1/25 Corvette Road Racer Junkyard Dog OVERHAUL...err Rebuild

[project510]

Nice work Brandon! This is going to be very cool when complete.

[tcoat]

Jul 26, 2024 9:54:43 GMT -5 joelw said:

Brandonk,
Great find for sure. just to prove how old I am, back in the days when these wheels were the go to racing wheel, I thought that they were called Minilite wheels. Now most likely I'm wrong as I do get a lot of thing wrong these days.

joel

I was at a car meet with a bunch of youngsters a while back and inadvertently regressed to using the term "mags" when talking about wheels.  They didn't have a single clue what I was talking about.

[brandonk]

Ya, "mags" was the term back in the day. I believe it came from the fact that the early light weight wheels were made from magnesium, and later they went to aluminum, but the Mag term remained. Cool fact, magnesium wheels catch fire and burn real good and hot. I wonder why they stopped using them.

Apparently, this was urban legend and alloy wheels with magnesium in them won't burn and are safe to use in aircraft. Curious how that legend began.

[kyledehart5]

If I had to guess…and this is totally a guess. But I’d say the legend came from the 1955 Le Mans disaster. When the magnesium Mercedes continued to burn for hours. Didn’t help that the poor ignorant firefighting team tried to put water on it to put it out. I have a friendly acquaintance with a gentleman who does a lot of work restoring vintage Indycars and I’ve talked to him about repairing vintage magnesium wheels. He says it welds just like aluminum, no problem. But, at least early wheels, certainly contain enough magnesium to be combustible. But it has an incredibly high flash point so you don’t have to be too careful with a huge chunk like a wheel. The issue is the shavings from cleaning the crack or your weld and having to lay in more filler rod. Those little shavings combust very easily so you have to make sure to completely clean up every time you have to be sure you’ve gotten all of that cleaned up. Interesting conversation.

[joelw]

So the Aluminum Alloy wheels on both of my cars are called just Alloy and or Aluminum wheels rather then just the basic metal stamped wheels? It's really depressing to find out once again that I'm so far out of touch with current reality.

joel

[brandonk]

I think the names we assign things largely depends on the circles you run with and the area where you live. Jargon is relative...

[joelw]

Brandonk,

Most likely you right. I did give Google a shot right now and the short answer is that Alloy Wheel if they're Aluminum or Mag Wheel if they contain Magnesium.

joel

[brandonk]

Making good progress on the headlamp buckets. I still need to scratch up some lights, but most of the work is done. I also noticed the real car has a chin spoiler so I whipped one up real quick. I'll probably set this aside for a few days and hit some other builds.

[joelw]

The spoiler really came out looking darn good. Definitely adds a lot to the front end look.

joel

[kyledehart5]

Buckets are looking good and the chin spoiler is excellent.

[AussieTJ]

Now this is the type of build I like Brandon, restoring an old gluebomb, I found it very similar to restoring a real car, and it requires an extra layer of skills compared to building a kit new and clean from the box.
You've done a great job getting it apart so well, and now you're making great progress on the journey getting it back together.
Looking forward to seeing you progress on this.

PS: We (my cohorts and I) still call them "mags" as well, just an old school thing I guess?

[brandonk]

I think the most common name is "minilight", which I also refer to them as. The other is a less common term, but works. Thanks for the kind words.

[benb]

Cool project, Brandon! I’m looking forward to seeing this one progress.

Slang is definitely location-relative. Growing up, “mags” were anything that looked like American Racing Torq Thrust wheels. Minilites were (still are) anything that looks like the original Minilite racing wheels. We put some Panasports on my dad’s MGA and everyone in the NC MG club still called them Minilites.

Ben

[tcoat]

Oct 26, 2024 19:15:43 GMT -5 AussieTJ said:

Now this is the type of build I like Brandon, restoring an old gluebomb, I found it very similar to restoring a real car, and it requires an extra layer of skills compared to building a kit new and clean from the box.
You've done a great job getting it apart so well, and now you're making great progress on the journey getting it back together.
Looking forward to seeing you progress on this.

PS: We (my cohorts and I) still call them "mags" as well, just an old school thing I guess?

Oct 27, 2024 9:08:11 GMT -5 brandonk said:

I think the most common name is "minilight", which I also refer to them as. The other is a less common term, but works. Thanks for the kind words.

Oct 27, 2024 9:31:47 GMT -5 benb said:

Cool project, Brandon! I’m looking forward to seeing this one progress.

Slang is definitely location-relative. Growing up, “mags” were anything that looked like American Racing Torq Thrust wheels. Minilites were (still are) anything that looks like the original Minilite racing wheels. We put some Panasports on my dad’s MGA and everyone in the NC MG club still called them Minilites.

Ben

I still inadvertently call Wheels "mags" when in the company of people that are under about 50 years old. They have no clue at all what I mean.
Back in the '70s around here if it was ANY sort of wheel that didn't have a hub cap we called it a mag. I have no clue what a "Minilite" is so that must be a next generation thing making me as oblivious as the poor guys when I say mags. 

[benb]

Minilites were popular race wheels in the 60s and 70s and are still in production. I can’t get a photo to post from my iPad but here’s a link to Minilites’ gallery page. LINK


Ben

[AussieTJ]

Oct 27, 2024 10:02:11 GMT -5 tcoat said:

Oct 26, 2024 19:15:43 GMT -5 AussieTJ said:

Now this is the type of build I like Brandon, restoring an old gluebomb, I found it very similar to restoring a real car, and it requires an extra layer of skills compared to building a kit new and clean from the box.
You've done a great job getting it apart so well, and now you're making great progress on the journey getting it back together.
Looking forward to seeing you progress on this.

PS: We (my cohorts and I) still call them "mags" as well, just an old school thing I guess?

Oct 27, 2024 9:08:11 GMT -5 brandonk said:

I think the most common name is "minilight", which I also refer to them as. The other is a less common term, but works. Thanks for the kind words.

Oct 27, 2024 9:31:47 GMT -5 benb said:

Cool project, Brandon! I’m looking forward to seeing this one progress.

Slang is definitely location-relative. Growing up, “mags” were anything that looked like American Racing Torq Thrust wheels. Minilites were (still are) anything that looks like the original Minilite racing wheels. We put some Panasports on my dad’s MGA and everyone in the NC MG club still called them Minilites.

Ben

I still inadvertently call Wheels "mags" when in the company of people that are under about 50 years old. They have no clue at all what I mean.
Back in the '70s around here if it was ANY sort of wheel that didn't have a hub cap we called it a mag. I have no clue what a "Minilite" is so that must be a next generation thing making me as oblivious as the poor guys when I say mags. 



Wow, that Aunger poster is from my home town Adelaide ... small world