Engine Bay and Front Suspension Refresh Advice

[rbouch8828]

I am planning to disassemble the engine bay, removing the engine, and front suspension, to repaint and chromate parts and areas that need it. However, I would like to try to establish a system for keeping track of parts as I remove them so I will know where they belong when I have to put things back together.

I am particularly concerned about the huge number of parts that need to be sent out for chromatin as I have seen a photo (copy below) that shows trays full of small parts, without any way to keep track of them individually.

How have others resolved this problem?

Best,
Roland

[sandcrab59]

Hi Roland:
I have seen when a large number of parts are sent out, like in the picture. You probably will not get them all back, especially small parts.
So inventory all parts, and make sure the plating Co gets a copy. Good luck.
Tom

[Tyler S]

Be sure to take loads of photos. Both before you remove items and just after you remove them. You might even go so far as to use flash cards with numbers and location written on them to use when taking pictures. Parts seem to look different when off the car.

[Tomnistuff]

Hi Roland,

Boy, I screwed up that attempt at posting.  I typed one incomplete sentence and posted it by mistake so I deleted it.

Here goes another attempt.

I don't think I've ever shared my method for tracking the "approximately 1600 parts" that I sent out for CAD plating.  As I removed parts from my car during the restoration "disassembly", I decided to limit the size of each "batch" of parts that I removed.  I've shown two photos of the first "batch" of parts removed.

The first photo is of Batch 1 parts laid out on a white quilt.  As I laid them out, I created a hand written spreadsheet (the second photo) to identify each part.  Beside each part on a copy of the first photo, I identified the page number and line number of the part from the spreadsheet.  A note like P1L15 on the photo means Page 1 Line 15 on the spreadsheet.  On the spreadsheet, I also identified the part by "what it is", "where it goes", "what it does", "how many identical parts it is" and its/their dimensions.  Later, I redid the spreadsheets in the computer.

I ended up with about 13 Batches of parts and about 15 pages of the spreadsheet.  The difference is because there were different numbers of spreadsheet lines for each batch.

Finally, before shipping the parts off for CAD plating, I put all the parts in buckets together then cleaned them.  I decided to "bite the bullet" and depend on the Batch photos and Spreadsheet descriptions to sort them out when they came back.

It's not a perfect system but when they came back, I was able to sort out the parts into their original batches (mostly) and have almost worn out the copies of the photos and spreadsheets doing so.

To study the details of how the Batch photos are identified and how the parts are identified in the spreadsheet, you may have to copy the photos and enlarge them.  There were times that I even used a magnifying glass on the photos to identify details of the parts during the sorting process after CAD plating.

If I had it to do again, I would take more "before removal" photos to go with the "Batch" photos.  That would help to identify the parts even better.

Good Luck

Tom Kizer

[rbouch8828]

Thank you all. Great suggestions.

The spreadsheet/photo approach seems to be a good one. What year/model was that for?

Best,
Roland

[stickandrudderman]

Photo everything before, during and after disassembly.
Roughly every 10 items (which might be 50 photos), create a file on your PC and upload those pictures to that file and name the file as first 10. The number should be the exact number of parts so that when you have photographed everything you will know exactly how many parts you have given to the platers.
Repeat every 10 (or 15 or 20, whatever you think is right for you) and then assemble all of the first 50 pieces on a white background and take a group photo which you should save into a file called batch 1, 2 for the 2nd group of 50 etc...
When you get your parts back you can sort them into the batches and then individual groups and you will immediately know if anything is missing.
Re-assembly can then be done in batches and in reverse order where advantageous.
Don't forget to bill yourself at your local specialist's labour rate so you know how much you can spend on your next treat for the wife.

[ja17]

I use a notebook and photographs, not quite as precise as Toms method,  but fast and easy. Take the parts off, lay them on a notebook page and write a description with as much detail as you wish. Photograph the page and move on. You can even record the dimensions of the hardware on the pages if you wish.

[ja17]

Another example............

[rbouch8828]

Very good additional input!

Thanks very much,

Roland

[rbouch8828]

Hi Joe,

Thanks very much for sharing your approach. Very helpful idea.

Kind regards,
Roland

[ja17]

By taking a picture of each lay-out, you can assemble an encyclopedia of pictures with all of the parts and hardware to assembly later.  A photo of each assembly before dis-assembly is also helpful.

[Benz Dr.]

The thing about doing small batches is that you pay for small batches. Done all at once is more cost effective. I can tell where just about everything goes so I don't use pics but I see where they can be useful.
Do enough of these things and they start to follow you around in your sleep.

[66andBlue]

Roland,
I have now used this company (http://www.detrayplating.com/aerospace_fasteners.html) three times for cadmium plating and they have never lost a part, even the tiniest ones. One thing Joe A. told me is to string the very small parts together - he suggested on a colored pipe cleaner - to alert the manager to look out for these small parts.
How to know where the parts go when they come back? It sure helps to have Joe looking over your shoulder! 
But eventually the pile gets smaller compared to what you see in my photo that you posted earlier!

[rbouch8828]

More good tips!

Thanks again Joe,

Best,

Roland

[rbouch8828]

That must be frightening!

I wish I had your experience. I look at the engine bay and get nightmares without even falling asleep!

Thank for the tip on doing larger batches.

[rbouch8828]

Roland,
I have now used this company (http://www.detrayplating.com/aerospace_fasteners.html) three times for cadmium plating and they have never lost a part, even the tiniest ones. One thing Joe A. told me is to string the very small parts together - he suggested on a colored pipe cleaner - to alert the manager to look out for these small parts.
How to know where the parts go when they come back? It sure helps to have Joe looking over your shoulder! 
But eventually the pile gets smaller compared to what you see in my photo that you posted earlier!

Thanks for the reference and pipe cleaner tip. I wish I were in Ohio, or I had someone here in eastern MA to look over my shoulder.

Best,
Roland

[ja17]

You can also use a bare tag wire to wire small nuts and washers together in a group. They will plate everything including the tag wire. Watch out for lock washers, they can slip off a wire.

[rbouch8828]

You can also use a bare tag wire to wire small nuts and washers together in a group. They will plate everything including the tag wire. Watch out for lock washers, they can slip off a wire.

That's also a good suggestion. Hadn't thought about the lock washers though. Thanks for that tip!

Best regards,
Roland

[Tomnistuff]

I can tell by looking at Alfred's photos that I did not clean my old parts well enough.  DeTray did my plating also, but my parts, on the whole, don't look as good as Alfred's.  Like Alfred said, they didn't lose even one part.

Tom Kizer

[rbouch8828]

I can tell by looking at Alfred's photos that I did not clean my old parts well enough.  DeTray did my plating also, but my parts, on the whole, don't look as good as Alfred's.  Like Alfred said, they didn't lose even one part.

Tom Kizer

So they don't clean them, we have to clean them before sending them in? What type of cleaning is recommended?

[Alex D]

Kerosense and stiff brass/stainless brush is what I used on each part.  About 10 gallons of Kerosene, 3 buckets - one bucket to soak overnight, one bucket to scrub, and one bucket to soak the parts after scrubbing.  Did this way twice and they turned out really nice.  And lots of gloves.

[Benz Dr.]

We soak greasy parts in solvent overnight ( or longer ) until any grease will wash off. After drying for a couple of hours I place them in a blast cabinet and remove any rust or old paint. After I have them cleaned I use a soft wire brush on an electric motor until it buffs up to a nice gloss. This is when plating really turns out nice.

There several parts that you never want to plate unless you can close off any open ports or holes. Vacuum cell on the distributor, dash pot on the throttle linkage, fuel injectors, barometric compensater  on the IP, CS solenoid, trans kick down solenoid, CSV solenoid, vacuum switch over valve on late 280SL and probably a few other items. Anything electrical should be painted with gold paint which is a fairly close match. Other non electrical items can be plated only if done carefully and any internal plating solutions can be removed quickly afterwards with compressed air.

[Tomnistuff]

While I was reading Alex D. and Benz Dr's comments about cleaning parts for plating, I was shaking my head yes, then no, then yes again.  Yes because I agreed and no because I didn't know those things before I started this restoration.  Even my old Ferrari was mostly clean parts.

I know now all that you two just said, but not because you said it.  I learned it by experience and seeing less than desirable results, mostly during this Pagoda restoration.

I'm not quite compulsive/obsessive, but I do tend to spend too much time nit-picking spreadsheets and the Pagoda manuals.

My ignorance was the result of working only with new parts in the auto industry until after retirement.  The garage floors were dirtier than the parts we used.  My development engineer's tool kit was a foam lined 4" thick leather briefcase.  Life was good - too good, apparently.

Good experience builds character and confidence.  Bad experience builds only ignorance and over-confidence.

Oh well, if I had started my restoration sooner, I would have learned sooner, but no less painfully.

Tom Kizer

[114015]

Great advice here from all of you Gentlemen.

I was concerned in the beginning too, Roland.

But I just collected the little parts as they came off during disassembly and stored them in zip bags .
Especially, I put a note with the Mercedes work job group number (e.g. "Gr. 25 clutch"), small description and date on it.

Later, before re-plating all of the batches, I placed the content of each bag on millimeter paper and took pictures of it. Without my digi cam this would not have been possible. 100s of pics ...!

Sometimes I even printed out the pics - in supersized manner in order to sort the replated parts back to their individual assembly group.

You do interchange a part here and there ...; especially there are bolts that are 22 mm long, others 25 mm long .... This can be very confusing.
But on the long run, it was not much of a problem.

It was very helpful to have a couple (plenty) of extra standard parts and bolts.
I had (and still have) all metric parts (M4, M5, M6, M8, M10, etc.) stored in assortment boxes and with the help of surplus materials of the standard bolts, washers and nuts
it was all-in-all a very nice and positive re-assembly experience.

Looking very much forward to doing this again in the future ... 

Best,

Achim
(gascap, nuts&bolts collector)

[wwheeler]

Interesting to see what others do. I like the idea of putting small nuts and flat washers on a metal wire tie. I have had small washers and things lost. Luckily nothing irreplaceable. I tend to make my own drawings of components and detail particular features of that component that indicates orientation or mounting position. I also measure each bolt or hardware similar to Tom and put it on a sheet. Kind of a comforting feeling to know with precision where everything goes. To this date, I have never had the dreaded "leftover" nut or bolt.

One item I question is the re-plating of lock washers. It is well known that springs must be treated for hydrogen embrittlement after plating. If not they can snap during service. Lock washers are springs in effect. I have had two cases where re-plated lock washers broke after installation. So now I just use new ones. For the most part, split lock washers are not unique and easily obtained.

Any thoughts?