That's Gold Jerry - Gold! Okay, I said exciting things were afoot so here's one of them. This post belongs as much to
@doug_b_928 as it does to me because if he hadn't jumped off the cliff first, I might not have done this. Doug also introduced me to
Mike M's channel on Youtube where he documents his 911 restoration in phenomenal detail. If you haven't seen his vids, check them out.
So what's the fuss about? Well, I've been slowly gathering parts for my deluxe home chemistry set.
Click to view attachment Being a CSOB, I managed to piece together what amounts to the Caswell Copy Cad system for about half the cost. Caswell charges about $200 for their smallest kit, plus you have to buy the yellow chromate and power source separately, plus a bunch of buckets. Instead of buying the kit, I just bought their 2-part plating bath chemicals, yellow chromate, black chromate, and zinc brightener. Then I found an adjustable DC power source for $35, a pair of zinc ingots for $10 on ebay, bought a bunch of buckets at Lowe's, and found a large crock pot at the local thrift store for $12, and substituted TSP that I already had on hand for the degreaser that would have come in the Caswell kit (which very well might be TSP). I also had a couple aquarium heaters and air pump on hand. All total, I am in at about the cost of just the kit from Caswell. There are plenty of youtube vids on the process, so I won't bore you with that.
So how did it work? For my first test run, I grabbed a handful of bolts from my spare parts tray. I purposely selected bolts in various stages of prep because I wanted to see how sensitive the process was. Very first batch came out of the plating batch looking like this.
Click to view attachment That pic doesn't do them justice. Yes, there were flaws on the parts with poor prep as I expected, but mostly they looked almost like chrome.
And after 20 seconds in the yellow chromate bath, they look like this.
Click to view attachment I couldn't be happier. Off to a good start, I spent quite a bit of time yesterday and today plating a few choice items. Here is the result. Mostly yellow zinc but there are a few pieces with black zinc and also some with plain zinc. One of the clips next to the black clevis pins is a new OEM piece, the other is one I plated.
@KevinW and
@PCA7GGR , do you recognize any of those e-brake parts?
Click to view attachmentThe frunk latch and fuel cap are going to get redone as there was a mishap. The copper wire I had on hand was a little too thin gauge and those parts fell off the rod in the plating bath. It's pretty similar to dropping a part covered in wet paint. Here's a better pic of the mess it made on the fuel cap.
Click to view attachment I'm thrilled to have this in my arsenal of capabilities. No, it doesn't mean I'll do all my own plating. I think home plating every nut and bolt on this project would be too time consuming and not really worth it. It provides a lot of flexibility though. For example, consider this e-brake cable that KevinW generously donated to my project. Sorry about the poor choice of backgrounds for this pic.
Click to view attachmentI was able to plate the whole piece in zinc and then just chromate the ends to replicate how it came from the factory. I couldn't do that sending it out. I'll also be able to plate parts as needed to reassemble components which I think will help a lot. Now it's time to put some shiny parts on the car.