The prize of prizes: RM wins Best of Show at Pebble Beach 2013

In the world of car restoration the greatest of all prizes is Best of Show at Pebble Beach. It represents the peak of achievement and yesterday, for the 5th time in the last 10 years, the guys at RM Auto restored the car that took home the blue ribbon.

Of course our link to all of this is that the craftsmen at RM have been entrusted with the completing of the paint and body on our Dino, and it is a real privilege to be working with such accomplished restoration specialists.

Many congratulations to the whole team at RM and we hope that the Dino can maybe help add a little hardware to their overflowing trophy cabinet.

Photo credits: Autoblog.com and Simon Kidston (congratulations on the Miura winning best Lamborghini at Pebble Beach)

The warm glow of Nickel: Coolant tubes are plated

Normally the simple plating of a part is not news worthy but in this instance we learned a few things worthy of sharing. Blog followers will remember that a few months back we completed the recreation of the coolant tubes for the engine. The link is below:

http://dino246blog.blogspot.ca/2013/02/a-special-texture-reproducing-coolant.html

 Missing from the images was the tubes in their final nickel finish. We pooled all of our nickel parts in one run so it was not until this week that they were coated. In the case of the tubes, because of their shape and size we were directed to use an electro-less nickel process where the nickel is applied chemically rather than by an electric charge. The electro-less process deposits nickel in greater amounts to the inside while still giving a perfect finish on the outside. This gives the tubes greater corrosion protection but still maintains a perfect to original colour on the outside.

The source of inflation: Locating and restoring authentic Bridgeport tire stems

Blog followers will remember the story we told of locating tire stem caps in an old collection from our youth. For newer followers the link to the story is here:

http://dino246blog.blogspot.ca/2012/10/a-childhood-collection-acts-as-parts.html

Of course with the caps must come the stems and we were lucky to have them given to us by a kind Dino owner who donated them to our cause. Early Dino's came with Italian made Bridgeport tire stems manufactured from brass and nickel (not chrome) plated. Most cars that still have their original tire stems have the nickel worn right off of them and all that remains is a darkened brass stem. On the inside of the wheel it is a different story as the nickel, not having been rubbed by decades of washing, remain as a trace to the original finish. Our donated stems were no different as the outside of them was well tired when we got them.

Restoration of the stems was tedious and time consuming. First the remaining nickel was stripped off and the stems were buffed and cleaned to give an even and smooth surface to re-plate on. The nuts were carefully filed by hand to remove any tooling marks from previous installation and removal. Lastly the beveled washers (which are made from steel) had all traces of corrosion pits sanded off.

We pick up the story with images of the stems ready for plating and then with images of the freshly plated parts. The plater did a spectacular job and our last image shows the stems married to their caps.

Dinos in Wisconsin: A visit to the 2013 FCA National Concours

Things have been a little quiet lately on the blog so we thought we would kick start things with some images of the Ferrari Club of America National Meet Concours held last week on the grounds of Road America race course in Elkhart Lake Wisconsin. Paul and I had been buried in work and decided to take a road trip to re-charge the Dino restoration batteries. To our surprise of the 4 Dino's entered in the show, 3 of them were GT's; a departure from the normal flood of GTS' normally seen at shows in America.

In the end the blue GT pictured walked away with Platinum and Best Dino honors. Upon inspecting the car we were pleased to see that it had our wheel caps fitted :)