The vw bit.... nearly there now... The rear, the second step is if I wanted to fit some 6mm black perspex behind the Vw bit, Im not sure yet, Ill see how it looks fitted, could be a massive fly trap and impossible to clean with a back on it. Nearly a shame to fit them....not...! Few clips and a dunking and on they'll go. Im pretty happy with how they look. If these get stolen I may have to kill someone. Brian!
Onto the anodizing, Im just giving these a clear anodize to protect them a bit, a small run like this is fairly handy so I may as well given that Ive the stuff needed to do it. A quick word on anodizing and what it is, Anodizing is the process where a hard 'skin' is grown on the part, this skin is called aluminium oxide. Aluminium oxide is extremely tough and hard wearing, so it protects the surface better. It differs from the normal oxide that builds up on aluminium once its cut becuase it is thicker and grown in a controlled environment. How it works, the part to be anodized is submerged in a bath of mild sulphuric acid solution along with an inert metal(lead, or something else). The part is connected to the + of power supply and is then the anode. The piece of lead is connected to the - and becomes the cathode. The power supply can be a range of voltages, but in this case its around 12volt, DC.(Car, battery type voltage) The power is turned on and the current flows through the electrolytic solution. In order for you to understand what then happens and why you need to do the steps after, read on, if your not bothered on the fine details just skip on and look at the pictures, it gets a bit chemistry heavy in the next bit, but not too much...I hate leaving something half explained and I happen to really like chemistry!! You build your bath so that the lead cathode lies in the bottom, and out of the way. Usually, this lead piece should be twice the surface area of the part your treating. Over or beside that you have your aluminium part hangers, these are connected to your part, or anode, +. The anode and cathode must never touch. The only metals in the bath at any time are the lead - and the part, +. After your part is placed in on the hangers and the two leads connected the power is turned on. Its advisable to keep the bath cool for better effect, this is why I have it in another basin of cold water. On a big job with many parts, or large parts, you could add Ice to the basin too. Warm solution does not work as good. Once the power is turned on current starts to flow, you could connect an ammeter inline to check current draw but I didnt bother on this run, the parts are small. The current passes through the acid solution(electrolyte) and hydrogen is formed at the cathode (lead-) and oxygen is formed at the anode(part+). Due to hydrogen forming and given off as bubbles this could explode if theres flames about, so take care. The oxygen rich environment adjacent and completely surrounding the aluminium part is exactly what's needed in order to artificially and quickly grow a 'thick'(its really very thin relatively speaking) oxide layer on the part. Now....because the solution needed to carry the current is acidic, this will slowly eat away the oxide layer that is being formed. But this is a good thing, as it creates pores in the surface which allow fresh alloy to be exposed and therefore further oxide growth. What you end up with is billions of little tubes of oxide standing up off the surface and all tightly packed, alot like a box of drinking straws. It is the action of the acid 'eating' away tiny pits that makes anodizing so great, meaning a pretty thick layer can be grown, compared to say if it was just left to naturally oxidise in its working environment. Im sure you've heard of aluminium oxide 'sand paper'? It is this 'grown' oxide that is used as the abrasive because it is so hard wearing. It is 'grown' in a similar process to the way above, and harvested off the alloy once it ceases growing. A new layer starts to grow and that is then harvested, and so on.. The only one problem with this is that you cannot grow thick layers for harvest. In time, when the 'tubes' grow to their maximum length they will actually start to insulate the part as aluminium oxide does not conduct electricity. This is why large 'blocks' or sections of pure aluminium oxide do not exist. It is simply not possible to do so yet. If you do figure out a process to do so you will become a very rich man overnight. Anyway, back to the pores, or 'tubes'. When the job is near done you have a fine surface of all these tiny little ultra hard tubes standing on end. The tubes are open at the end(from the acid eating into the metal) and they are of course aluminium oxide on the inner surface too(think of the straws). It is at this point you could dip the part into dye after removing from the treatment 'tank'. The warm dye solution enters these open tubes and will stay in there, colouring the surface. I didnt bother dying my parts as you can see because I wanted them as is colour-wise. But you could. Once the dye is in these tubes, or not, the tubes have to be closed off, or sealed in order to protect the surface further, and seal in the dye. (An interesting thing about these pores is they can also be left 'open' they act as very effective reservoirs for lubrication if needs be, but, not in this case, so Ill close them off as this is strictly for decoration.) Thats where the spell in the boiling water comes in. After part is removed from acid, and your done dying, you need to boil or steam the part. The hot water/steam enters these tubes at the ends and makes it way partially into them. The hot water causes them to swell slightly, and the aluminium oxide to re-hydrate and therefore constrict the end of the tube, sealing it off. The part is then dipped in cold water and the surface is then sealed for good. Anodizing also gives a great base for adhesives and paint. And in some cases is the only way you can bond to aluminium effectively. Anodizing also gives great protection to surface galling, galling is where the metal gets picked up due to rubbing off another surface. Think of how two chocolate bars would look if you rubbed them together. The oxide layer from anodizing combats this, and is why may parts are anodized, aluminium bolt threads for example, or cases, bike parts, etc. If you look around youll see a lot of stuff that is anodized. The smaller Ipods are anodized, external hard drives, pc speaker/stands/faces, bling engine parts, and nearly all pneumatic aluminium actuators are also anodized internally to reduce piston/plunger wear,> bore galling(Which is why I had to study all this a few yrs ago, long story) So ya, that's the science bit over, if your still awake after all that, here are the pictures of said process, it looks pretty simple, but as you can see...there's a lot going on that you cant see...!! The 'bath'! Plastic container, lead cathode - in the bottom, aluminium hangers mid way down and hooked on the top edge, these go to + Into the water cooled basin, and both filled with water, ratio for bath solution is about 6:1, 1 being the acid. Always add acid! AAA. Acid added, You'll need one of these too, unless you want to walk all the way into the house with a part dripping sulphuric acid solution!! Theres two offcuts of aluminium in there just to leave the part on, and to make catching it easier for when it needs to come out, First part placed onto hangers. Dont turn on power until you have it on there and are happy with it, it could fall and short out your charger as your placing it. Parts need to be spotless, as in no fingerprints even. I made two ''taker outers''. (Have to be aluminium) Power on, its not exciting at all, and very boring in fact, its not going to blow up, or melt or anything, so no need to panic if your doing it yourself on stuff, I'm giving each part an hour in there, I felt that was enough for the parts in hand, This is about a half hour in, And ample hydrogen at the cathode - lead, 1 Hour passed, POWER OFF then_take part out, and straight into boiling water for 15min, Then into the cold water, you can see I already have the centre badge in the tank and on at this point, And here it is, Another hr spent in the bath, and into the boiling water, 15min in there then again, and into cold water, After that, dry them off, admire them, and enjoy! I couldn't help but take a few pictures, I'm actually really happy with how these came out, for parts I hadn't intended making at all..! As for the anodize, it worked real well, you can feel the difference when handled, and also, I tried scraping the Gti badge at the back with a scriber, its a lot harder to scrape than normal non-treated alloy. Jobs a good'en. Cant wait to fit them! Then back to what its all about, the heart of the beast! Brian,
You shouldn't post things like this, i'm way to easily distra... ooh, shiney... Cracking job though matey
there really isn't anything you cant make is there? wheels next Great work and attention to detail as always, keep it up.
look lovely. I'm finding your logic a bit flawed here. 'Oh no, my cheap and easy to find badges have been stolen! Rather than get some more from ebay, I'll make incredibly nice and desirable 1 off badges, surely no-one will steal these'
No, no wheels good luck to that!! Johnny, the badge that got taken cost three times my age, it wasn't an ebay job, but the real deal[:^(][:^(] Sooooooo technically Im replacing it with a worthless badge, or say 2euros worth of alloy Dave? 10 sets? Now that has me thinking, now where did I leave the cake tins Bundles is right, stop. Johnny, I didnt hardly sleep that night after you told me to make my own connectors I will admit I thought about it for 20min, and then quickly stopped thinking. Ill be getting the free travel by the time Ive all these 'creations' of mine finished, some day soon now Ill be ready to turn the key....anyday now... hopefully this year Onto finishing out these damn things so I can resort back to my engine cave, Im not used of all this sunlight... Luckily the badge fell on both slats so fixing was far easier than I thought the fact that I had contact along the top and bottom, Drilled 5mm deep,(This wont be taken!) Transferred to grille, Stainless, Ill loctite also, Vw section pinned to outer ring in four places, stainless pins used and inserted with a touch of epoxy, The three locking bracket tab 'things', these hold it in, and also stop it from turning by using the original notches in the grille circle cut-out, The rim bored also, And fitted, more black coated stainless screws, I screwed them into threaded plastic plugs/nuts, you can get these in maplin/RS Some job to whip that! And turned over, And also fitted, I just had it fitted and the sky opened as always....anyway, few on the car, And thats it. Many people probably think that going to this trouble on 2 badges is insanity, they may be right, thats up to them I guess, but after making them, and seeing them on there, they were worth every second. It makes me feel good looking at them, considering all the effort Im putting into both the 8v engine, and then the 16v engine. 'GTI' is pretty much what its all about, and of course working the metal to achieve that Brian,
Nice one. I reckon you should start work on a pair of titanium boots now, because if you catch any wee scrotes trying to steal these new badges you will need to set in about the fookers to teach them a lesson! I would also consider manufacturing a "flick machete" to cut the offenders hand's off................... at the neck!
Death will become anyone that whips these, Ill hire in the A-team(I hear they're back) to find them Minor update before I update with more engine stuff tomorrow, Picked up a really clean set of g60 arches this eve, thanks again Mark, Im going to stick them on tomorrow if Ive time. I always liked them and have had them on a few of my Mk2s, plus, the ones on it are a bit worse for wear. Brian,
Ok so its not the A team anymore, Im thinking of hiring these guys to mind them Do you still want to steal them so?? NSFW(F word swearing) > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQzYnbljZ9Y Got the arch repaired, they were sold this way as per add so I had to refix the piece onto arch again, the arches are polypropylene so a pretty good plastic for repair thankfully, Superglued back on ito the right position, Keyed, 2 layers of carbon-fibre laid down with clear two pack, Let dry, and blinded over with more epoxy of higher build, Done, good as new, Brian,
Arches on, and papered and compounded the entire car, followed by some wax, paint is way better than it was now, no rusty surprises under the old arches either thankfully! Ill shoot up a few decent pics tomorrow with the camera on the correct setting this time, photos are a bit grainy. Tomorrow Im going to finish the rest of the badges for her, then Im going to cop onto myself and get back to the engine again! Car has to look ok you see even now as its my daily, and I likes a nice wagon Brian,
After doing the front badges I was left feeling that the side of the car looked a bit bland. As you know its got g60s fitted. These wheels are on there because they are pretty light, are easy clean, are the proper offset, are new, I like them, and because Im sick looking at bbs. They are also cheap, which is a bonus too. But....... They lack something. There's too much black going on in the centres of them, I think. They needed setting off to tie into the rest of the car. The rest of the car has a few bits that could be tied into a cap. It has black, we know that, It has 'chrome'(polished alloy) badges, And it has of course red, the most Important colour on a Gti! Red on the grille pin strip, and red on the Gti door badges. The door badges being on the side, and the wheels being on the side should mean I can bring some red down into the caps, and it should also mean it should look ok there. And with the red has to go a touch of chrome, because it seems to 'go' well on the grille, with the stripe and badges, and of course on a black grille.... So....to combine all that into a little cap the size of a matchbox.....is it possible, I think so, here goes, 4 offcuts of billet I was left with from something else, not the most Ideal of shapes but I know the parts I want are inside them, I just have to find them! I drilled a hole in the centre to put a bolt in there to mount them. I could have used a four Jaw chuck but its currently stripped in bits and sitting in a bucket of paraffin so I chose to press on this way, I didn't bother knocking the corners off before had, few minutes and they were round, part way into turning> Roughing out the centre to reverse it, get rid of nut and bolt, chuck it, and turn the other side, The measurements and angles have to be pretty right on these, even though they are just caps....you'll see why later, Boring out the centre, its the fastest way, Finishing the front face and polishing, Ring ring... I made a change after the first one on mounting them, I threaded on an m12 joiner instead of a nut and chucked off that instead of the bolt threads, more rigid then, so I could take heavier cuts... More of this which you've seen before.. .. And the usual polishing lark and milling the little slot in the middle of the two letters....this stuff is 3mm thick, as opposed to the badges(6mm) In, interference fit for now, they will be bonded in, And enter the red bits....I cut discs of polypropylene its 2.5mm thick, you can get this in sheets, pp is the same stuff the arches are made from.... And, the colour in this shouldn't fade, its also the 'exact' Gti red as on the door badges... Gets fitted behind like so...Ill be bonding the symbol in with a tiny amount of epoxy, and then bonding the disc to the rear of it. That way any water that sits in the groove between letters and disc can drain out the rear, between disc and rim as its .5mm smaller. If I bonded the disc in with a fillet all round at the rear this wouldn't happen, and the water would sit there, and we couldn't have that now... The g60 caps, drilled and mounted on the bolt again, and parting off the top most cap section, in as it happens, critically in the correct place for it all to work right...I hope... Cut and the strengthener ribs filed back, Cap pressed in, you can see now why the parting cut on the plastic was so critical...and actually, the taper angle on the alloy cap, The fluorescent lights are showing it a tad orange, but its red, The rear, you can just see the water gap around disc, I think, And the groove/spaces where the water could get trapped if disc was fully sealed into rim, and not onto symbol, And thats that, I have to anodise and assemble yet, but Im pretty happy with it really, I found a picture too, You would think on a 1,000,000euro car they would have went to more trouble with the front badge I guess they spent most of the time working on the engine details, Brian,
Well, Im back again, before I went I made up a vernier pulley to do a bit of testing in the run up to fitting the new engine, I used a normal 8v pulley and machined it and tapped it to mount one of the laser cut plates I designed up last yr. Its currently set on 0 that is, factory marks. Im hoping to adjust it and retard cam a bit to see if I can make a bit more power higher up in the range. The engine is currently limiting at 6900rpm. It stops making power at around 6300, it has a Kent gs2h cam fitted, so Im hoping to bring that along a little more towards the limiter and note my findings. The testing will be done seat of my pants, Im long enough driving these, and a lot of other yokes to notice a difference. Remember, retarding a cam makes more power up the range, while advancing it makes power lower. Advancing the cam means the valves open sooner, and therefore close sooner. (In relation to the crank, piston position) Retarding the cam means the valves open later, and therefore close later. (In relation to the crank, piston position) It will always be a compromise of course but its just something I want to try out on my own engine for a change, and make a note of my findings. The dots either side of the 0 mark are 5 degrees, Ill be able to get it pretty accurate anywhere between them, or indeed past them by eye, Im working on the head again now so pictures will commence on that again shortly, Brian,
Finally back at this. After the few days of Hols Im back and have a itch to work my head semi hard at figuring stuff out so I mocked up the head on the test jig I made a while back, while away I also did a bit of maths as to the intake runner length needed exactly taking everything into account. Ill explain why the length matters and the effect it has, but not just now as its not a simple paragraph sadly. Im not going to say the final length but I will say its aimed at around 5500rpm. So many times when sizes/lengths are mentioned on stuff like this you get too many views on ''the correct'' size/length of stuff, you will notice there is no sizes/volumes mentioned in the entire thread on the things I have made so far, its just easier. The bottom line is, there is no correct size suitable for every engine, but only sizes that work well at a particular place on the power band as its all a compromise. One addition cannot be made to work well throughout the full powerband when it comes to N/a with fixed geometry intakes/valve actuation, but its picking where to make it feature well on that band that is the idea, or choice, or preference if your into that. Anyways, onto the thing in hand, I have it all pictured in my head as to how Im going to mould up this (intake), and make the patterns/cores which is why Im acting on it and doing it now. Porting out the head is easy, Ive done it before many times, so Ill do that after, but at the minute, I want to get this down, and into metal so I can think about something else! The problem awaiting the solution You can see the rear of valve, (from here!) The port centre line length gauge, Something like this... You can see its a complex curve, with slight curves in two axis, and the runner bore needs to taper as it meets port... All I need to do is join them up with some cast alloy...I thought about using couplers to joint the throttle plate on there as they would break the frequency's up a bit/insulate, originating from the engine and into the throttle assembly/plenum, but now, Im not going to, as I dont particularly like them in this situation as I feel some runner bore interruption/transition would occur no matter how well things were done. I feel it will be ok, as its pretty light on the plenum end of things, and will be strong to support throttle plate. The 20v n/a intake is a good example of where these breaker joiners are used. More later... Brian,
