Harry is becoming quite the star! Very endearing, and so good to see you enjoying him (her) so much. My 5c - Polish those rims, clean with acetone and apply ceramic coat. They won't tarnish and brake dust just rinses off.
If you modify the seat frame front hinge so it has a removable pin(s) it would be removable as a ‘quick release’ if you need bigger items in the back or want to track without the seat or use the passenger space for storage 👍
Hey Jeff, wheel and tyre cleaner is meant for painted wheels and not aluminium, either natural or anodized, as it has a caustic base and eats away at aluminium and aluminium oxide, whether it be on raw or anodised aluminium. Anodizing is stupidly hard (think just less than diamond hard), so your attempts at sanding and polishing probably didn't take that off, but merely shined up the aluminium where the anodizing has been eaten away, and as the aluminium goes dull it will show up again. Best thing to do right now is to take the wheels to a reputable anodizing shop and have them re-anodized, as even clearcoat will not stick to raw aluminium for long You will have a choice of bright anodizing, which has a chrome like finish, or normal which has a satin finish. They will incidentally use a caustic solution to remove what remains. You are at least lucky in that Fuchs are forged and not cast, so they can actually be re-anodized without much fuss.
If you’re concerned about them tarnishing, spray them with a suitable clear coat. Use 1500, 2000, 3000 grit wet and dry then polish them. They’ll be better than new.
Once every 2 years maybe. I was a truck driver for years and they are covered in polished aluminium. You really don't need to do it that often unless you want a mirror finish
Hi Jeff. That Suchs about your Fuchs.. Have an idea. Painting the wheel rims silver might not be a bad idea if your going to drive the Porsche regularly & used wheel cleaners .. I suggest having a look at *titanium silver* paint. It's used on all modern car alloys and looks like a cross between base silver & chrome... Paint the rims with titanium silver, clear coat it. Then completely clean the whole rim inside and out and use ceramic coating on the whole rim... With the titanium silver, having an almost polished look, will contrast with the dull silver in the centre & will look like a dull polished aluminum finish... ..from a distance. .. Love Fuchs alloys most iconic Porsche wheels IMO. Even more so than telephone dial. Porsche rims.... .. That engine sounds sweet ..👍
Hi Jeff. I had a similar problem a few years ago, after a lot of head scratching, I found that if I isolated the motor, on nylon mounts, everything worked fine. This was a LHD to RHD conversion and the RHD motor must have had some different internals even though though the plugs were the same. Might help.
I bet your heart sunk when you saw the wheels after the wash. I think that they look just right with polished lips! What people use to protect polished wheel lips here in the nordics is just regular wax or ceramic coating for longer lasting finish. I bet Harry does not see really harsh weather (think road salt for several months) so the lips should stay just fine for a season with just one application. Great video as usual, keep up the good work!
The anodizing is basically a sort of a hardened corrosion layer that protects the aluminium underneath. To fix that you have to remove(sand) the anodized layer off, polish the aluminium and then you can re-anodize them. They'll look exactly like before or you can even choose to anodize them in a particular color if you want. Or you could just polish them and then put a transparent powder coat over it for protection. And also with this you can tint the transparent powder coat with any color if you want.
Somebody has probably already said this in the comments. Anodizing is just an aluminum oxide, in fact sapphire. Both it and aluminum can be etched by things with a basic ph, like lye. Many detergents and degreasers, for example Simple Green, are basic and will both etch aluminum and anodizing. Actually common way to strip anodizing is lye. Just metal polish may not have actually removed the anodizing. You might have made it thinner. You're correct you will know later where the anodizing has rubbed through because it will oxidize. If it's unacceptable it's not uncommon to strip the anodizing, polish it, and then paint it with a standard 2K clear. In the future however just be careful with which cleaners you use on aluminum. Neutral pH or acid pH are acceptable. And as you've pointed out good old soap and water are really pretty much the best. The car looks fantastic. Please post a pure sound video. A nice long one.
The Fuchs on my '78 were specced as polished aluminium rims - not anodised -- the black centres are anodised and remain shiny. Mainly because they haven't felt the salty roads and acid rain of the Northern hemisphere (The reason Porsche recommended Vaseline on the anodised bits) Of course the polished rims will become pitted and and stained by brake dust and road grime. But the surface being soft and easily repolished to a mirror finish if you feel the need with autosol or similar. I do mine once or twice a year. Coated rims will not enjoy harsh cleaners , and the damage requires a lot of remedying with the added $ cost.
Hi Jeff. I'm pretty late with this reply, but found this video particularly intriguing. I think that the fact that we know a factory Fuchs wheel from the period had an anodized surface really has no bearing on the 17" replica wheels that are on your car. I would in fact expect that your wheels have no anodizing at all, based on the gloss of the finish and the amount of metal that came off while buffing. The anodizing of polished aluminum usually imparts a slight flattening effect, and also shows a rainbow hue in sunlight. The etching that you got from your wheel cleaner was likely because the wheels were simply bare aluminum. I also thought that I would share my thoughts on your tilting seat bracket. The agony of not being able to get into the rear of the car is real (!), but those tilt brackets are seriously unsafe for a track-driven car. Even a seat slider is a compromise from a safety standpoint, and now you have added a secondary latch system. Yes, I know that your seatbelts will be pulling backwards, but even the lateral support of that setup in a rollover crash would worry me. And we want you to be safe so we can watch more of your great videos. :-)
I wouldn't be too concerned about the wheels tarnishing Jeff, I polished a set of globes for my Fiat Spider about 8 years ago and they still look good. They're not as shinny as when first polished but have just dulled to a nice silver finish, I've never had "white rust" form on them
Anodising doesn't conduct electricity whereas bare aluminium will so measuring resistance between 2 points on the wheel may give some idea how much anodising is left not sure how sensitive it is though, so sorry may not be too useful.
It’s disappointing that wiper’ s issue. In fact, thanks to one of your previous videos on it, I fixed mine, and it was a problem on the switch. I repaired it in half hour and so I didn’t have to dismantle the whole system.
if the lips shined with polish, I doubt if the lips were anodised in the first place. Since youre already at this point, might as well shine them up properly and re polish them once a year or something. The finish should stay good for upto a year usually. Ceramic coat doesnt work so well on bare metal. I actually have ceramic coated my exhaust manifold heatsheild and its going strong after a year but its because it rarely sees any soap or scrubbing - which wont be the case with your wheels
Yea, I think Jeff´s got it wrong with his Anodizing, theres no way he would have polished through it with normal metal polish. Also its probably the reason Wheel cleaner messed up the finish in the first place.
Jeff, I had similar problems with my wipers following hitting a speed hump too hard; each time I put them on the fuse blew. Tried another column switch with no success but didn't try another motor. I did fix it but cannot be sure how BUT my theory is this. 911s of that era used thin strips of flexible metal welded to the shell to hold the wiring harnesses. These should be insulated but overtime the insulation often went missing meaning that sharp corners and edges were exposed. I think on my car, following the heavy jolt, one of these sharp points punctured the wiring and shorted it to earth, causing the fuse to blow. I checked all the strips, replaced the insulation where needed and the fault disappeared. Might be worth checking on your car. Can you post details of the fault-finding tool you featured, please? Cheers
Have you tried not pushing the seat forward before you tilt it? I reckon you will get more of a gap as the head rest will hit the roof later. Worth go?
what about clear powder coating? seems like it can go on bare aluminium. the only issue i foresee is the heat from the bake. if the paint/coating on the rest of the wheels can withstand it. but you could have the whole wheel powder coated in the same colour scheme.
I've had many wheels powder coated and the heat of the brakes never gets hot enough to damage the finish. Powder coating is baked in an oven. Brake temps wouldn't get high enough for long enough to do any damage. This isn't a bad idea at all.
If it’s like wiper motors I’ve taken apart, it will have moving contacts inside that run on tracks making and breaking the circuit to control park position etc, so is it moving slightly to a position where it shorts?
First! (Couldn't resist, never happened before). That tilting seat mount will be a boon, almost makes Harry a tourer! Could you use clear-coat of some kind on the wheel rims?
@@HomeBuiltByJeff Sounds expensive? What I meant about a satin finish was maybe it would 'key' the ally for a hard clear-coat. But like I said, no idea what I'm talking about, and I do realise that wheels need a much tougher finish than the bodywork.
@@HomeBuiltByJeff I've always used adhesion promoter and not had any issues, but mileage varies between folks. There's always powdercoat, a good shop can do the centers and barrels all in one. Perhaps Barrel Brothers?
@@Expatris I have used that sort of thing which works great until you get the first chip and then it all starts to peel off in chunks. There are a couple of other options I am looking at though ;)