Tech Tip: Home-made ring nut removal tool

The ring nuts used on old Italian cars can be a pain to deal with without the right tools. In an earlier post we made a special ring nut tool to remove the rear stub axle nuts. In that instance space was tight so a specialized tool was needed. In many other instances there is lots of room to move and we came up with a simple tool that can be made from an old adjustable wrench. This was made up in less than 5 mins and we have so far used it to remove 3 different size ring nuts on the Dino with no damage of any kind to the nut.

The pictures should explain the whole procedure and this tool is adjustable for many sized ring nuts.

A week of cleaning, sorting, and wiring

No-one ever said this job would be glamorous. The last week was spent cleaning and categorizing in preparation for electroplating. The better the prep the better the result so countless hours have been spent polishing bolts, nuts, and hardware. These parts are then wired together using copper wire. This procedure is often done by the platers but to save a few pennies, and to keep things in order, we decided to do all of our own wiring together. This way fasteners are grouped by sub-assembly and are easily identified when we get them back.

Product Spotlight: Goudey Paint Stripper

It is time to start stripping the body and chassis and we were faced with a problem. The underside of the car had lots of thick rubbery undercoating that is extremely difficult to media blast off. The media just bounces off of this surface and, when you pay a media blaster by the hour, the job of stripping the car can get super expensive. Some internet searches confirmed the problem as most people struggle terribly to remove undercoating with combinations of heat, petroleum distillates, and general back breaking labour. It looked to be a hellish job.

Enter our savior: Goudey Paint Stripper. Manufactured right here in Toronto by the John E. Goudey Corporation http://www.goudeymfg.com/ , this chemical stripper astounded us with its strength and effectiveness. The photos will tell the tale as the stripper soaked through rubbery surfaces that were over 1/4 of an inch thick. Removal required nothing more than a regular putty knife and minimal effort.

With results this good, we will be extending the application to the body and further minimizing our media blasting bill.

An Olympic Effort

Faced with the daunting task of restoring the Dino in only a few months we knew that we would need some help. As luck would have it that help came in the way of Chris, an aspiring Olympic athlete who we hire in our business from time to time as his training schedule allows. Chris was in town for a few weeks and called us out of the blue looking for a few hours of work. While the company was well taken care of the Dino needed time and we are lucky enough to have his help for two weeks. So far he has spent some 30 hours on the wire wheel and with the blast cabinet preparing small parts for paint and plating. His next task will be on the chassis. Watch this space...

Dozens of fasteners and assemblies, cleaned, categorized, and awaiting plating

Restore! Don't replace

Quite often restorations merely become exercises in changing original parts for new reproductions or the coveted New Old Stock (NOS) replacements. While sometimes broken or worn parts must be replaced, many times 'restorers' replace parts that would otherwise be perfectly ok given enough effort to restore them correctly.

In the case of this restoration, we are cutting no corners but at the same time we are making every effort possible to restore existing components back into service. In the end we will be left with a car that is as true to original as possible while using the fewest number of replacement parts. With all of our labour free this also makes economic sense as fixing what we have saves quite a lot of cash outlay for replacement parts.

Below is an example of some original parts brought back as good as new. Both parts pictured are easily replaced in the spare part market however those replacements will NEVER be original to the car.