VV2-55 Spring Question

[Lah Ca]

I pulled the drum out the naptha in the paint tin to have a look. Here are the results after less than 24 hours. No brushing. No rubbing. No nada. Just rinsing a couple of times in the naptha bath.

I put everything back in the naptha to let it all steep some more. It will be a bit yet before I have time and space to move on to the next phase. Despite the excellent work of the naptha, I suspect that extracting and cleaning the spring will still be messy.

[Lah Ca]

I have the spring out. It was quite mild mannered until about 60 to 75% of the way through. Then it got a bit wild, but I was prepared.

It appears to be in good condition but is heavily caked with solid clumps of graphite. I will have to clean and polish it.

spring.jpg (69.56 KiB) Viewed 239 times

I built a wooden drum/barrel retention box, which I can mount in a variety of orientations. (I think) I will be able mount a bar over part of it to help retain the spring when it goes back in. The drum/barrel is tight in the box but it can be turned with some minor effort which may help with reinserting the sping. Don't really know. I am just making it up as I go along.

Curiously, the centre spindle cannot be removed from the bushing that has been press fit into the drum. This was handy as I could pull the spidle out most of the way through a centre hole in the retention box and then clamp the spindle to help retain the drum.

[Lah Ca]

Thank you for all the replies.

I have not had much time to look at this issue at all. But today, I did.

I tried a different technique for cleaning the motor before removing the spring drum/barrel, well ... at least a technique I have not seen discussed here.

I took the motor to my mechanic whom I had to visit anyway and asked if he could put it in his parts cleaner.

He did not think that this was a good idea, but he did propose something else, spraying the motor with brake fluid from a small pump equipped plastic bottle and blowing the fluid and dissolved 1920s grease and dirt off with an air hose.

He had one of his junior mechanics do it. It took very little brake fluid and very little time, about 5 minutes.

The motor is not entirely clean only because I said it was good enough for my purposes at the point we stopped--this was being done for free and was interrupting his work on someone's car. The young mechanic would have continued if I had asked.


VV2-55.jpg

Update and correction. It was not brake fluid but rather old school (non-acetone) brake cleaner that was used.

I know this because when I took my car in for servicing, I took along the empty spring drum and the removed spring and asked for advice in cleaning off the hardened chunks of graphite.

One of the mechanics checked things over and went and got the same bottle that was used to spray the outside of the motor. I asked him what it was, and he said it was brake cleaner.

He did a test spray on some hardened patches of graphite in the drum and on the spring. They just melted.

He went and got an empty water bottle and filled it with the cleaner and gave it to me with a strict admonishment not to drink it.

He said I could probably just apply it with a brush and work at it a bit with steel wool. We shall see.

I have labeled the bottle with a felt pen.