I could just CRY!

[geargnasher]

This morning, at the coffee pot, my boss asked me if I could smelt some scrap lead for him, "since you are the lead-smelting expert among us" he said. Sure, no problem. Figured it was time to do something with his battery terminal collection.

Then I got the rest of the story. One of our other technicians, who does all the engine work for several local dirt track racers we sponsor, had been asked by a team owner to drive an extra car they had next weekend to fill out the team. Problem is, car was originally built for one class higher, and is 300lbs short of the class minimum weight they plan to run it in. Changing the carburetor and gears is the only other requirement. Soooooooo, Boss showed up after lunch with half a pickup bed of roof boots, flashing, wheel weights, jug line weights, 20 lbs of bar solder (100% lead), a turkey fryer burner, an ancient dutch oven with no lid, and a two-pound rowel ladle. My instructions were to see if I needed anything else for the smelting operation and he'd get it, and I was handed "the" ingot mould, which is just the right size for a ten-pound weight that will slide inside 2"x3" rectangular tubing used in the race car subframes. My only response was to gape like a fish and say "yeah, I really need 300 pounds of 1-1/2X2-1/2 bar iron right now!". I promptly locked myself in the bathroom and sulked like a teenage girl. Lead is dang near impossible to get here in any form, and they want me to make ballast out of half a pickup load of mostly known composition lead!

Can anyone sell me 300 lbs of some sort of junk, zink-contaminated mystery metal by Monday morning? I'm about to be forced to commit a travesty!:groner:[smilie=b::violin:

Gear

[Buckshot]

..............How hard would it be to get 300 lbs of dirt in that frame?:-)

...............Buckshot

[shotman]

make a run by the local plumbers they save all the scrap you can get it for what a scrap dealer will pay

[bruce381]

mark the ingots maybe the car engine will blow up

[462]

Get busy changing the carburetor and gears, and keep the lead for yourself?

[beagle]

I know the felling. We once melted down shot to make square 125# ballast blocks for aircraft. I almost cried./beagle

[9.3X62AL]

I hear ya, Gnasher. Marie's uncle used 2500# of lead ingots for ballast in a sailboat he built a couple years ago, poured into 1" x 4" and 2" x 4" ingots. I did get about 200# of saw-offs and sawdust from the project, but that still seems wasteful, decadent, and primitive. After all, my 17' center-console needed no lead--can run circles around that puff-bucket--and need not wait on winds to go places.

[bigdog454]

fill it with concrete!
keep the lead, they'll never know.

[Muddy Creek Sam]

Gear,

If I was close I'd fix you up.

Sam :D

[mdi]

Claim it! As payment for "extra curricular activities", when the race is over, make sure it comes back to you; for "further experimentation in weight distribution..."

[montana_charlie]

Fill the tires with water. That should get you 300 pounds.
CM

[buck1]

I feel your pain. had a similer thing happen to me for a IMCA car. But luckly after much looking I found some trash lead to trade out for their 25 year old WWs (3-400 #s.)

[JeffinNZ]

6 x bags of cement would work.

[geargnasher]

OK, Ok, thanks for all the suggestions (water in the tires, dirt, cement, etc.) but, as redneck as this sport is, I don't think the safety crew's gonna go for it. I'm looking for some cast iron barbell plates right now, it IS legal to use them if you attach them to the subframe with 5/8", grade-eight hardware. Problem is, the guy that designs and builds the chassis made places specifically to put these ballast ingots, and they are in the correct locations for easy adjustment and proper balancing.

Gear

[9.3X62AL]

ok, ok, thanks for all the suggestions (water in the tires, dirt, cement, etc.) but, as redneck as this sport is, i don't think the safety crew's gonna go for it. I'm looking for some cast iron barbell plates right now, it is legal to use them if you attach them to the subframe with 5/8", grade-eight hardware. Problem is, the guy that designs and builds the chassis made places specifically to put these ballast ingots, and they are in the correct locations for easy adjustment and proper balancing.

Gear

off with his head!

[Hardcast416taylor]

A friend of mine, yes I do have a friend, works on re-doing city water lines. His boss has a garage end piled high with lead water lines they have ripped out. My friend was promised this scrap lead. Then a distant cousin of my friends boss started into some sort of racing that required a ballast weight also. I might get some of that lead if that idiot cousin doesn`t decide he needs all of it, about 2500 pounds!Robert

[a.squibload]

Freind has a tractor with a lead weight, I told him we could replace it with concrete and use the lead for boolits,
he said it was a standard weight and he wanted to leave it on there.
It's a nice old tractor but c'mon now, it ain't made by Mercedes or Rolls or some such...

[NSP64]

Tempting isn't it! I was working on a Falcon 50 , Modifying the wings for a new Winglet ( looked like a squared 'O') All the interior was out and replaced with instuments for flight testing. They had metal boxes bolted down for balast, filled with 100 25# bags of #7 shot.

I would smelt a known alloy then remember where it's installed for later.

[geargnasher]

Yes, I'm segregating and marking these ballast ingots with metal stamps, pure lead is too hard to come by. Already traded for the bar solder, now I just have to smelt the roof lead, WW (very few), and "mystery" lead weights separately. I'm going to try to come up with some junk lead later, I don't think there will be any issue with me changing them out at some point unless the car get's totalled and sent back to the chassis builder for parts.

Gear

[jlchucker]

Find some real old copies of Mechanix Illustrated. There was once a guy named Smokey Yunick who ran a Q & A column about doing car repairs, back in the day when you could do most of your own. This guy was also a NASCAR owner and crew chief, and from what I've read later, he was the leading expert on cheating the racecar rules. Apparently he had many long and cuss-filled discussions with tech inspectors back in the day. I bet he knew a way to get around a "problem" like the one on your race car. Maybe he wrote about it.

[imashooter2]

As I recall the Yunik quote... "If the rules don't say it's illegal, then I have to assume it's legal."

From all accounts, he was quite the character.

[EMC45]

Yup handed over a good bit of WWs to my wife's cousin for his 4 wheeler. He raced with it one time. Never saw the WWs again.

[geargnasher]

Well, the deed is done. 14 20-lb ingots ( 10 pure, four unknown/mix) went into the frame Monday night. I'm trying to forget about it now ..........:violin:

I think I need therapy! This obsession with lead is getting to me:veryconfu

Gear

[mroliver77]

May it come back to you tenfold gear!!
My friend ran a "C" class front end dragster with a Boss 302 some years ago. First run, big hole shot and it stood right up on her rear tires. Scared the bejeebers outa Chuck! He melted down a bunch of lead and made different weights for the frame and "adjusted" it up to launch like it orta. ;) I did make out as a mutual buddy was working on a draw bridge at the time and guess what it was counterweighted with? 70lb ingots of lead. There was a ton extra and some ended up at my place!
Jay

[uncle joe]

I feel your pain, my wannabe son in law and his folks have a super late model, can't ask them for any lead they take offense.
if your boss don't know anything about smelting, just dump some out every now and then with the dross, tell him you will haul it off for him.

[OBXPilgrim]

Oh, the humanity....







Can't they just drop some rebar in there?

+1 what uncle joe said " just dump some out every now and then with the dross, tell him you will haul it off for him" - sounds like tax time to me too.