Radiator and Planishing Hammer - July 31, 2020
It's been a while since the last update. I was waiting on parts and also out of town one weekend. I now have everything in house for the engine and cooling - gaskets, water pump, radiator, brushless fan, hoses, etc. Unfortunately, the radiator had shipping damage via UPS, and they are making a new one. If it was just the fins, I would have just straightened them out. But it crushed the core:
I was also distracted by a used planishing hammer that I purchased for smoothing some of the Jeepster sheet metal parts. My original intention was to buy it and use it, even though the home made stand was pretty poor. I didn't need another project, of course. But my son came over and made fun of the stand, so I decided to improve it:
As purchased:
I ended up doing many improvements:
0) replaced air hoses and added a cheap air regulator\oiler - this single item was my original plan...
1a) improved the stand - widened the stance, went to a tripod to prevent rocking and added rubber feet
1b) raised the stand up slightly for a more comfortable working height
1c) added a shelf to store the foot pedal when not in use
2) made a new die holder - using the shear, brake and a Greenlee punch:
I had a leftover can of red spray paint, and I used it just to get rid of it. Unfortunately, I ran out of paint and had to buy another can. So now I still have a 90% full can of red spray paint :-(
I mounted the air regulator\oiler underneath the base to give it some protection in a cramped shop:
I took a video of the planishing hammer in action - see below. Basically, a planishing hammer is used to smooth metal by giving it thousands of small pneumatic hammer hits. It gives about 1000 hits per minute, which is much more than a person can do with a hammer and dolly. It can be used to smooth out sheet metal dents, to smooth out imperfect sheet metal weld lines, etc. You could do the same thing with a hammer and dolly, but it would take much more skill and a lot more time.
Hopefully, this weekend, I'll move on to the engine - I need to get it on the engine stand, then swap out some gaskets, water pump, seals, etc.