FIRST FABRICATION

I was ready to put Alphie on the rotisserie until I saw this.

Page Eight:  Finally Fabricating!

I decided to spit Alphie like a roasting pig on my Homemade-Harbor-Freight-Engine-Stand-Rotisserie.  I modified the engine stands and got the rotisserie ready to mount an Alpine (that blog post is coming, soon).  But, when I looked into where to affix rotisserie to car, I found the front bumper mounts at the tips of the frame rails were No Bueno!  Rusty with stripped threads and someone had welded nuts to the ends to mount the front bumper, like I said, No Bueno!  FABRICATION BABY!  I’ve been waiting for this!

Shiny New Frame Rail Tips

My new fabrication bench, complete with sheet metal brake, lots-o-new metal fab trinkets and such kit, gets its first test!

I need to make one of these.  (From the Organ Donor)

Step One:  Trot out to the Organ Donor and rip off the passenger-side frame rail tip - by hand, no tools needed!  Yep, it is that rusty.  The avulsed (vocab word of the day) rail tip gives me something to measure without climbing under Alphie hundreds of times.  It also shows me how the Rootes folks put it together. 

I’m admitting here, without shame or apology, that I’m completely metric when I’m fabricating.  I can tell you exactly what half of 950mm is.  Don’t forget, I am an English teacher by trade.  I have no idea what half of 1 7/8” is.  No hate!

Step Two:  Destroy several file folders!  I saw this trick somewhere; make templates from file folders.  File folders are cheap, and I have tons of them laying around. 

Generically, the steps are 1) measure the dingus (many times), 2) transfer the measurements to a file folder, 3) cut the file folder to the shape, 4) trace the file folder template onto sheet metal, 5) cut the sheet metal to shape, 6) bend it, 7) weld it and 8) BAM! A new dingus!  (There are many other fiddly tasks, along with some screwing up, but those are the basic steps.)

The frame is made of boxed sheet metal (14 or 16 gauge depending), so I made two file folder templates: one for the inner frame and one for the outer frame.  Check out the pics of the file folder templates and the cut sheet metal cut from the template.  The templates work for the left and right sides; all I had to do was make the bends in opposite directions.

File Folder Template transferred to sheet metal.  The red lines have scribe marks showing bend locations

Sub-Problem One - Jack points:  Alpines use, as I see it, the sketchiest method of jacking the car on the side of a motorway.  I’m sure it works fine as long as you’re on a perfectly flat, level and dry concrete surface, but nowhere else.  The Rootes-provided “jack” uses an upward-angled, square stock gizmo that fits into an equally upward-angled square hole located just under the bumper attachment point.  A chap is to slide the jack’s angled proboscis into the square hole and, using the lug wrench, crank the nut on top of the jack to raise the tire off the (we’ll say) earth.  (Check out the pic of the “jack’s” base – a measly 2” diameter disc guaranteed to sink into anything less that Sahara-dry soil.  Best case: only have tire troubles in dry car parks (parking lots, to us yanks.) 

My generous description for this whole setup is “teetery”.  I suspect that, back in the day, smart Alpine owners bought a scissor jack on the way home from the dealership and chucked it in the boot.  Oh, and never, no matter the emergency, put any part of anyone’s body under an Alpine when it is precariously propped on its factory jack!

The Rootes Jack - Just don't use it!

But, in the spirit of authenticity, I must recreate the jacking point on my new frame rail tips.  To wit, I picked up some 1” ID square stock, which fits perfectly over the Rootes disability-waiting-to-happen jack’s prong.  I decided that the square stock needed some reinforcement so I welded a strip of 1” flat steel stock to the top of it.  You can’t see the reinforcement in the finished rail tip.  At any rate, I plan to keep a scissor jack in the boot.  The Rootes jack is only for show and/or demonstration purposes.

Sub-Problem Two – Substantial attachment points:  The Rootes folk used a ½” fine thread (of course!) captured nut for the bumper bolt.  I feared that I would need something more substantial for the rotisserie attachment point.  I discovered that “coupling nuts” exist and are used to connect pieces of all-thread together.  Of course, no big box store has ½” coupling nuts, so to the internet! 

Bolt Depot gets a shout out here – I love ‘em; they have everything.  I ordered four ½” fine thread (they had fine thread, a strike for authenticity) coupling nuts along with a length of ½” fine thread all-thread that I’ll use to attach a 2X6 to the bumper attachments and then the engine stand plate to the 2X6.

Step Three:  Cut out the sheet metal!  I did all the tweaking on the file folder templates.  (It took a couple tries.)  Next, I made the bends in the templates and matched them to the frame tip I yanked from the Organ Donor.  I only had to cut the sheet metal once!  Each piece bent up exactly like the template!  No wasted sheet metal!  (OK, a small confession:  the first inner frame rail piece I bent in the wrong direction.  I was making the right tip, and I bent the piece in direction needed for the left side.  No worries, I saved it to for the left tip!)

The front piece before I welded the coupling nut

Step Four:  Welding!  First, I welded the coupling nut to the front piece.  The front piece is a rectangular piece of sheet metal that I cut and bent to fit over the opening of the boxed frame rail (see the pics).  Once the front piece was formed and fitted to the frame opening, I drilled a ½” hole in the center of the front piece.  I grabbed a ½” bumper bolt, a washer and a nut, and secured the coupling nut to the inner part of the front piece.  Then welded the coupling nut to the front piece. 

All the pieces ready for welding - also the original and the left side rail tip welded up.

I drilled holes in the side of the sheet metal where the piece of square stock rests and fill-welded each hole.  Fill-welds simulate spot welds, are just as effective and a great way to glue together sheet metal where it overlaps.

When the 16-gauge sheet metal is bent to shape and welded, it’s quite robust.

Yours truly burning some wire!

Step Five – Grinding and priming:  I’m using flux core wire in my MIG welder so the welds aren’t exactly stacked-nickels clean.  The flux core wire leaves copious spatter and ragged surfaces.  (I’m learning to weld during this project, so it’s not all the machine’s fault.)

I have a myriad of grinding apparatus, both electric and pneumatic, and trusty hand files too.  With some self-etching primer, the pieces are ready to weld on to Alphie.

Step Six – Getting the tips even!  Step six requires many trips under and out from under Alphie to measure, measure, measure!  I’m looking for a fixed point on each frame rail where I can consistently measure to the rail tip for a definitive length. 

Once I build up the courage to cut the frame rails, I’ll measure from my fixed points to get a consistent distance to the tip of each rail.  I’ll spot weld each tip to its rail and measure a few hundred times more before I stitch the welds together and grind it all smooth.  I plan to fill-weld some scab plates inside the box frame at the junction where each tip meets its frame rail.  All part of my build-to-110% plan.  I will take it as a win if the frame tips don’t bend while I’m rotating Alphie around on her rotisserie.

If they do bend, I’ll throw a proper wobbly!  (Gratuitous Britishism for this post!  I’m rather chuffed I found a way to use it:)

Welded and ground down.  All it needs now is primer, paint and to be installed in Alphie.

Next Up:  Roasting an Alpine!

Captain's Log, Supplemental – Fitting the Shiny New Frame Tips

The frame tips are fabbed up, and they are a cracking bit of kit, in my (somewhat) humble opinion.  The problem is gluing them to the end of the frame rails.  Simply butt-welding sheet metal to sheet metal will not be strong enough.  The tips will bend/break when they hold Alphie’s weight on the rotisserie, not to mention if she takes a future shot to the bumper, perish the thought!

Like I mentioned in the previous post, my first thought was to scab in some sheet metal rectangles and fill weld them to the inside of the frame and to my spanking new tips, a fairly solid plan but…

A Flash of Duh!

At about 2AM one morning, a couple of things occurred to me:

1) I used 1X1 square stock tube steel to recreate the teetery Rootes jack points, which means…

The tip with the 1X1 fill-welded into place

2) The interior width of the frame rail is 1 inch – you know, because the jack point is 1X1…

3) I can extend a piece of 1X1 square stock into the frame rail box to give the tips the strength they need, Duh!

Such twilight epiphanies create groggy mornings, my mind races, and being a little too pleased with myself, I struggle against the urge to make a lot of early morning noise in the garage.  BUT I have a banging better plan!

Cutting the frame tips off was more involved than I expected.  Contorting the grinder inside the fender and lower valance was problematic.  I had to drill out spot welds and drop the lower valance to get access.  I probably would have had to remove the valance to get her on the rotisserie anyway.

Cutting off the old tips cleanly and squarely didn’t happen.  The first cut was a bit ragged; it looked like I chewed it off, but nothing that lavish welding and grinding can’t fix.  I also razed a rodent subdivision that had gone up during Alphie’s dormant years, ewww!

I cut a piece of square stock that runs about three inches into the tip and about five inches into the frame rail.  This piece will run along the top of the frame rail and be fill-welded to the top and both sides of the frame rail box.

Homemade panel separator
and requisite hammer 

A good plan until it met the enemy.  Welding the 1X1 square stock to my nifty new frame tip was easy, but fitting the other end to Alphie’s boxed frame required suffering.  To get a good weld to the frame rail, I could see I would have to remove a 6" X 3" piece of sheet metal that makes the outer skin of the frame box.  Sounds easy enough, right? - like when the instructions say, Step 2: Remove drivetrain. 

It took a grinder, sawzall, spot weld drill, air hammer, my handy homemade panel separating knife (see the pic), an hour and a half and a spot of blood to wrest it from Alphie’s grip.  Also, I had to keep the piece intact enough to measure a pattern for its replacement.  The rust inside the frame would have compromised the welds anyway, so all necessary work.

Like a good little fabricator, I vice-gripped the frame tip/1X1 assembly into place and measured, and scrutinized, and palpated, and pondered, and squinted, and measured…  The tip stuck out farther than the passenger side.  I cut 2.5 cm from the frame rail, getting a much cleaner cut with the entire valance gone, by the way.  Re-vice-gripped the frame tip to the frame and repeated the measuring/squinting cycle.  Eventually, everything was GO.  Time to burn some wire!

The tip welded inside the frame rail.  The square stock provides extra strength

I welded everything and ground down some solid if ugly welds.  The new frame tip is strong enough to rotisserize Alphie, but I decided to hold off fabricating the replacement frame rail’s outer skin until I can rotate Alphie so that I can weld without crawling under the fender well.

The yellow shows where I will fab a cover piece
that will become the outer skin of the frame rail

Can confirm that welding upside down SUCKS – note to self: get a welding blanket, those little sparks burn when they fall in one's lap and jump around the floor under one's bum.

Now for the passenger side!

Partially welded in.  I'll need to fill in the gaps and holes

Lacing Alphie's Shoes

Page Seven: It has been a while - let me catch you up.

Step One:  Take a damn picture of the spokes BEFORE you take the wheel apart!

Fortunately, I have five of Alphie’s wheels to help me remember how the spokes are arranged.  Still, take a damn picture.  I took apart a motorcycle wheel once without taking a picture – I had to scour the internet to find a picture of a wheel just like it to remember how to lace the spokes.

Digital photography is a dream tool.  I don’t remember how I remembered how things went back together before I could snap a quick pic.  (Actually, I do remember.  It goes something like this: screwed-up the first assembly, tear it down, break some part(s), strip a thread or otherwise do something stupid, reassemble – rinse, repeat, sprinkle with colorful and forthright language.)

Motorcycle Wheel Balancer AND Alpine Wheel Truer.

What’s changed since I started this wheel saga

Salvaging Spokes:  I got my first order of replacement spokes from Buchanan’s Spoke & Rim, and they are AWESOME!  Mixing original with replacement spokes poses some problems.  The pristine replacements positioned next to rust pitted (even if bead-blasted to surgical cleanliness) shows all their imperfections.  So I’m going to use 100% replacement spokes.  I may collect the best of the old spokes to make the wheel for the spare, but I’ll probably just replace those too.  Buchanan’s is awesome – my humble advert for them.

Powder Coating:  There was some big talk about how, of course, I was going to powder coat the wheels…  After reading up a bit, a powder coat may crack as the wheels flex, allowing water – and thus rust – to get between spoke, nipple and rim.  Also, once powder coated, the wheel is much more difficult to re-true.  The cured powder tends to crack when you turn the nipple to tighten the spoke, and you can’t easily touch up the powder coating.

Paint won’t absolutely prevent water from seeping into threads, but paint is more flexible.  When the wheel needs to be re-trued, I will be able to touch up the paint if the spoke wrench chews on the surface a bit.

So, the steps go:  Step one – etch prime the parts.  Step two – lace and true the wheel.  Step three – color coat with Argent Silver and Step 4 – clear coat.

The bits are sorted!

The spokes and nipples are etch primed.  The rim is bead-blasted, sanded and etch primed.  The hub has been paint stripped, bead-blasted and etch primed…  We’re ready to lace up Alphie’s shoes!

A Jiggedy Jig:  I built a jig.  Sounds impressive doesn’t it?  It’s not.  I put a straight edge against the back of one of the wheels I haven’t messed with yet and measured the distance between the straight edge and the center hub and found a piece of wood that is about the same thickness.  I placed the piece of wood down on the workbench, set the center hub on it and placed the rim down on the workbench surface.  Now the hub sits at about the same height, as it will when the wheel is laced.  The only thing the “jig” does is make it easier to align the threaded spoke ends with their holes in the rim.

(Update:  I wrote the previous paragraph before I actually tried my Jiggedy Jig.  It worked, sorta…  I had to pick up the whole assembly so many times that the space the jig was only helpful to get the center hub in the approximate position.  I won’t worry with when I lace up the second wheel.)

Next, I screwed a nipple on each spoke and tightened them until about the same number of threads are showing above the nipple. 

The Truing Contraption

God Bless Harbor Freight!  I buy tools from them all the time and use them for tasks they never intended.  In this case, a motorcycle wheel-balancing stand and a bearing and race and seal driving set.

The truing thing with bearing race and seal drivers

I used two race drivers from the set to center up the center hub of Alphie’s wheel on the balancing stand and, POOF created a wheel-truing stand.  Check out the pic.

Next, I stuck a old speaker magnet to the side of the stand and used a piece of coat hanger as a pointer.  After hours of spinning, loosening and tightening, and a little hammer and dolly work, the tire bead surfaces of the rim only a couple of millimeters off from true.  The outer edges – where someone used a crow bar!! – are out of round, but they do not affect how the wheel relates to the center of the hub.  In other words, it will only slight affect wheel balancing and will be nearly impossible to see unless you’re splayed out on the fender, watching the rims as we merrily drive along.

Priming and Painting

Outside spokes - half laced.  The coppery stuff is anti-seize.

I don’t know if I measured the spokes incorrectly, but most of the spokes had threads protruding through the nipples into the inside of the rim.  I wore out/disintegrated many Dremel coarse grinding bands smoothing each spoke end.

Next, cleaning with acetone, then priming, painting with Eastwood’s Rally Wheel/Argent Silver paint and finally, clear coat with Eastwood’s Diamond Clear DTM.  (As fates demand, I haven’t painted or clear coated the rim yet – a water leak in the house requiring contractors, the holidays and cold damp weather have thwarted my efforts.  But I’ll add some pics when I “git ‘er done”.)

One down, four to go!

Long spokes go in now.  The spokes are only finger tight now.

Trued, cleaned and primed.  Next comes paint and clear coat.

Next up:  FIRST FABRICATION!

A Wheel Explodes!

I just like this picture of the Organ Donor peeking out of the grave

Page Six: If you give a mouse a cookie...

If I see that I can take something completely apart, I can’t help it, I’m gonna wanna clean every piece.  Sane people would sandblast their wire wheels and paint them – done - but not me.  I have to take the damn things apart, every single spoke!   If it was put together, by the ghosts of the Rootes brothers, it’s coming apart!

Once the first wheel came out of my battery-charger-powered de-rusto cauldron, I tested a few nipples to see if I could tighten/loosen them to be able to true the wheel.  Some moved, most defiantly refused to budge.  Spokes and nipples had fused from their time on the road and at least a quarter century in the mud, so I threw the first one back in the brew for another 48 hours.  All de-rusted and laid out on the bench, the spokes, I thought, need sanding.  I’ll just take them apart clean ‘em up, how hard can it be?  It can be quite a pain, but with some of the spokes out, the scars on the center hub taunted me.  The rim’s rust pitting and dents glared at me - one thing led to another and now…

Bits, lots-o-bits…

Two wheels have exploded with shrapnel all over the floor.  We’re talking LOTS-O -BITS.  The wheels are 60 spoke, 13 inch Dunlop-cum-MWS wire wheels with 20 long and 40 short spokes, one center hub, one outer rim and 60 nipples – that’s 122 bits per wheel!  And there are five wheels (don’t forget the spare)!  By my calculations, tap, tap, tap… tap, that’s 610 bits, all told.

And you know I’m cleaning, sanding, chasing threads, straightening and “perttying up” every one of those bits.  (You’ll note the pile of spoke bones in the pic – some spokes put up quite a fight.)  Bent spokes, rounded-off nipples, the scarred center hub, the rust pitted rim – I can’t let any of it go.

Turns out, the wheels needed to come apart because spokes solidly and permanently rusted to their nipples would make truing the wheels a real can of spam.

Boom!  Spokes all over the place!
One rim just out of the Derusto-Cauldron and one primed and ready!

Spokes, lots-o-spokes…

Many of the long spokes have misshaped heads, indicating they endured considerable stress. The short spokes, on the other hand, survived their travails a little better. When I started this ordeal, I planned to salvage and rehab the spokes, replacing only the missing or broken few. Not happening. My first order to Buchanan Spokes and Rims, Inc. is for 100 spokes (60 longs, 40 shorts) and 100 nipples, which should get me into the third wheel (maybe the fourth depending on how hard each wheel plans to fight me), but there will be at least one more order.

Engineering Factoid

The short spokes keep the wheel round while the long spokes manage the wobble.  That means that the long spokes take the lateral load on the wheel while the short ones take the vertical load.  If spokes loosen a little (and spokes will inevitably loosen), the short spokes are pulled linearly (inline) while the long spokes tend to bend with the side strain.  In other words, looseness hurts the long spokes more, which is why they tend to break more often than the short spokes.

And, I think it’s fair to say, that the Organ Donor’s wheels suffered a bit from loose-spoke syndrome.  Ya gotta tune wire wheels at least once a year, more often if you drive them “spiritedly”.

Buchanan’s will custom make spokes if you send them a sample of both spokes and nipples for $1.64 each (nipples from $.90 and up).  I will need more long spokes than short ones, but I will have to guess a bit because I haven’t blown up but two wheels so far.

The Center Hub, Bub

The center hubs are in decent nick.  One of them, the abused one, looks like someone took a hammer to the surface where knockoff meets hub.  Why do people fix cars with hammers?  It also looks like someone pried against the center hub for some reason; maybe to hold the wheel while tightening the knockoff, but that would bend, let’s-go-with, the “crap,” out the spokes.  I can’t figure it out, but I’ll fill the gouges with the wire welder and file/sand everything smooth.  The other center hub is nearly pristine.  It was also on the spare, but it had several broken spokes so it hasn’t spent its entire life in the trunk.

A couple of the spoke holes (on the abused hub) are elongated, more evidence of loose spoke syndrome.  I don’t think the elongated holes will affect truing the wheel, as I can tighten to the elongation.  If not, I’ll can weld the elongation and file or re-drill the holes.  The elongated holes will allow grease from the splines to seep down the spokes, so I will need to RTV or silicone seal the spoke ends inside the center hub.  (I was going to do that anyway because grease will doubtlessly seep down the spokes even if the spoke ends perfectly fit their holes.)

The Rim

Bead-blasted and ready for primer.

The rims are in good shape, overall.  Both have some rust pitting, some of which is shallow enough to hide with a good high-build etching primer.  Before I exploded each wheel, I put them on my cracking Harbor Freight motorcycle wheel-balancing stand that I have pressed into service as a truing jig, and both ran relatively true - enough for me to see that I will be able to true them with judicious spoke tightening.  (Note in the picture that I have used some bearing driver adapters to center the rim on the truing jig –pretty nifty, if I may say.)
Why do people use crow bars (and hammers, apparently) to take tires off rims?! If your mechanic’s go-to tool is a hammer, get yourself a new mechanic, just sayin. Ironically, it will take some hammer and dolly work to clean up the rim edges. Fortunately, all the shillelagh shenanigans left the surfaces where the tires seat unaffected.

Close up - bead-blasting gets it clean!

The Plan

With spokes straightened or replaced, threads chased on both spokes and nipples, and every piece etching primed, I will lace up each wheel and true them wheel before painting everything a nice Argent Silver with a glossy Diamond Clear (all from The Eastwood Company).  I will tune each spoke to a satisfying “ping” when lightly rapped with the spoke wrench.  The music of happy spokes.

With new shiny chrome knockoffs, Alphie’s wheels will look spanking!

Why Not New Wheels?

Yeah, it would only be a few more dollars – and certainly a helluva lot easier – to buy a new set of wire wheels, but what’s the fun in that?!  

No one is impressed when you say, “Look at the wire wheels I bought!”  Now are they?

The Spokes Are In!

Buchanan's came through with some awesome replacement spokes and nipples.  The look great and only an experienced eye can tell the new from the old.  (I know the difference, but I'm not telling!)


Next up - Lacing Alphie's Shoes!

A Rust Eating Brew

Wheels unearthed after twenty five (or more) years 

Page Five: A Battery Charger and Rusty Wheels

Before the Brew

Cleaning wire wheels sucks!  It takes forEVER and it hurts!  My 1962 Corvair Spyder convertible sported some spiffy Kelsey Hayes wire wheels.  They were classy.  They were gorgeous.  They were chromed.  They were also three kinds of hell to clean, what with all the fiddly nooks and crannies!

Alphie’s wheels, presently, are shabby, sad and rusty, with bent and missing spokes and a bit of curb rash, and are generally, in bad nick, BUT they are NOT chromed!  Which means I can use Electrolysis to clean them!
(See my Rust Removal with Electrolysis how-to sheet on the right side bar for more details of what you need and how to make your own rust eating brew.)

Before the Brew Two

But First:  We’ll take on each wheel one at a time, but first we must get as much of the dirt and mud off as possible.  We’ll hit it with some Simple Green, a pressure washer and some elbow grease.  The splines have decades of grease pasted on which will need to come off.  Grease is good because it prevents the wheel from rusting to the hub, but it also keeps the electrolysis from working on any area it touches.

My Rust-Eating Witch’s Brew:

For the uninitiated, electrolysis is a method of removing rust without affecting the underlying metal.  Electrolysis remove rust chemically, rather than abrasively, so that the underlying metal – or what remains of it after rust has eaten away at it – is left intact.  Electrolysis wiggles its way into every little niggly-pain-in-the-ass, hidden-from-tool-and-toil area of a wire wheel, making it an AWESOME way to clean them!  No scraping or sanding! No hurting my little fingers!

Our cauldron must be non-conductive and large enough to drown a wheel.  We’ll throw in some Arm & Hammer Washing Soda (better than Baking Soda, more on that in a minute), 15 gallons of water, a couple of pieces of rebar (or some other sacrificial ferrous metal), a battery charger and an eerie incantation, “Double, double, toil and trouble; fire burn and cauldron bubble..”

The Solution:  In our cauldron, a plastic tote, we throw a tablespoon of washing soda for each gallon of water and give it a goodly stir.  “The charm’s wound up!” (Another gratuitous Macbeth reference, forgive me.)  Water isn’t as electrically conductive as you may think, so it needs some help - that’s what the soda does.

Geeky Science Moment:  Washing Soda is sodium carbonate.  Baking soda is sodium bicarbonate.  Both will work in our witch’s brew, but sodium carbonate is slightly more alkaline than sodium bicarbonate so it munches rust with more appetite.  And since both are readily available at the grocery store, washing soda it is.  A little caution:  Sodium carbonate is alkaline enough to cause eye and skin damage so googles and gloves kids!

With electricity trickling through the solution, both sodas produce small amounts hydrogen gas at the positive lead.  Hydrogen gas is explosively flammable in high enough concentrations, so we’re doing this outside with TONS of ventilation.  (Remember the Hindenburg?  It was filled with hydrogen gas because the US wasn’t so keen on selling helium to Adolph Hitler in 1937.  BOOM, “Oh the Humanity!”  Yeah, there will be none of that!)

The Cauldron and the Brew

The Setup:  We copper-wire together several pieces of rebar and toss them in the brew.  We suspend the rusty wheel in the solution so that it neither touches the sides of the cauldron nor the pieces of rebar.  We connect (AND DO NOT GET THIS BACKWARDS) the POSITIVE lead to the pieces of rebar (now called the ANODES) and the NEGATIVE lead to the wusty-wire-wheel (now called the CATHODE).  (Check out the diagram in my How-To sheet on the right side bar.)

ZAP It!:  We set the battery charger to 12 volts, plug it in and let it bubble away for as long as it takes to eat up all the rust.  We’ll check it after 24 hours, but it may require tossing the old brew and mixing up a fresh batch and more bubbling.  When we’re done, the rust will transfer from the wheel to the pieces of rebar - MAGIC!

Bright and Shiny Wire Wheels for Alphie

After 24 hour of Boiling in the Brew

Once out of the brew, the wheel (should) be rust-free but not sos in shiny; in fact, it will be gooey with dead rust.  More pressure washing, more scrubbing, maybe even some bead blasting, not to mention some spoke tightening, maybe some spoke replacing – one of the wheels is missing four spokes – and some wheel truing before it’s ready for powder coating.

Powder Coating:  Dur, Obvs, we’re going to powder coat the wheels!  Eastwood sells some powder that matches the gray Sunbeam painted the wheels.  (Actually, Sunbeam didn’t paint them at all.  They sourced their wire wheels from Motor Wheel Service (MWS) who supplied wheels to other British manufacturers.  So Alphie’s shoes are generic British trainers, sorta.)  With all the work that goes into restoring wire wheels, we shall not abide rust where spoke meets rim, at rim edges or where rocks nick paint.  OK, so rocks can nick powder coating too, but the rocks will have to put in more effort.

After 36 hours in the Cauldron

We’ll also use the electrolysis cauldron to remove rust from just about anything big or particularly rusty like the drive shaft, brake parts, brackets and assorted bits.

After 36 hours of Rust Munchin'!

Close Up:  After 60 hours in the brew and a few seconds with a wire brush!

BTW, it's still in the soup.  I'll add some more pictures after 48 hou

rs.  It may take a long time; there's a lot of rust to munch!
Sixty Hour Update:

I left it in the brew for 60 hours and when the bubbles slowed down to nearly nothing, I pulled it out and took a look.  I laid into the back of the rim with my grinder with a wire brush on it for only a few seconds, and as you can see, we hit clean metal!  

Another shot of the 60 hour rust munch

Not perfectly clean, but the rust is easily brushed off

ONE DOWN, FOUR MORE TO GO!

Update on the Update:  I threw the wheel back in the soup for another 48 hours.  Some of the spokes were still rusted to the threads in the nipples.

Oh and, I decided to completely dissassemble the wheels so that I can repair all the scratches and gouges on the hub and rims.  I'll have to finds some new spokes and nipples, but I will be able to get the wheel completely true.