Sylex - A Long Long Journey to V8 Awesomeness!

[scott-lee]

proper job!
nice one,beats spending 3 weeks on your back,on the driveway,for sure.

[RebelV8]

Have you thought of sandblasting, if you have a compressor you can get portable sandblasters on the bay of fleas for about 30 quid

[Sylux]

I sure have. Next door have one and I can also feed their air line into mine. But at the moment this way is cheap as chips. The media for SB is a cost I don't fancy right now. But it's something I can fall back on if I get stuck

[Paul ssrg]

while youve it all stripped if you could push to getting it sandblasted dude it would be a far superior job.we get the chassis' blasted and then galvanised for about 300 euros

[Sylux]

I would but it's a cost I don't need. It won't be "far superior" though. The wire wheels are getting it back to near new. Very little pitting.

But there's no doubt a sandblast would be faster and better at the tight bits.

The rear diff, for example, will defo benefit from a blast

[Vagrant No2]

I have a diy sand blast kit I bought at a car show. It works great. I use Kiln Dried Sand like you use on driveways block paving to blast with. I buy the split bags from B&Q and re use time and time again , sieving through a colander each time. I used this on my Lotus chassis. It took 1 day to do and came out top spec.

[Sylux]

So the little nooks and crannies are near impossible with wire wheels and cups.

But a sandblasting pot has come my way for buttons (just a small one) and I have a compressor now, too Bit of fortune.

Enough power to do some blasting so I'll get the media over next week and crack on

Got all the protection stuff ages ago as I don't like crap in my lungs. Well, apart from stupid rollie smoke.

[Sylux]

Bit of a big difference since I last posted.

I was using my pot to blast the chassis and it was just too much of an effort in a very busy time in my life. 20 mins blasting and then a boring hour (plus) of cleaning up, sieving sand and repeating the whole process again.

So I took it up to a local blaster and paid him to do it he did a cracking job.

Just as I was going up to collect it someone said "why don't you get it galved?". I laughed it off, thinking it would be too much, but rang my local company just to see.

£240 is a lot of money but a fraction of what I was expecting. So I went for it!

To be fair...I'm not impressed with their work...and considering their size (Birtley Galvanizing/Expamet)...pretty ####ed that I have to do so much clean up. Never using them again.

BUT...once cleaned up it will be a bullet-proof rust resistant coating for the chassis paint to go over. The rest of the parts (wishbones, diffs etc) will be sandblasted by myself and then POR15'ed.

Next up is tapping out all of the holes filled with galv. Yay!

I'll post close-ups once cleaned up.

[budweiser]

uau! new chassis!

[galooph]

That looks great! £240 isn't bad at all – think I'll go down that route too when the time comes

[Sylux]

Well make sure you find a great galvanizer. If i could turn back time I'd save the money and crack on as planned with the POR 15.

I got carried away and don't feel too happy right now.

[galooph]

Well make sure you find a great galvanizer. If i could turn back time I'd save the money and crack on as planned with the POR 15.

A steel fabricator I know on another forum has recommended a local galvanising place, but that's a long way off. Still not got the body lifted off yet!

I got carried away and don't feel too happy right now.

[RebelV8]

We've all got carried away at some point mate. Try not to dwell on it too much, take a little time away from it, have a break from it.
Then start again. What's done is done, time to make the most of it

[scott-lee]

Well make sure you find a great galvanizer. If i could turn back time I'd save the money and crack on as planned with the POR 15.

I got carried away and don't feel too happy right now.

to be honest,simon, i've not found a decent galvaniser in all my years! they are all great at blocking holes and threads. looks the bizz,though,mate .hadn't heard from you for a while,was missing the updates!

[Karma Supra]

I got carried away and don't feel too happy right now.

Story of my life!

Looks good though!