6/24/10
Welding the Alpine and more West Coast plans.
I was tuning the carburetors on my Sunbeam Alpine the other day, and
noticed a cracked weld on a brace in the engine compartment. My Sunbeam
is a little rough looking, but it's an unrestored car with 40K miles.
It's mostly original and I often struggle with whether to
restore it. The paint is faded, and she has her share of dents and some
fender rust, but the chassis and interior are in great shape. Without a
decision on what to do, I continue to drive and enjoy her, using her
primarily for local errands and ice cream runs with my daughter.
I drove down to my friend Jay's house to have him weld the brace and to
see what he had going on at his home shop. After we moved his wife's
MGA outside my Alpine was moved into position.
Jay's a fellow Ferrari owner that also has a love for British cars. He
owns a few MGs and Land Rovers, and has restored several of his own and
customer's cars when he's not working at his day job.
After covering the area with a weld blanket, we cleaned the area with
the broken weld.
The combination of a poor original weld and a large gap, the bracket was
destined to crack, but with much better penetration on the new
weld, the bracket was good to go. Now I have to figure out what to do
with touching up the original paint near the weld!
Tom
Wilson's GTE has been delivered to Zac's shop for the show on July
10th. Karp's Brake Service along with other vendors are planning to use
these two cars to demonstrate what is involved in restoring a Vintage
Ferrari. As much as I'm looking forward to co-hosting this party, I'm
looking forward to meeting the vendors and learning something!
Reminder: July 10th, 2010,
Oceanside, CA, Inaugural Zac Dugger, Tom Wilson, and Tomyang.net West
Coast Party. Click
here for more details!
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