Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Classic Morgans (pre-CX) My '60-something +4 two-seater

Hey cornfed, I wouldn't recommend doing a dip-strip setup.
When we started restoring our '70 Barracuda convertible, we took the body and parts to a acid-dip place and had the whole car submerged. The shop then put what was supposed to be a rust-inhibitting primer on everything. When the car was at the body shop not much longer after that, the entire surface, while under the primer, proved to have a surface-coating of rust. We ended up following the body shop owner's recommendationg and took *everything* to a powdercoating shop nearby (including the unibody) and had everything media blasted and coated with a black weld-ready rust inhibitting paint. That stuff held up for the few years that car was in the shop getting worked over.

If there's even the slightest humidity or delay by the acid-dip shop on getting the primer-coat on every last bit of the car, you get rust all over the place (especially in places you can't get at). Also, there's the fact that acid dipping the metal removes a few gauges worth of thickness, thus slightly weakening the metal. It was actually an old racing trick to acid dip the car body to lighten it slightly. While I'm not worried about the metal thickness on the Barracuda from how thick it was to begin with, I would certainly not acid dip any parts on our Morgan when I start restoring it.

With regard to your rear springs.
On my Daimler /jag mark 2, I noticed a sag to one side of the car.
I removed both springs, disassembled them, cleaned and oiled them, then measured the deflection, according to the workshop manual.
All appeared to be within specifications stated.
Reinstalled springs on the same side as removed, and then found that the sag was still evident in the car!
So measuring was of no help at all. The springs had obviously lost tension and the only way to correct the fault was to have them reset at a spring workshop.

So now that you have the springs on the ground, maybe its a good idea to have them reset at a spring place? Then you will be sure of what you are reinstalling is serviceable for many years to come.
Keep up the good work, in years to come you will marvel at what you accomplished...

Agreed. Acid dipping is not an option. A local company touts a 'non-destructive' dip cleaning process. Without seeing the actual parts, the estimate to clean the wings, bonnet, nose cowl, cowl box, rear fenders, valences, tool tray, gas tank, and propshaft cover was ~$600. They charge by the piece, so
it's not cost-effective to individually process small, loose parts. They recommend stringing them together- but I my eyes that's not practical for all the wee small fasteners, clips, and random bits.

For about $300, I can try the molasses stripping process and get everything I need remove rust from in the tank. I'd still have to remove paint, but that's not much of a concern.




Good idea. I hadn't thought of that. The spring bushings need to be replaced anyways, so the shop could handle that task.

[/quote] Well, it appears out of the three holes the only vent is near the differential case. The end holes are for grease- fill cavity with grease until it escapes the hole. [/quote]

Perhaps the not-found (not drilled?) holes in my rear axle are the reason for grease on the brake shoes from over-enthusiastic use of the grease gun.

Re springs: Are you sure that yours are the right ones for a 2-seater? IMHO the number of leaves speaks for a 4-seater but I can be wrong.

Frank

As far as I know, the 6-leaf packs are original to the car. At least they've been on it since the late '70s.

By "molasses" process do you mean that brush / spray on paint remover stuff? We had mixed / poor results with that on the 'cuda. Now, the paint on the Morgan may be thin enough to make it effective, but you've still got a lot of elbow-work to do to get every last bit off, and there's also the tedious work of protecting the exposed metal afterwords. If you can find a local powdercoating shop that's willing to do the work for cash or off the books, you'll likely end up with a good friend for the extent of the project. Ask around at any local body-works shops about who they use to farm out that work. You'd be amazed how far you can take the powdercoating (and they usually do paint work as well on parts that can't be cooked). If you want to see what some of the results are I can dig up some photos from the cuda's restoration, and I can always get a hold of the shop we work with on what the base-coat they use is.

Not quite. It's actually using diluting animal feed molasses with water and soaking the parts while the molasses ferments. Slow, but we'll see how well it works. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZCFcxf5IBw&feature=related

I deal with paint and powdercoat vendors at work, but their pricing is still more than I want to spend. I need to inexpensively remove the rust to determine if the panels are worth saving.

Ok.. that is a trip. Learn something new every day!

Not surprising that business deals with those shops come across as expensive, but if you're on good personal repor with any of the shop owners, ask them if they do jobs for cash for personal projects, they may prove to be cheaper.