Original Hollow Aluminum Wing - Reproduction

[hemigeno]

Great sketches there, Dane...

You're absolutely right about the pin thing.  I didn't have time this morning to dig through my pictures, but I had the answer all along in my hard drive.  Here is a picture of my wing upright in the process of being massaged, but you can clearly see the pin. 

Right on the money with your explanation   

[Daytona Guy]

That is the best way to prep a wing too. The resins in the filler stick well to aluminum, where primer and paint do a poor job of sticking. Nothing sticks well to aluminum so a skimming of filler is your best bet for longevity. Great pics, and am looking forward to see if the uprights have some sort of stamping.

[hemigeno]

They had some filling to do on those uprights... sheesh...

[69_500]

So Gene, now the question is? Did you get to go look at the progress on your car this weekend?

[Daytona Guy]

Sand casting can get impurities in the aluminum. Over time it puffs up and swells where the impurities are. Not sure if that was your case with this wing, but I have seen it on others. The sand casting should be rougher on the inside. They use a different process to make the inner sand pattern hard to retain its shape. Then they have to float it/suspend it. They do not always suspend it evenly so one side of the wing may be thicker than the other in places or most likely toward the top.

Welding in those holes will do wonders. They are doing a thorough job.

These cars are endless when it comes to all the aspects and intricacies of how they were made, not like they just put a wing and nose cone on a Charger.

[Arigmaster]

Did some of the metal wing come with a safety cable?  Mine is a reproduction and has a cable running through it. So was that just a Nascar thing or did it go into the production cars too at some point?

[hemigeno]

Danny, I talked to Vance on Thursday, who told me that the chassis was scheduled to be dropped off at his shop that afternoon.  Needless to say, I got all pumped up about going up there this weekend.  Then Vance told me that he was going to be out of town on Saturday, going to look at someone's car       With everything going on this month for me personally, I can't make it up there until the first weekend in March.  Put that one on your calendar - I'm gonna find a way to get up there unless something drastic happens.  I'm still waiting for some pics of how the chassis sheet metal looks after sand/media blasting.  Something tells me there's gonna be a whole lot of swiss cheese there, but I'm confident the frame is solid.  We'll see.  Vance promised to load my hard drive up with pictures, so I'll try and post as many of them here as I can.

Dane, what you explained about the rough surface on the inside of the casting is exactly why I don't think they put a part number in the casting.  Besides, there are lots of Daytona-specific parts that do not have a stamped/cast part number on them.  Most of those replacement parts that I have seen used an ink stamp on the part, or the packaging to denote the part number.  I don't remember for certain whether the fender scoops have a moulded part number (I think they do) - but they might be the exception that proves the rule.

Arigmaster, the cable was a NASCAR-only deal, instituted after the #5 Buddy Arrington Daytona lost its wing in a crash.  None of the street cars got the cable treatment, since they were all produced and sitting on dealers' lots by the time that rule was enacted.  Pretty cool that your repro wing did the cable though - is it a fiberglass or metal wing?  Wonder why they did that - a tribute to the race Daytona setup, or were they worried about the wing's structural integrity??   

[BigBlockSam]

some of the repro fiberglass wings have a cable through it for strengh . Rene