Hey Don't fret Woodsman, I've called out to Aunt Bea on a few occasions me self. Yes having machine tools and that sort of background does help. To curl those large tabs over I would have turned a driver up on the lathe to roll them back. And I have various spring hooks for tension springs, I used them a lot when repairing TTY in the service.
As fur as the time you spent, I don't think an afternoon is too much time to spend on a project like this. If you have a job or business that will yield big bucks for those four hours, then yes, just pay someone else to do the work. Actually that would apply to all of the work on one of these restorations. Just ask around next time you go to a car show, “did you do the work your self?” The most common answer is well, yes, I bolted it all back together, after I got it back from the body shop, machine shop, weld shop, brake shop, frame shop, glass shop, upholstery shop. In other words 95% of the real work was done by someone else while they were busy making $300 and hour trying a law suit, or fixing a nose job or flying an Airbus from Dallas to Chicago or listening to why your mother is to blame for all your troubles. There isn’t much that any of us can do cheaper or faster than a professional or someone that makes his living at it.
So, all of this restoration work as far as I’m concerned, is simply a labor of love and for that reason I don’t think about the time, or the money but simply focus on the task at hand and how to do it to the best of my ability.
Testing the diaphragm; Ice and heat, does it expand and contract, if not it taint gonna regulate the water flow when your finished.
That’s the problem with mine, it’s just stuck in the full open position permanently because the capillary tube is broken off. I just shut the water off at the water pump in the summer time and open it up in the winter.
Denny Graham
Sandwich, IL
