Weight reduction: Running out of ideas.

[73c34me]

26 lbs. is what comes to mind when I removed & weighed the heater core, fan cage & box, hoses, coolant amount, duct work, blower motor etc. on my 73.

[rtj]

Here's another for guys with convertibles. I just picked up another hardtop and I swear it is half the weight of the red one I have on my old car. I'll weight it and update this. I've heard that mentioned on other forums, so maybe one is earlier or aftermarket.

The recent one has spiderweb cracking so the plan is to do/try carbon fiber skinning with low temp epoxy. I got it really cheap.

[Corvettes White]

Okay My attempt to go light. An aluminum AC bracket for my '69. Had the iron piece cast and polished. George

[1Michel]

Originally Posted by Corvettes White

Okay My attempt to go light. An aluminum AC bracket for my '69. Had the iron piece cast and polished. George

did you cast this part yourself?

[Corvettes White]

Small foundry in So Cal. Use to be a lot of them to support aerospace. 70 for the two pieces. Free cast.

[69427]

Originally Posted by Corvettes White

Okay My attempt to go light. An aluminum AC bracket for my '69. Had the iron piece cast and polished. George

Cool!
I've been tempted to cast a few items like that also, but just haven't had the time to set up a micro-foundry kind of thing. My dad used to cast aluminum parts for his race car back in his youth. It looks like an interesting thing to try.

[69427]

Got the outer housing initially shaped, with a bit more tweaking to do yet. It's 1/16" for strength, but that also makes it a bit tougher to bend and shape. I've got three chambers in it. The first chamber is primarily a surge volume/attenuation piece, while the other two are primarily attenuation pieces, similar to a pair of glasspacks in parallel. Below is a test fit.

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I've drilled a couple hundred holes in the tubes, along with a few dozen slots to allow noise/vibrations to interact with the fiberglass and SS packing material around the tubes. Still have a similar number of holes and slots to cut yet before I can start to weld the end caps on. I also need to polish the exit pipe so it looks similar to the stainless tip on the other side of the car.

Right now the weight is 7 1/2 pounds. My target is 10 pounds (six less than the muffler it's replacing).
I was looking on ebay and found some inexpensive sound dB meters. I'm going to order one, and then hopefully be able to make a reasonable judgment on the comparative noise reduction capabilities of this and the other side muffler.

[redvetracr]

did you see the guy on ebay selling fiberglass replica bumpers & bumperettes?

[69427]

Originally Posted by redvetracr

did you see the guy on ebay selling fiberglass replica bumpers & bumperettes?

No I hadn't. I did talk to a guy last summer who had them/similar pieces on his '69. There's probably 15-20 pounds that could come off the car with those pieces, but I'm still a bit shy about making these C3 antiques any less safe than they already marginally are.

[Kid Vette]

I've always considered the bumpers as more of a part of the trim than a safety item.