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Hi,

Looking for opinions, as I can't decide which way to go.

I am taking a bit of time out of welding hell & am assembling a few of the parts I will need to get the speedwell car going again. Cleaning & restoring mechanical stuff is a pleasant change from the eternal torture of Dante's 10 circle of hell, restoring a shell that has been very solidly welded together cock eyed!

While clearing one of my sheds this weekend I found some pipes that I had put on one side some years ago. in the pile was a pair of Hydro pipes, a brake pipe, the long one that goes under the car & a fuel line. The fuel line is prefect & will be going onto the speedwel, car assuming I ever get it to the point of needing a fuel supply, the brake pipe is sadly rusted solid to one of the unions so it won't be going on, but will make a good sample as to the correct shape & routing. But finally & most importantly, the two Hydro pipes while not perfect are 99% perfect. There is a very small amount of pitting in 1 or 2 placers on each, but most of the surface is still bright zinc plate.

My question is this.

If you were restoring a car that you really wanted to be right as right can be, would you use a new set of Minimachine pipes, these are mechanically excellent but the wrong colour & don't always fit perfectly or would you use an original set as described above, not perfect but very good indeed that will fit & look right but aren't 100% mechanically perfect?

Secondly, if I do decide to use the second hand ones, what sort of treatment would you suggest to prevent the pitting getting worse?

Any & all opinions are appreciated.

mark

can you not get the originals re-zinc plated, though i guess its a case of finding someone with a very long tank....

i think i would sand them and paint them with galvafroid or similar - that will stop any rust

Hello Mark,

I would clean the pitted areas to remove any rust, careful use of brick cleaner would remove any rust left, I would then do a plastacine imprint of the area to help assess the depth of the corrosion, if that looks ok I would then paint it with brown hammerite rust preventer and spray the area silver, even if it is visible it would be preferable to pipes that are the wrong colour and do not fit too well, if they are too badly corroded then the choice has been made for you, just my thoughts, hope it helps.

Pete

I would use them as is. But that's me...

i would use the pipes you have, the pitting only adds character

That's pretty much what I had decided. I just needed a bit of input to convince myself that I was right. I think I'll acid dip the worst areas & then galvafroid the bad bits.

that's the line I would take - strive for perfection, but 99% perfect original is almost perfect, NOS is even better, but both these options are better than new replacement patern parts.

I would add that you should beat to death anyone who looks under your car and points out any minor flaws of this type.

Society as a whole will not miss them.

I was given a carefully removed pair of hydro lines a few weeks ago.
they were from a very solid 1971 clubman and looked great. as I opend the trunk of my car and was about to get them in one of them suddenly broke at an area where the pipes were bent. as I looked closer this line was rotten from the inside. my decision now is to replace them with new ones. sorry but thats my concession to roadsafety like a new pair of tyres or brakepads.......

The OG hydro lines on my car looked mint - very slight surface corrosion at the union in the engine bay, but other wise so, so clean - decided to pressure test just to be safe and both leaked - no corrosion visible on surface, no impact damage. Both went where the lines bend around the leading face of the front floor pan - a stressed area?

The M-machine items are going on for the time being - i have enquired on plating, glasgow are nearest with zinc tanks big enough to accomodate - they are not 'identical' to the originals, but i imagine like brake pipe there was no 'one' shape, but myriad variation depending on batch. The unions are pretty different which is a shame. I have sourced some steel line which is on its way, and i will bend this accordingly once here - basically just test to be sure!

Hi guys,
Hydro pipes here rot from the inside and the outside can look pefect. Because shipping new pipes from the UK is not practical here, I made mine. It took about a day to make a reversible jig and about a couple of hours to bend the pipes and put the ends on. My advice would be to pressure test the pipes before you fit them and this would be after plating if you decide to do that. The reason is the acid from cleaning them prior to plating may reveal a hole or two.

Al