Brass is a pain in the neck to weld, it doesn’t give you any clues as to its melting point like other metals. Steel gets shiny and looks like flowing liquid while aluminum gets super shiny and puffs up slightly which tells you when you can add the filler rod.

Brass just gets dark so you have to poke the area with the filler rod and hope it sticks even though it often just spatters and makes a mess. Unlike aluminum or steel, it is easy to build up brass on an edge of sheet metal like I am doing in these photos. What I found is that you have to keep the material extra clean with a stainless steel brush and glass bead blasting it when the piece gets black and nasty.

These photos are of little trim pieces on a Ferrari 166 Touring bodied Berlinetta that I am restoring. These pieces didn’t fit well from new,  I think my 6 year old daughter could have made them fit better. I have spent lots time welding on new material and filing it down to fit around the trim and re-locate the holes so the screws actually thread into something.

The reason Touring used brass is because it takes chrome nicely without any extra material like nickel or copper and is relatively easy to shape.

Brass Heli-arc

Tungston Inert Gas Brass

Brass trim welded and fitting

When we needed a new camera last year, I asked Johanne to get us a new “bomber” camera and she came back with a Canon D10 which is designed to take the shock of dropped and handle the everyday abuse of our shop. It turns out that the camera can also shoot under water! I took these photos of Homer’s newly crafted fish under water, notice the trout that are swimming up next to the shiny painted fish!

Homer is really enjoying making these fish and would like to sell them so if you are interested in purchasing one let me know and I can connect you with Homer

Fish real and fake

Underwater fish

A customer swung by with the pictured Testarossa hood asking if we could repair it. We said we’d check it out, and he asked for a very rough ballpark estimate of what it could run – you know, is it $20 dollars or twenty-thousand? Initially we said it’d be a few grand, but when Eben saw it, his experience as the panel beater and sculptor rang true, with an estimate of about $5k to make it perfect again. The aluminum can only be worked so much, and new material would have to be welded in.

It was a better deal to just replace it with a used panel and let the owner keep the crushed one as a souvenir – you may ask, how’d he do it? The guy he bought it from did.

Eben built the 212 body from pictures, as you may know. His metal work and sculpture are fantastic – that’s why we insist on taking him away from his art – to work on ours. Here’s his website showing other projects he has been working on besides the damn Ferrari.

http://www.ebenmarkowski.com

Here are a few more panels that Homer worked on.

Clear coat tint

Tinted clear on aluminum

When gas welding aluminum a water soluble flux must be used to clean the surfaces and allow a nice flat and strong weld. We gas weld the sheet metal because the welds stay as flexible and supple as the surrounding material allowing you to roll the sheet metal and the welds through the English Wheel Dollies.

The problem is that if you do not get rid of all the flux residue, the aluminum will “salt away” under the paint and cause bubbling in the finish. In these photos we are using soap and water and brushes to ensure that there is no flux even in the deepest crevasses. Even a tiny amount in a pin hole will ruin a perfect paint job.

Ferrari 212 body washing off flux

Removing flux from aluminum body

The Forged aluminum Pistons are here and the block is bored to the correct tolerance. We cut the rings, installed new wrist pin bushings and are moving along. The plugs in the crank are factory style so we drilled them out, brushed and soaked the crank and flushed it one more time with a cleaner until she ran clear. With the crank in and the bearings measured, it is time to stuff the pistons and get the bottom end together.

The valves in this engine had 1000 miles on them but were all dimpled in where the lash screw came in contact with the stem. We have never had this problem with our valve supplier so we did a Rockwell hardness check on these damaged valves and the valves from our supplier. There was a huge difference in alloy and hardness.

Now, if only we could feel like we are getting somewhere with scraping gaskets and stripping that crappy paint from the rest of the castings.

I am overhauling the fuel pump right now. There is a hardened 6mm pin that the rocker shaft rides on that is often severely grooved and on this car, the groove is almost half way through. No problem though as I have 3 other pumps to overhaul at the same time. With new bushings, check valves and diaphragm it will be working as new and looking new with freshly plated hardware and top cover.

Engine block

JE Pistons and Forged Connecting rods