Hey everybody,
I've been slammed with work, but the project continues to shuffle along. Progress is also plagued with what's probably a clinically diagnosable case of detail oriented OCD.
The engine is more or less bolted back together, and if my parts from MG cycle arrive tomorrow, I'll be torquing everything down tomorrow evening. That will be a huge step forward. Pictures will follow.
In coordination with the engine coming together, I spent the last few days refinishing the carbs, intake manifolds, and valve covers. I'm not a big fan of a polished look, but I've always thought a brushed or just a raw CNCed finish looked great. So, for the valve covers and intake manifolds I buffed the parts to a nice mirror finish and then added a brushed finish by wet sanding with 600 grit sand paper. The parts look killer (in my humble opinion
)
To get the carbs looking good, I started the process with a soda blast. Unfortunately the soda didn't dig deep enough to get some of the corrosion or other staining out, and against all recommendations, I shot them with glass bead. This didn't seem to cause any problems, and I'll do a thorough wash to remove any residual media before rebuilding (check out the great before and after photos). I also buffed all of the carb hardware. With all of this done and the the carbs looking like they were fresh out of the molds, I figured I'd preserve the finish by powder coating. It took quite a bit of time to mask off the pieces to ensure that I didn't inhibit functionality, but I'm pretty sure the powder coating worked out just fine. I'm really looking forward to the day where I actually get to test out wether or not they survived all of this!
Enjoy!
P.S. anyone know how I can get the photos to be publicly viewable? At the moment I think only forum members can see the pics.