I remember reading an article stating how annoyed the "oldtimers" were
when carmakers switched from brass fittings to plated "pot metal"
(zinc) in the 20's. :-) I can tell you that the tail lamp housings
on my uncles '49 DeSoto were heavily pitted by 1961. So I figure
Triumph was not alone in using value engineered components.
Since tooling up for a custom set of casting will likely be cost
prohibitive, perhaps you could send your existing letters out to a
re-chroming shop instead. If you tell them what you're looking for,
I'll bet they can refinish with additional layers of copper, nickel
and chrome to a specification better than OEM. While this will be
expensive, because of the hand polishing, it might be the most
practical alternative.
Cheers!
Tom O'Malley
On Thu, 14 Mar 2002 11:30:59 +0000, you wrote:
>I think the problem is intrinsic to the Mazak material and that additional
>coatings will not help.
>All the Masak castings on the car are either painted or chromed so the
>surfaces are theoretically impervious, I guess it is simply a problem of
>using the value-engineered components beyond their designed lifetime.
>A long term solution would have to use high quality materials, anyone feel
>like reproducing them in brass...?
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