One of the most important sections of our beloved hobby is finding spare parts for one's vehicle. Things will break from time to time. And finding spares is not always easy. Sometimes parts are relatively easy to reproduce by machining in the home shop. Simple lathe and mill work can give you most bolts, pins, supports etc.
When your broken part is a casting, it gets a little more complicated. Brass and aluminum are easily casted in the home shop, cast iron is (although not impossible) a little more challenging.
Starting with this article, we like to show you repair projects under the name "Prewarcar Workshop". This week, we like to show you a mounting bracket for a friction shock absorber.
In this case we chose to reproduce a cast part by machining it and patinate the part by hand to make sure it gets an original look.
The project starts with a square block of steel. It's machined in several steps to a fully machined part.
Then the elbow grease is applied and after a couple hours of hand filing the part is shaped like the original with all the machining marks removed. Now it just needs a little sanding for paint and it's done.For a full photo album with descriptions of the machining of this part, click here.
(Work performed and article written by Jos van Genugten)
If you want to share your projects for the 'PWC Workshop', let us know!