. Doing small parts like this is an easy DIY endeavor using a gun kit and toaster oven. You can mask off the interfacing parts with high temp tape and grease them for service. Powder coat comes in almost any color and I'm sure you can fine something chomate to match the OE look.

 

Powder coating is out of question. But I like the idea of a DIY attempt at plating it myself...

 

I'm glad you asked this question. I'll be going down this road soon.

I like Doug's idea as I've spent a lot on the engine and trans this is inexpensive.

 

Daim:


Bavarian, from sehr + a word I can't even guess at??


Why not powder coat ? My son restored an early Chris Craft cabin cruiser. The once brass plated deck hardware was sad. Powder coated in a brassy color. It looks spiffy. Mahagony, white and brass look slick together. Shoot it and bake it. He used a cast off domestic electric oven.


DIY cadmium sounds intriguing.


But, an aluminized exhaust paint looks good and would be durable in
Jaguar's version of "Death Valley".


Lotshap:


Way back when outlaw sprint cars used that big Ranger 6. A couple of decades ago, I was building a "hot" Ford "B' four banger. A guy in nearby Oakland had a side business machine shop. Old Ford stuff his
specialty. Off in a corner, I saw he longest, oddest crank shaft I had ever seen. Oh, it's a Ranger. No counter weights as I recall...


Carl

 

@ Jagcad

There is not really an explanation for "Servus". It just goes back to a time, when Bavarian was (and still is) it's own Germanic language.

Regarding powder coating:

The problem with powder coating is that is has a certain thickness resulting in possible overtightend and stiff connections (like where the "U-rod" connects the upper and lower shaft. That sits in a standard trim really tight in that area.

Powder coats are between 60 and 120 μm thick where as a galvanized part would be between 8 and 20 μm thick. Sometimes even less (down to 3 μm). So that is a very thin layer. If you then compare "rust proofness" of both, then the powder coating can rot beneath (very common on TVR chassis, with a tiny little stone chip penetrating a tiny area, the frame will rot away really quickly as there is no other form of rust proofing). On top of that, due to the heat under the bonnet and especially at the rear, it is under a high thermal stress... I'm not saying it would melt, but it can bubble up (powder coatings start to work at 110°C, before that it will start to bubble, kind of like water getting to the boiling point starting to steam).

That is a lot of work for a possible chance of having to do it all again.

I've found a company in Bremen, which will happily galvanize and/or chromatize these parts. If they chrome (possibly clear chrome aka the normal chrome you get on old US cars) well, I might actually have the entine intakes done... Though they would need a lot of manual labour to get smooth... But otherwise little parts which are normally yellow-zinc could be turned into a nice chrome... I'll have to see what it costs. As far as I have seen, they charge about €25 for 1000g of parts (sounds weird). Included is an acid treated rust removal, a few layers of copper and or nickle and so on...

Though nickle would probably be a very pleasing look to go with as well

 

I'm planning to do the same, and I will most likely use zinc plating to keep looks original, and ill most likely have it done by a local supplier. I found a good description of the DIY process in the link below, and although it seems perfectly doable it's on the other hand not that easy.

DIY - Zinc electroplating

Doing it yourself does on the other hand give you the possibility to do things step by step instead of having to batch a lot of parts...

 

[QUOTE=Daim;1579179On top of that, due to the heat under the bonnet and especially at the rear, it is under a high thermal stress...[/QUOTE]
FYI, Daim, this may be a myth. My measurements this summer actually disproved this point; on my car at least, over many measurements, speeds and conditions, the rear of the engine bay, measured in the centre of the V, just rear of the capstan, was always 6 or so degrees C cooler than the front measured just behind the aircon compressor.

That chroming price is dirt cheap, by UK standards, anyway.
Greg

 

I had your numbers in head as I wrote that, but as said, you don't need 100 degrees to let these powder coated parts bubble. Temperatures around 60°C are enough for it to get soft... And then lose its properties... That is why you don't see many engine parts which have been powder coated. Mostly eloxated or how ever it is called in English

I'll see what the chroming costs... Might be worth having everything done in chrome

 

The satisfaction of doing it yourself is immense and the convenience of "as you need it" means progress does not stop because of a bracket or such not being back from platers. Pics of my past setup and some results.

 

If you don't have time or money for this setup a temporary solution could just be cleaning and clear coating. A number of pipes on my XJS were wire-wheeled clean and then clear coated with high-temp paint. So they all just look like bare metal.

 

That looks really good. Could you reveal how you obtain the yellow finish ? I suppose the raw zinc itself will be more silvr/blue ?

 

The yellow is a simple passivate dip. Various colours available but yellow seems the most common along with blue/silver. Item is simply dipped in the passivate for a few seconds immediately after plating. It is not only decorative but also enhances the protection zinc provides.
(I am afraid i cannot recall the details of it now as it was more than a week ago l did it.)

 

Problem with clear coat is, as noted further up, the coat thickness. On top of that is the issue, that the coat will eventually turn beigey/browny after some time due to the heat and molecular structure of the paint.

Tinted paints will last longer...

As said, I'll be going to a local "galvanizer" here in my area to see what he recommends and if they can be nickled... As nickle combines both: yellowey zinc plated colour with the shiney chrome style. So that would be best of both worlds

 

Yes, that I fully accept, I am just on a mission to blow up some myths everyone thinks are true!
Not to hijack this thread, but of all the measurements I took in the summer, in my view the most significant was that the bypass oil cooler system takes 20 degrees C out of the oil and the oil temp never goes above 85C. This was a big surprise to me. And as and when the engine gets a rebuild (I am slowly gathering parts) the parts I have in stock to adapt it to full flow I shall not use as it is clearly unnecessary.
Mind you the original factory oil cooler was a very rudimentary affair consisting of a tube with steel wire loops welded to it to promote surface area. When that would not refit, the replacement I had to buy at huge cost was a far more modern multi-row cooler. It could be that with the old cooler things might have been different.
On the other hand, the old style cooler left FAR more open space for air to get directly to bottom half of the rad!
I really admire the attention to detail you put into this rebuild Daim. an example to us all!
Greg