I am not sure I would accept them back in that condition but it depends on what was explained before sending them out. I imagined a ceramic coating that would give a smooth finish like powder coating or as suggested a light buffing back of the major damage before coating them would have been better. These look as though they have been painted with a rattle can.
Can you imagine a set of old rust pitted bumpers being sent away for re chroming and coming back like that. New chrome but not smooth. I don't think so. What do the pictures look like on their web site of finish products?

 

I am not a concourse person, but I expect decent results from organisations offering those sorts of services.
Those exhaust manifolds finishes are crap. I would demand my money back.
I have been steadily having parts of my Mk2 re-chromed and I expect and get a decent finish. (just had all of the door handles and number plate light plinth done)
As suggested a rattle can of high temp paint would be miles cheaper. That is what I have used.

 

Chrome plating on anything requires lots of prep to get a nice smooth finish, in doing so it would get so expensive, one might just as well get the ceramic coating done _ assuming that would be applied thick enough to fill in the pits.

Realistically because things will be getting very hot, if the pits were filled with copper and or nickel, would it even last from all the cooling and heating cycles ?
That leaves grinding and polishing the casting smooth _ more prep work _ more cost _ I suppose one could do it yourself, but many businesses would rather do the whole thing, at least mine would.

Removing cast iron to smooth it out, is there enough material ?

 

This is what was shown to me as an example of how the finish would look.


I did talk to them today and they offered to recoat them in a satin finish to give them a more uniform look, but he explained that the manifolds are pitted and they can't do anything about it.

I'll run them as-is for now and shop for a set of new manifolds that I can have coated. It's easy enough to swap out the manifolds on this car.

 

Is the chrome going to oxidize from the heat and turn rainbow colours and then black ?

 

It has a lifetime warranty so if it does then it goes back.

 

Amazon delivered this AC evaporator today. $113 right to my door.


Pretty much exactly the same size as the $97 unit.


It reinforces my theory that all these units are the same apart from the color and what face they screw on the front.


I didn't realize when I bought it but the black one has a heater core. I can either plumb it up or ignore it and continue using the Smith's heater under the hood.

 

So it's a heat pump ~ Yes? It does not have an element which would require a fairly potent Alternator.

 

They do look the same. If it's any consolation, they cost three times that price here in the UK.

I'd be very tempted to look into arranging a fresh air feed to the new box, use it as the heater, remove the old heater and tidy the under bonnet space.

 

Glyn, the heat side will be a conventional arrangement of tapping into hot engine coolant.

 

I'm with you Peter! Understood. May as well make use of the basic inefficiency of an old design. I presume those 2 copper tubes connect that circuit to an internal heat exchanger in which case it is pretty compact. Heat exchanger & evapourator. At an XK's fuel consumption much is being lost as heat. It consumes double the fuel of my Merc of similar capacity on a good day.

 

Peter is correct - the hot side is a traditional heater core that gets coolant from the engine. I could not find where anyone makes an automotive heat pump - I assume because an automobile has a near-constant source of hot coolant.

I think I can shroud the passenger side air outlet to the evap box and control if fresh air or cabin is is entering the core.

 

Yes ~ modern vehicles with 4 way ECU controlled thermostats reach operating temperature very quickly.

 

Generally, the coolant capacity (that is excluding radiators, overflow and expansion tanks, pipework, etc) is far smaller for modern engines than their equivalents of 50 years ago. Add to that the lightweight alloy block and there's not much to heat. Of course, the rapid warm up has been driven by emissions; passenger comfort is only a convenient side effect.

 

Spot on! Peter aided by fancy thermostats to achieve this. "Of course, the rapid warm up has been driven by emissions"

Some aluminium engines have actually seen the block grow in size & be stiffened to accommodate the rigors of heavy turbo charging etc, You open the bonnet & say that can't possibly be only 1800cc's

We are basically agreeing violently with one another.

BTW ~ VAG Group target a bulk oil temperature of 127 deg C for efficiency.

Fail safe: De-branded & all.

 

I am not into the A/C retro fitting gang. I am lucky that I live in a country where opening the front quarter light window supplies enough cool air for me. Even in the summer in extreme British heat when I have to remove my waist coat, flat hat and driving gloves, if all the windows come down it is cool enough for me but I thought I would throw in a suggestion to mounting the A/C unit and it is printable.

I take it the black unit does not need to be plumbed into the engines cooling system but can be with flexible water pipes. So the only connections are electrical plus a couple of flexible coolant pipes running from the compressor and the heater. I take it looking at the front of the unit the controls are remote and can be fitted anywhere.

My suggestion and it is left field is to mount the unit in the boot under the rear parcel shelf with the vents pushing cold air up towards the rear screen. If the unit is good enough then it does not matter where it is pushing the cold air it will soon fill the cabin and lower the temp. The remote controls can still be fitted to the dash. Water and compressor pipes can run under the car in the prop shaft tunnel. The unit will have loads of room to hang under the rear parcel shelf and the added bonus is it can also act as a rear screen demister.

Sorry if this is a stupid idea but it solves lots of fitting in tight places problems and does not alter the original interior.

 

To continue the violent agreement (and this will be my last comment on the OT subject):
and a turbo (or otherwise supercharged) engine still has a way smaller block than a NA engine that generates the same power and torque.

 

Yes, the condensor etc. connection has to be considered.

 

Not by certain German companies that over design by compunction. But yes time moves on & efforts are made to generally reduce size for similar P & T. We agree violently on that. LOL. If we only take capacity into account there has been precious little shrinkage.

While Thermal Efficiency remains so low for normal road cars it makes sense to use that wasted heat to warm the cabin/interior of the vehicle.

 

Cass - not a stupid idea and trunk/boot-mounted systems were the solution to the problem back in the 60's. Several companies make modern trunk/boot mounted systems today like this or this or even this.

My thought is that while they will certainly cool the cabin, you miss the benefit of the cool air blowing on your face which adds evaporative cooling if you're already sweating. Although you do bring up a good question that I haven't asked - does anyone have a trunk mounted system that they think provides sufficient cooling - especially in city driving?

And jealous that you're in a climate where AC is not necessary.