Thread: 41 Willys Gasser project

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Cheers Steve, dittoing your wishes. Keep up the excellent work!

That cage is a thing of beauty,Steve..Will look awesome in there..I hear you on the PC pushers regarding chrome platers,auto painting shops,etc,etc...The chroming places down here are diminishing too,,possibly for that reason,and no one wants to work,anyway...Its a specialised job,and its very hard to find a good plater now..We have one a couple of hours south of us,who does a very nice job..Hope hes still around when I start the Galaxie..

I dunno Steve---but I think that cage should be put in the showroom and you'll have to build another one for Willy.....

Ha ha ha, Dave there is no way i'm making another one, this one took way to long to finish.

Originally Posted by Dave Severson

I dunno Steve---but I think that cage should be put in the showroom and you'll have to build another one for Willy.....

Well today started off good as i got the tubes i had been waiting for to fit my new front tyres, I'm using Protrac 560 x 15's, I did try firestone 560 x 15's but for some strange reason the Protracs are 1" taller ???



I set off to the tyre fitters all excited, they took special care of the rims in fitting the tyres but on the second rim when they inflated the tyre a large piece of the bead just pinged off



Now i knew one wheel had been repaired but evidently not yery well !!!

I found someone nearby that is experienced in welding Magnesium so hopefully tomorrow it will all be repaired, The guy took one look and said someone had repaired it with ally TIG rod and it had cold cracked. He offered me some magnesium rods to do it myself but i declined as having never welded magnesium i thought practising on my wheels wasn't a great idea !!!











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Anyway here are the pics, I really like the tall look.

It's a good thing it failed now rather than when you are making a pass. Yikes!!

For sure Lynn !!!

Originally Posted by rumrumm

It's a good thing it failed now rather than when you are making a pass. Yikes!!

Wow never seen that happen before. Like Lynn said better now, then while moving at high speeds! Project is coming together nicely!

Scary stuff,steve..Nice looking wheels,too..Hope it repairs ok..

Here's one of the wheels fitted, ignore the fact i put the springs back on the wrong way round , the pins are off set and i didnt notice till it was back on the ground.

Fitting the spindle mounts did exactly what i wanted by moving the wheel inboard a few inches, the old wheels were pushed out by the adaptor in the disc kit and the answer would of been to narrow the axle slightly.

Today i took the wheel to an expert, he was a really nice bloke and even let me have a go on a scrap magnesium rim, Its very much like welding ally, except the gas mix is 50/50 argon/helium and the rod is obviously different, we used a az101 filler rod. The arc is also much shorter than aluminium and everything has to be very very clean. Also he preheated it.
I learn't a lot of this old guy today and now would'nt hesitate to have a go myself.
Unfortunately he didn't finis the job as he ran out of rods








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Well not much progress to speak of but today i'm a very happy chappy, Got a call from the wheel repairer to say my Spindle mount mag welding was done, They did an absolutely outstanding job and you would think it had never been damaged !!! They also sent it for crack testing and gave me a certificate to prove its ok.

They couldn't remachine it as their lathe was down but luckily i knew someone that had a big faceplate on a lathe, 24 hrs later it was done (thanks Brian)



Before













After

That wheel looks amazing. I guess I shouldn't expect anything less with your stuff.

Originally Posted by Rickomatic

That wheel looks amazing. I guess I shouldn't expect anything less with your stuff.

Thanks, I'm pretty pleased with it myself !!!


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did they weld up the entire area then cut it back???I wouldn't think they'd weld the part back in???

No charlie they built it all up with magnesium rod, the broken part was aluminium, that was the original problem.

Originally Posted by cffisher

did they weld up the entire area then cut it back???I wouldn't think they'd weld the part back in???