The Craftmans Shop > New from Old
It's BIG, Yellow and digs holes! JCB 3CX Project 8 is joining the Tractor Shed
awemawson:
Neither the ‘keep it genuine’ nor the ‘Moving parts inside’ labels were available from the usual dealers, so I put a plea out on the Facebook Vintage JCB group for help. I had a reply from a senior JCB executive who is sorting some out for me :clap:
WeldingRod:
Oh, that's beautiful in soooo many ways!
Sent from my SM-G715A using Tapatalk
awemawson:
I set out this morning with the intention of grit blasting both sides of the two parts of the engine cover.
Dragging out the Hodge Clemco 1440NC blast pot for the first time in years and putting it all together wasn't entirely straightforwards. Firstly the claw fitting for the blasting pipe where it goes onto the pot had a claw broken off :bang: They are a tough plastic and I'm surprised that it broke. Never mind, I have an extension pipe that has these fittings on each end - steal one. OK end replaced. Sensibly this fitting has an additional safety feature of a stainless steel wire peg that stops the fitting uncoupling - it's spring loaded and should engage as the claw fitting is rotated to seal, but no it wasn't going to. Some faffing about and bending and it went home - OK couple up the breathing air filter. Another claw fitting feeds it and these seal by compressing a rubber washer in each half. Having not been used for some time the rubber was rather hard -in the end I had to lay the filter on its side and use my entire body weight (not inconsiderable!) to compress the rubber while turning.
OK its together get on with it ! Started off quite well but then things became erratic - the pot wasn't building up pressure. The 'pop up' valve that drops to let sand enter from the hopper, and should seal when the dead mans handle is closed, wasn't sealing. After much head scratching I convinced myself the the valve itself must be damaged - so remove it for inspection. This involves removing all the sand crushed glass through a 'mud hole' inspection port and unscrewing an 1-1/4 BSP pipe leading to the valve. Eventually I got it out and to my untutored eye it looks fine.
Reassembling it all I did a test while the pot was practically empty and the top shield removed so that I could watch the valve operating. Well it wasn't ! It was only being driven feebly. Now the 'Dead Man' or Remote valve should operate it and it must be jammed and dismantling is not an easy task due to the way it's been plumbed in - all connections are on knuckle joints and easy to remove EXCEPT the one fixing it to the blast pot.
At this stage I'd blasted one side of one panel so only quarter of the job :bang:
So I packed up the blast pot for attention later and attacked the panels with paint stripper - the good stuff that actually works but makes your hands tingle through thick rubber gloves. Now this paint stripper is good stuff but blasting is far better as it puts a micro texture on the work that greatly aids adhesion. Also it's horrid messy stuff to clean up. BTW HOW are you supposed to neutralise it as it must linger in crevices. I used masses of industrial thinners on a rag as this is what the paint is thinned with.
So at last - paint them - a coat of red oxide primer applied.
Just to make my day even better the paint gun decided to clog up just as I was finishing - I ended up putting brake cleaner through it to unclog it for next time.
edward:
I've stripped a couple of bike frames (steel and aluminium) with methylene chloride based stripper. Scrubbing with fairy liquid, hot water and scotchbrite a few times then rinsing with hot water seemed to get it off pretty well. The steel one got a coat of phosphoric based rust converter before paint and there hasn't been any breakthrough for a couple of years now. The ali one I just polished and that seems to have survived quite well too.
awemawson:
Thanks for the info Edward.
Well Saturday continued to be an unmitigated disaster - The primer that I sprayed had gone on far too dry and was lumpy - I contemplated rubbing it down with wet and dry but in the end decided to start over.
So Sunday was taken up with paint stripping the two engine cover panels - this time I used the same methylene chloride based stripper but instead of scraping it off I used the pressure washer which was quite effective. I blew them off with an airline to dry them ready for another session this morning with the electric wire brush and stripping pad to get back to bare metal once more. What a waste of time and materials :bang:
After several test sprayings and altering pressures and viscosity I got a satisfactory finish. Years back I made a simple 'viscosity meter' comprising a piece of 3/4" copper pipe blanked off with an old penny (240 to the £ !) with a bit of 1/4" copper pipe soldered in a hole in the middle of the penny. A bit more 1/4" pipe soldered on as a handle and I'd dip it into the diluted paint and time how long it took took to run out. This gave consistent mixings from batch to batch and was very handy. I see that plastic versions are now available on eBay - too late for today but I've ordered one
So the primer can harden for a day or two as I'm busy tomorrow - there are a couple of insects that will need pulling out !
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