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Aluminum Intake Cleanup....

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I took the really nasty aluminum intake from my "free" TR3 engine and soaked it in something called aluminum brightener , which is really just a mild solution of hydrofluoric acid . Woosh, it kinda cleaned it up a bit after a 10 minute bath. Watcha think?
bright.jpg


Bill
 
Bill, looks great, now a fine wire brush to polish it up a bit and clear coat will keep it that way for a while, don't put it on heavy or it will look a mess in a short while and it will come off easy with paint thinner or striper the next time.
 
Hey Tom,
I've used Eastwood products for a long time now. You are right, they have quality products that work. Good tip...


Bill
 
Hi Bill:
I second the thoughts on Eastwood, all kinds of neat stuff. Pricey though, but the restoration of LBC's is not one of the cheaper hobbies around, heh.
Cheers, Tinkerman
 
I brought mine down to the local Gravestone monument engravers, and had then fine sandblast it. (costed 15$)
It looks great . It even sparkles in the sunlight.
Just make sure you tape off the ports first. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/driving.gif
 
You know when i sandblasted my mk3 intake i didn't tape the ports, i figured it would clean them up some anyway kind of like a homemade extrude hone. Anyway i just blew it out with compressed air.
 
JetHot can coat that baby to look like chrome if you want to spend about $100. I had mine (TR6) done and it came out great.
 
Tom,
If I may muscle in on your question to Paul, I had my headers Jet-Hot coated but with the silvery-looking coating, which keeps the stainless headers from turning blue. There is a mild amount of radiant heat reduction in this coating. The coating that they purport to reduce temps that much is more of a dull looking finish, or at least that is the way it ends up looking after being heated repeatedly. It works ok, a friend had it done to his TR4. The 50%+ heat reduction is a stretch. My Guesstimate would be closer to 20%.
What is your take on this, Brosky?





Bill
 
Bill, I was just adding a link to Paul's web site on mine and noticed he also did his headers. Even if it is only 20% like you suspect. that could be a big thing.
Eliminating the heat at the source seems much better than tying to do same after it is in the engine compartment. It would tend to go out the pipes instead of through the firewall.

Tomster, I am courious about several of Eastwood's products. One that has my attention is the powdercoating kits.
 
I did buy the Pacesetter headers from JetHot with the Sterling 1300 coating in and out. The intake was done on the exterior only and polishes beautifully with Mothers polish.

The first thing that happened is that the rpms went up nearly 500 rpm at idle. Secondly, I noticed a marked improvement in acceleration and thirdly, I can't believe how fast they cool off. The guys in the body shop move it around and warm it up to running temp to keep the plugs cleaned and it cools down very quickly, so it must be taking the heat out as they state. How much, I can't tell, but I have a friend with a hand held thermo detector that I will borrow next week when I get the car back and do some measurements to see just what does happen and how quickly.

The Pacesetter headers were not easy to install because they needed grinding on the mating surfaces to the intake, but these were hidden areas (3) and it wasn't much. The exhaust adapter did not mate to the factory twin pipes, so I had a custom exhaust shop build me a connector setup that I will photograph in the future when I complete the exhaust update.
 
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