NEW: Tip of the day!

[Orphanauto]

Hello everyone. I do upholstery, and was thinking of a "tip of the day"  for the club, I am a hobbiest, and would love to know some of the secret "tips" that many of you have learned while working on your KFW products, hence the idea of this new post. Remember this is YOUR club, It doesn't belong to the KFOIC President, or the Historian, or secretary, well you get the idea, this is not my club, is is OUR club, so lets help each other out with good tips. Your imput may be helpful to someone else, so Although I hold no offical rank, just a regular member, let me place a few "rules" to help this out. Don't critisize anyones tip, you can give advice on a better, more effective way, but we are all here to help enjoy our cool cars. Lets see if we can get a new tip of the day everyday. One tip may be for a specific year or make, that ok, we can all learn from them. so, here is my TIP OF THE DAY:

I was making a car cover for my 53 Kaiser Manhattan, and noticed that the hood ornament wants to poke a hole in the car cover. TIP: use a small ( but big enough )  block of styrofaom of the tip of the hood ornament, or some other item, such as a ball like a tennis ball to poke thru the tip, this will save your car cover from being poked with holes in the front.

[Gordie]

A great idea!  Thanks for the new topic and these guys should have lots of good ideas too.

[Jim B PEI]

Treading a new horn wire down the steering column is a pain; here is what I did with my 49 Kaiser. Take a speedometer core (save your broken ones, they come in handy) wire, and wrap dental floss in the groves, with the rest of the dental floss up top with you. Poking the core down the column, it has enough stiffness to go, and enough bendability to torque it out with a bit of twisting pressure through the offset hole at the bottom. Disconnect the floss and tie it through the eyelet which attaches to the screw behind the horn button, and pull it up carefully and gently. It took me about 45 seconds to replace the wire, after fiddling unsuccessfully from the top down for 25 minutes. Unwaxed floss works better than any other material--it sticks in the grooves with its microfibres, but isn't thick or rigid enough to impede.

[Kenn Evans II]

When putting down a fisch line I have had good luck using nylon string and I tie a small knot in the end and use my aircompressor to blow it through then I can tie my wire on and pull it back through and the compressed air makes the string take all of the bends and sweeps, saves a lot of time. 

[kaiserfrazerlibrary]

If any K-F product suddenly stops running or begins to run erratically and the engine temp/weather does not suggest vapor lock, think about the last time you looked under your distributor cap.  The contacts on the rotor do wear with time, and the little bit of ground wire also deteriorates and even breaks at the mounting screw.  Things may look fine but if proper contact is not made at all times, the plugs don't get the high voltage they need for proper operation.

[Orphanauto]

I hate to say it, but.. haha, I am a hobbiest, not a mechanic, so I have made mistakes. When you need to do brake work, NEVER use a drum puller to pull the drum. On a KF you need a HUB PULLER. As the drum puller will warp the drum, and may not get off, Don't ask how I know this,  Let's just say, That cost me around $100.OO for another used drum, mine would have been good, I just needed to replace the froozen wheel cylinders after the Kaiser sit ina bard for 20 years. Email sent Jack. oh, great ideas guys, any tip for replacing the horn pad under the steering wheel? my "happy" kaiser likes to honk at everyone, when I turn the corners, haha

[joefrazer]

A new horn pad is available from the club's manufacturing fund. I have them in stock...ready to ship!

[stroker70]

My tip has to do with detailing. Fine metal polish like Mothers or Semichrome works great to bring back the shine on plastic parts like lens covers. Also I have found that after you clean your engine bay, spray the entire underhood with CD2 engine detailer to a wet sheen. When It dries you wont believe how awesome it looks. I also use white vinegar on glass and paint to remove hard water spots with reasonable success. Tree sap on your car? Try rubbing  peanut butter on it. If you have not tried a clay bar on your paint to pull out contaminants, spend the twenty bucks, you will be amazed.

[joefrazer]

A low buck way to get plastic lenses to shine is to use toothpaste. Work a good bit into your fingers and with very little water (to keep the paste from drying), rub the paste into the lenses. Fine scratches will disappear, the dirt will be removed and a nice shine will result once rinsed off.

[Logan]

For the horn pad I used tape.  Look at this post http://kfclub.com/forum/index.php?topic=525.0

[dusty]

I tried using an air gun to blow the string up thru the column IT WORKED too good tho, it also blew oil from the column all over the interior. so since then i use an # 10-12 wire stick it up through the column and tape the 2 wires together and reverse the procedure

[Jim B PEI]

Hmm....this is why my method was mechanical rather than using air. Air is good, but sometimes there are unintended consequences 

[Jim B PEI]

Also, since I was SO pleased with getting it done in 45 seconds, I removed it and started timing other options, just to see if other ways could work as well--including the wire from below. I know, a glutton for punishment, but I should have been called George since I am so curious. Nothing worked as well or as easily as what I described, as I had some oil at the bottom of my tube as well, and un-wired effects tended to stick. The second--well, it was 4th actually--time I repeated it my original trick and I actually connected things up, it still took less than a minute., and I didn't have to get under the car (always a bonus) 

[Orphanauto]

Here's another "tip" if you are doing some upholstery. IF you are going to have a new headliner installed, Check the windlace. If it needs replaced, this is the time to do it. The headliner needs to be out to replace the windlace, so IF you do the headliner, then later decide, mmm, that windlace could be better, you will save alot of heartache by doing the windlace at the same time. The Windlace goes in just before the headliner. Also, if you are doing a complete restoration, and have the dash out, put the windlace in BEFORE you put the dash in, as the windlace can be tacked in on the sides where the dash fits.

[Jim B PEI]

Adding to this last one, if you are doing headliner, and you have to do something with the front or rear windows (gosh, this is starting to sound like 'this is the car that Jack built'!) then doing the headliner when the windows are out is generally a good idea. In some cars--Studebakers come to mind--in order to made a proper job of it, the windows do have to be out.