Recent content by ab705

I found a book on electroplating that said high-carbon or high-tensile fasteners should be baked at 200C -220C (428F) for four hours following the plating step. Another source recommended baking for at least four hours at between 375F and 450F. I bake them at about 425F for four hours...

I did some more electroplating of M37 fasteners and other parts yesterday. Here are a couple of "before" photos of some rusty 'stair' or 'step' bolts. The threads actually aren't bad; they're just clogged with rust and gunk. Below is a rusty hood latch that I disassembled. The spring is...

I don't doubt what you say! Of course, the net result of accepting the lowest bid can sometimes be a design or manufacturing flaw, depending on whether the bid was from a design firm that submitted a defective spec/design or from a manufacturer that didn't correctly follow the spec.

I would think that part of the latch would be (or at least should have been) made out of some variety of spring-steel, but I don't own one that I can play with, and if it bends that easily in your experience, you could very well be right, although IMO if they used mild steel for that part of the...

Yes, I would suggest the same thing. Place a dowel or bar against the latch body and push the latch spring plate up against it to bend it. If you open the battery box cover first, you might be able to bend it farther. I don't know how many times you can get away with bending it before it...

Merry Christmas (or holiday of your choice) and Happy Holidays to you all. Here's a little card I cobbled together with some help from Photoshop.

I'm quite certain those openings are original. My 1954 has the same openings in the mounts, as you can see in the photo below. I can't recall if those mounts are castings or forgings (I'd have take another look at them to refresh my memory), but the openings appear to have been a feature of...

I finally got my electroplating setup working. I'm planning to zinc plate many of the original M37 fasteners, as well as a number of other parts. Here's a typical batch of rusted bolts. My preferred method of de-rusting fasteners is glass bead blasting, as it's gentler than many other blasting...

Glad I could give you an idea or two. :)

I'm still working on getting my electroplating setup put together and waiting for a couple of supply items. In the meantime, I'll keep working on various parts of the M37. My M37 was never equipped with backup lights, and I don't think I'd ever have occasion to use the small "blackout marker...

I can definitely relate to that. :)

I'm planning to electroplate a lot of small parts for my M37 restoration project, so I cobbled together a plating setup, including an adjustable power supply, a darkroom timer, a couple of heaters, a small circulation pump, various anodes, lead wires, connectors, etc. The bench was sitting...

This was the only brass plate. All of the other plates were aluminum.

I just made another reproduction data plate for my M37. The original brass plate showing transmission, transfer case, and road speed information was barely readable. The original was evidently etched, with slightly raised letters and a chemically blackened background, and I wanted to make the...

This is a repair that I did a while ago. The floor under the battery box often rusts out, since it's out of sight and tends to collect dirt and water (i.e., mud). Sorry, no 'before' picture. I cut out that section of the floor, made a template out of thin, stiff cardboard, and used the template...