A Maxwell isn't a Maxwell when it's just an engine and frame on wheels

After a long time away from both this blog and The Garage, I'm happy to report that I'm back on track with both.  So much has changed in my life in the past few months (mostly for the better), but it hasn't been until recently that I've gotten back to work on the Maxwell and my other projects.

The left side back moulding on the old body.

Skipping all the non–car-related stuff, excitingly, the Maxwell is much closer to having a body again.

As you may recall, when I last left this blog in dormancy, I had been working on transferring the moulding pieces from the rusted hunk of the original lower body onto the new pieces of sheet metal that I fabricated.  The moulding surrounds the bottom of the door area to the front seats (since the 1910 Q3 didn't have physical doors up there), and they're separate metal pieces that flare out at the top and halfway act as supports for the front seat (and a visual coupler from the vertical angles of the extreme front of the body with the concave back half).

My issues were twofold in making the transplant:  First, the mouldings were secured to the old body with difficult-to-remove rivet-like pieces that were very flush with the body (I would later have to grind these down with a Dremel from the inside).  Second, I didn't have a very effective way of hooking them onto the new body since I wouldn't be using the existing horizontal holes.

These are some of the rivets (seen from the back) on the
right side of the front seat crosspiece.

Instead, I had experimented with using the countless vertical holes that dotted the pieces.  I drilled through the new body before placing nails through the holes from below.  After clamping and adjusting, I soldered around them before cutting off the excess and then smoothing the whole thing.  This proved fairly solid, especially when I applied solder into other gaps, but solder doesn't always hold, especially during vibrations.

So I finally bit the bullet and bought a hand rivet gun, hoping to use it to secure both the mouldings and the crosspieces for the front seat support.

The spirit had moved me after inspecting the old body, noting the seven rivets on each side of the crosspieces and seeing that the outer heads had been smoothed over with some sort of filler 105 years ago.  This would still preserve my goal of fixing the car without cutting corners and welding, and it would avert the crisis of overpowering the metal by burning right through it while attempting a weld.

Right back moulding now free.

I initially bought both 1/4"-long rivets and 1/8", but for the moulding, 1/8" is the perfect thickness.   (The diameter was 3/16", by the way.)  This may prove to be too thick for the crosspieces, but maybe I'll put a second piece of metal on top of the joint to increase the pressure.

The rest of the process has been very smooth, though.  The driver's side (which is right on the Maxwell) is completely done and smoothed, and I've presently affixed the front piece on the passenger side.  I've managed to free the last piece, and hopefully tomorrow I'll get that measured and riveted.

The whole endeavor has been somewhat tedious, but it's extremely exciting to see the pieces of this metallic jigsaw puzzle fall into place.  With the actual moulding in hand, though, I can figure out how far the lowest point of the cutout stays straight (which is easy to bend).  That allows me to hang the piece on the metal, making sure the top flare is perfectly even with the top of the body.

Right lower body ready to be cut to shape.

From there, I can pencil around the bottom of the piece, roughly noting where the spine of the metal bend needs to occur.  Then I come out about half an inch (to allow for the lip), and I'll bend a few inches at a time, shaping and finessing the angle with a ball-peen hammer.  I then check the fit and hammer down any high points until the tops are level, and then I can mark the holes for the rivets.

After the piece is secured, then I use a Dremel to smooth down the rivet heads.  A little bit of filler and primer completes the look of a perfectly smooth piece, and it now looks like the part has always been attached.

Cut and bent, holes drilled, ready for the moulding.

I must say, I absolutely loved seeing the driver's side panel sitting on the car.  For the first time since I set the old body on it long ago just for looks, the old girl seems like an actual automobile both in form and function.  It's been a century since smooth, sturdy pieces of metal separated the inside from the outside, helping to create the car's identity, differentiating it from every other pair of frame rails out there.  For when you take a step back and see the car as a whole instead of the individual parts, a Maxwell isn't a Maxwell when it's just an engine and frame on wheels.

Instead it's just another anonymous vehicle borne in the era of horseless carriages, when the wheels numbered four and the a round steering apparatus had replaced a tiller.  It was part of an ever-standardizing design that had the driver sitting on the right (to see the edge of the dirt roads) with pedals for movement and braking dancing at his feet.

The completed right side with the incomplete left, behind.

But aside from the giveaway "Maxwell" written in script across the radiator, the car does not assume its true identity until the shapely body sits behind the firewall.  The cutouts at the front, the relatively novel doors on the rear, the space for three people in the backseat that gives the Q3 its number, all of it combined makes a Maxwell a Maxwell.  The brass filigree is merely a boast, confirming a growing status that the little car from Tarrytown—which would later become a Chrysler—was an eager player in the automobile market.

But instead of factory workers bolting everything into place, I'm doing it myself, alone in The Garage.  And instead of the work signalling an emergence into the working world, today it signifies an emergence back into the light, back onto a road that differs greatly from the last one this little car saw 80 years ago.

Letting the cauldron boil and bubble the rust away

What a busy last few weeks it has been, toiling away in the old stone Garage.  In a very short time, the Maxwell looks like a car again, and I'm starting to realize that this folly of an adventure may actually lead to a working car.  There are many unknowns, but it's wonderful to see.

I'll update you more completely in a future post, but I want to touch on a topic I've mentioned in passing several times this summer without a proper explanation:  Electrolytic rust removal.  Yes, I can hear the droves of people (probably all four of you) heading to the exits at this point, but stick with me!  I promise this can be a helpful topic.  If nothing else, hang around to see how many times I've shocked myself by trying to mix electricity with water...

Here's the test item hanging from the board before cleaning.

My delving into electrolytic rust removal actually started a while back, after reading about the topic on countless restoration websites.  They say it's a hands-off way of removing all of the rust from the surface of metal without the messy grinding, naval jelly, WD40 or other wives' tales of how to get something clean.

Let me preface this by saying that the process works, and it works really well.  But how?

I don't want to bore you with a sciency explanation of what regular, red rust is and why it's bad, because believe me, I could (and I would probably be the only one enjoying it).  In order for you to understand electrolysis, though, you have to know some things in a metal nutshell.

The point is, after getting weathered over time, a chemical reaction takes place at the surface of a metal object, and the process of the metal being eaten away leads to rust forming from the new compound---iron oxide.  This happens when metal is exposed to water and carbon dioxide.  The iron acts as an anode, which means it gives up negatively charged electrons, while other parts of it act as a cathode, which is the opposite.  This is what usually can be brushed off or flakes off when the part is handled.  Underneath is basically newly-formed magnetite, or "Black rust," which is what we're working to reverse (I swear this knowledge will come in handy later).

Here's my initial setup with rods and wires. It's not high tech.

In most cases, when water hits the metal, whether through rain or humidity in the air, the water and carbon dioxide that makes up a portion of our atmosphere (0.04%) combine to make an acid.  The oxygen component of the acid reacts with iron and oxidizes it (which means that the iron loses electrons.  The opposite to this is called reduction, which is gaining of electrons).  The electrons go from anode to cathode, or from negative to positive.  Think of it like how one end of a magnet is only attracted to the opposite end of another magnet.  Like charges repel, opposite charges attract.

So, once we know this, how can we reverse the process?  The metal underneath the outside corrosion should still be okay (unless it's really rusted all the way through), so we need to remove the rust without hurting the underlying metal.

So let's use electricity and water---two things that you normally shouldn't combine, but since this is The Garage, why not?

Alright, ready to connect!

To set up your electrolysis, you'll need a five gallon bucket, five gallons of water, some washing soda (this is different than baking soda), some metal wires, a battery charger and some pieces of metal that you don't mind getting really rusty.

After filling the bucket with five gallons of water, add five tablespoons of washing soda and mix it in.  Washing soda is not baking soda.  The former is sodium carbonate and the latter is sodium BIcarbonate.  Long story short, the former makes the process go faster than the latter, but if you can't find washing soda, baking soda will work, just not as quickly.

Using the wire, connect all the pieces of sacrificial metal together in a series, but do NOT close the loop, as your battery charger won't appreciate it (one of many ways that you can upset your charger).  Set these pieces of metal (rebar works extremely well and is quite cheap) into the water, but make sure one of them sticks up above the water so you can connect the battery charger.

The next step is to submerge the item you want to de-rust in the solution.  It is extremely important that you don't let the object touch any of the metal rods, or else your battery charger will get very angry (thankfully this is easy to avoid depending on how you wire your rods together, which I swear is not a euphemism).

The way that I first did this was to set a piece of wood across the bucket (since wood does not conduct electricity), then hang my part from it using a separate piece of wire.  You can also submerge your metal part into the water if part of it stays above the water line.  Then you can clip the battery charger here instead of the wire.

Either way, when you're ready to start, hook the positive lead from the charger to one of the rods (or to the wire connecting them).  You need to make sure all of your connections are tightly wound to the rods and the object, or else this won't work.

The negative lead will attach to the object/the wire suspending the object.  You can check the connections in the rods by lightly brushing the negative lead against each one to see if there's a spark.  If not, readjust the wires and make sure they are wound tightly around the rods.  It may also help to run the portion of the rod where the wire wraps around it under a wire brush to make sure you have the cleanest contact possible.

When your connection is solid and the charger shows a current is flowing, you should notice tiny bubbles coming from the metal part and around the rods.  Congrats!  It's working!  But why?

By adding sodium carbonate to the water, you're giving the newly-made solution a way to carry ions between your anode and cathode, creating a current.  Sodium is positive, so it will move to the negative connection (the part), whereas the carbonate is negative, so it moves to the positive.  This helps create an environment where the black rust can be reconverted into iron.

So once the part is cooking, you can leave it for several hours, and it should be fine.  Just as a heads-up, use only regular iron pieces in the solution.  Trying to de-rust any plated metal or stainless steel or anything won't work very well, and it will release dangerous gases (which are never good).  Also, don't spend a ton of time breathing in the gases from the regular process, either, and avoid sparks or open flames while you're doing it, too.  The process won't suddenly explode, but why take a chance?

The pick head after it was taken out of the solution.

After the piece has been in the solution for a while, you should see its surface turn black in places, meaning that the process is actually working.  When you remove the part, IMMEDIATELY wipe the piece dry, removing that black coating and staving off the corrosion from starting right away.  You can even run the part under the wire brush after drying it off, and this should yield a brilliant, bare metal finish.  But know that this bare metal is again susceptible to rust, so either prime and paint the piece or oil it right away.

So has this worked for me?  Absolutely!  I tried cleaning a random pick head that I found in The Garage a while back.  It didn't have a handle, and it was rusty, so it seemed perfect for an experiment.  I hung it from a wire and dipped it in the solution, letting the cauldron boil and bubble the rust away.

Oh, hello Beale Brothers logo.

When the day was done, I removed the piece and wiped it dry, suddenly noting the wonderful manufacturer's logo on its side.  I had never been able to see it before!  From this information (and in true Garage fashion), I found that the pick was 100 years old and produced in Alton, Illinois, by the Beale Brothers Company, which ceased existence well before 1920.  Go figure!

I have also cooked several Maxwell parts in the solution, from the coil holder to the brake rods and exhaust manifold.  With each of these, I let the piece stay in the solution for several hours before wiping it off, running it quickly under the wire brush and priming it (except for the manifold, there).  I'm always amazed at what brilliantly shiny metal awaits under the black coating, and I know with certainty that rust will not suddenly spring up from under my primer and paint, since I eliminated nearly all of it in the process.

So yes, electricity and water together are normally dangerous, but as long as you pay attention and make sure your setup is sound beforehand, you will soon have the most thorough solution to rust problems, and it won't even require grinding, lathering on naval jelly or being covered in dust after wire-brushing the rust away.  This novella of a public service announcement was brought to you by Woodsie's Garage.