35 replies to this topic

[Michele Bilancia]

Hi everybody. I have this old brass Cobra chassis I'd like to restore and reassemble. It should be unused. I see two options for this work.
1) polish the chassis as it is
2) remove the excessive solder and then polish the chassis
I already have a Mura B for it.
What would you suggest?

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[Michele Bilancia]

This is the Mura B I mentioned

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[nicky 65]

Hey Michelle ....................hopefully Martin Windmill will chime in on this. I just sent him 2 cobra chassis to restore. 

He also restored 3 other chassis for me ..............And let me tell you the man is a Magician. He did an amazing job .............all new solder joints and he put the chassis in a tumbler to get it back to original shape.

Im sure he will see your post and respond ................I will let him know.

[Dave Crevie]

If the history of the chassis is known and has interesting provenance, I would just clean it up real good and leave it as it was raced. Otherwise, I would do the full resto, re-do the ugly solder joints, add a period correct body and motor, and go have fun.  

[Michele Bilancia]

No hystory for this chassis..... It has sit unused for 60 years in a drawer...

[Martin]

Thanks Nicky for that endorsement.

Hi Michele, I start by taking good pics if it is about to have parts replaced or repaired. Your chassis looks to be in nice condition. So I would take the front wheels off and give the chassis a good clean with a tooth brush and a  kitchen cleaner. This will help when it comes time to repair solder joints and or remove excess solder.

It looks to me like the right side side pan has been dislocated at some point. Take a closer look at that.

 

Do you have these tools ? a good soldering iron, solder, solder wick (braid) a tumbler a selection of fine emery papers a rotary tool with attachments.

I have my favorite tools too, like blades I have shaped and dental tools which I have had from my jewelry days.

I can take a pic if it will help? of the tools I use most often.

I forgot to mention a good chassis fixture to check on axle heights etc.

Taking a closer look at the right pan, looks like it has been re-soldered at the cross bar and they got the pan too close to the main rails,  too much solder, so that needs some attention after the cleaning.

 

 

 

 

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[Michele Bilancia]

Hi Martin, thanks a lot for your great suggestions.... Do you have any before & after picture? To understand at which level it is required to clean the chassis from excessive solder

[Martin]

Your chassis Michele may well be a factory built chassis. I have seen a few like yours. I have also seen kits. I have parts of an un-built in the box to compare to yours.

Better to just fix any damage and do a simple clean.

I will save examples of full restorations for a another day and I will stay on subject.

[Martin]

 A quick clean and one hour in the tumbler.

BTW I am not a fan of over tumbling. By that i mean I do the least amount of tumble time. I spent more time sanding etc by hand.

[Mark Onofri]

As far as solder goes, your lucky compared to these match solder (slobber) chassiss. Yes, they are cobras

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[Mark Onofri]

Nick, you sure do come up with some great stuff!

[Bill from NH]

Mark, get yourself a roll of solder wick. It looks like a roll of braid for a 1/43 slot car. Rat Shack had it, try an electronics part store now.

[Jairus]

Restoration of the chassis is the easy part. Finding correct wheels, tires, gears, guide and other bits are the hard part.
Nice project!

[Mark Onofri]

Jairus said and, those are the expensive part, especially if you want it korrect. Are water slide decals made with platinum?

[Michele Bilancia]

Thank you very much for the really useful info. I'm wondering if, for the sick of originality of the chassis, it is better simply to sand and polish the chassis, leaving the heavy soldering points where they are ... At the end it was built in this way by Cobra at the time. Or is it better to remove excessive soldering? I'm doubt if it is better to have an "original" chassis, or if it is better to have a "beautiful" chassis.... What is your suggestion?

[Michele Bilancia]

Thank you very much for the really useful info. I'm wondering if, for the sick of originality of the chassis, it is better simply to sand and polish the chassis, leaving the heavy soldering points where they are ... At the end it was built in this way by Cobra at the time. Or is it better to remove excessive soldering? I'm doubt if it is better to have an "original" chassis, or if it is better to have a "beautiful" chassis.... What is your suggestion?

[Bill from NH]

If it is a historically important chassis with provenance, I'd keep the solder blobs. If it's a company's production chassis that has been used or repaired by the unknown & still in good shape, I'd remove all the blobs & do a complete restoration.

 

In the 70s, I raced similar brass chassis made by Phaze III. They came from the factory with all sorts of solder blobs & bad joints. Out of the package. the first thing we did was redo all the solder joints with new solder & acid flux before racing them.

[Michele Bilancia]

Clear, make sense

[Martin]

Here some pics of kits that were available, but I do feel yours is factory made, and most of the solder joints are original. So better to keep original when you can IMO.

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[MSwiss]

No hystory for this chassis..... It has sit unused for 60 years in a drawer...

Good thread.

Martin does an amazing job of refurbing old chassis.

Just for accuracy's sake, it would 55 years old, tops.

[Jairus]

This is your final look with Cox guide and gear, Mura A-can motor and Riggen or Cobra wheels.

[Martin]

Thanks Mike, and beautiful car Jairus, inspirational.

I believe the factory Cobra chassis were soldered in an oven. I have no evidence of that other than there is no sign of an hot iron.

Here are some Cobra chassis waiting to be restored.Someday these I believe are not factory built cars but were built from kit parts or maybe just the Cobra drop arms?

Notice where your plumber hinge is. In the factory drawings it is ahead of the axle (later) or no hinge (early).

Yours is behind the axle, I find this interesting. I would say your chassis variant is rare at least to me.

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[Jairus]

While we are playing show and tell.... this is a car I built I called "off the rack", meaning I didn't build the chassis but it was factory built and I only put it together using what could have been found on the wall at a slot shop in mid 1968.  Older than your Cobra chassis Michele but still in the era.  Yours is most likely late '68 or early '69 based on the plumber with hinge mounted behind the front axle.

 

Again vintage Mura  A-can motor, Riggen wheels and Cox guide and gear.  Note the spacers were standard Cox items in both black and white nylon.

[Michele Bilancia]

That's great to see all of these chassis and the work you have done on it.... It is fantastic. The reason I was thinking to not remove excessive soldering is that my chassis should be factory assembled and not built based on a kit (at least this is what I have been told, don't know if this is true or not).... What do you think about the Mura B motor I showed? Could it be a good choice?

[Jairus]

If it fits Michele, use it.  1969 was probably the only year the B-can was used in racing... although they were sold for many years later on.
What made the B so advanced was the brush architecture.  Really early B's had two small holes and later versions a big rectangular breathing hole.
There were even milled can motors where the inside was radiused for arm clearance and milled thinner top and bottom.

 

But most of the milled cans showed up in 1970 sold under a Dave Bloom tag.