Sunday 3 February 2008

"The Black Beast"

Sorry I've been away for a while. Had a fight with the old flu virus. Unfortunately it won. I knew I must have been ill because I couldn't even drag myself in to the garage. Still, back in the land of the living now.
As per all rebuilds, there is always that boring stage of cleaning, stripping (paint, that is) wire brushing, cleaning, stripping, wire brushing, that seems to go on forever. I think I may have mentioned this before! Well........ its still going on.

However, hears a little taster of what it may look like in the future:

The observant amongst you may have noticed that its black! Not the traditional colour I hear people say (if indeed there is such a thing) and I am half expecting to be strung up for such heresy, but I think it will look the biz when finished. The daughter has already nick-named it "The Black Beast".

I've just got the internals of the crankcase to finish off (cleaning, stripping, wire brushing - you know the form!) and then the whole bottom end, crank and conrods is to be shipped off for a re-grind and new bearings.

A couple of other bits 'finished' are the water pump casing and the Auto-Klean disc strainer (a posh and very effective oil filter).



Hopefully you can see the contrast between the black and the brass/bronze fittings. I have an image in my mind of the black castings set off by all of the brass/bronze and copper fittings. Hopefully it should all come together.

4 comments:

S said...

I like the black. A lot. Looks stunning with the red and I think you're right, it will set the brass etc. off beautifully. There's no tradition to beat the tradition of painting your engine any colour you damn well like!

Mini said...

I am not sure about the black, it looks a bit harsh. Henry Ford said "You can have it any colour you like, as long as it's black". It looks fine on a vintage car, but i'm not sure about a boat engine!

Steve said...

Mini
Keep the faith. Let me run with black for now and then see at the end of the project (if we all live that long!)

S said...

Hi Steve

I have no opinion on the black - Sarah as always is right:) but what a fantastic job you have made of your brass, the chips are really down now. I must get up to Warrior and 'do the brass'. Incidently we used Glyptal for all the internals of the castings.

Upwards and onwards (at least for you)

Jim