The Diablo 500 for the 50th Anniversary Celebration

[Go Go Diablo]

A friend I made a few years back was a kind old gentleman by the name of Don Southerton. Don lived in Minnesota and was a Bolens and Minneapolis Moline distributor back in the day. In his older years, he had kept many forms of memorabilia mostly about the MM tractor, but also some Bolens treasures which included some related to Diablos.

One of Don's visions was to restore an original Diablo 500 and he had "New Old Stock" pieces of his dream stored up in the attic waiting for the day to come where he had time to get at it. Unfortunately, Don passed away a few years back never getting to his Diablo project. His daughter Laurie contacted me about the Diablo pieces and I drove to Minnesota and gladly took them home for a future project.

That time has come! The Bolens Diablo Rouge 50th Anniversary Celebration needs a special Diablo and we will be putting this one together to display.

Don had the basics: a chassis with the bogie stations, handlebars, hood mount and a front nose tin.

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Through my Diablo dealings, I have an NOS hood.

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And one piece that will make this special is the very rare Diablo windshield that will be installed.

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This post will follow the project up through the Port Washington event. I hope you enjoy the ride.

Bruce

[Go Go Diablo]

Disassembly of the chassis was complete this weekend.

I really cannot explain what the history of this chassis is. My guess is it is a complete replacement part from Bolens. The bottom is almost spotless like it's never been driven and that confirms what Don's explanation of the part was. It has all the updated components of the updated 500 chassis including:

The added steel bracing on the outer edges:

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The added angle supports where the bumper brackets mount:

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The "Anti-Flip" stop rods that stop the bogie stations from flipping over:

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On the top side, it has the extended tubing and extra tube welds:

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What did surprise me is although the bogie stations have the star washer on the axels by the wheels, all the bogie stations had two holes for the bumpers and the U bracket construction of the 502/503 bogie stations. I can't say I've ever seen that before. It also has a serial number which makes me wonder why a replacement part would have such a thing. Hmmm......

All parts are torn down now. On to the sandblasting.

[Go Go Diablo]

One thing I do to chassis is enlarge the hole in the hitch ball joint. The trick is to heat the tip of the ball joint red hot and let it cool to drill it. Otherwise you just burn up drill bits. This way you can use a large spring pin which is easier to grab and remove.

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The hood for this 500 is brand new and even had an original parts tag on it.

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If only we knew who actually wrote those numbers. That would be cool to know!

[Go Go Diablo]

This is how I set up for sandblasting. Small sandblasters have less risk of warping hoods and chassis decks.

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It takes two to four fills of sand into the blast pot to finish off a chassis.

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[Go Go Diablo]

Sanding with a DA and 80 grit sandpaper removes what is left and makes a nice clean surface. Finish any remaining straightening and such and we are ready for the primer.

The top gets an etching primer that is sandable.

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Then I flip the chassis over and use a different etching primer that is super strong, but not good for sanding. This primer is so stout, you need to spray the top coat of paint on to it within 24 hours or the primer will dry so hard, the top coat won't stick well.

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An hour or two after the primer, I install the top coat of black.

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[Go Go Diablo]

Slowly making progress on the parts and pieces. In the Diablo shop at this time are 7 restorations going on at once. So when you see one chassis, that means we did 7. Same with hoods, handlebars, motors, gearboxes and such.

Here is the NOS hood after sandblasting and priming.

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[Go Go Diablo]

Switching from priming to painting red. The paint shop (and my shoes, socks and hair) turn a beautiful red this time of year.

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The handlebars I'm using are the updated 500 handlebars with the gussets. Without the gussets, the handlebars just bend at the joint the first time you give them a good yank.

[Go Go Diablo]

The ski seater is also an updated design. The first ski seater tubs did not have the extra brace on the bottom of the box. Guess what happens when two good size people sat on the seater and went for a ride? You guessed right! The seater caves in!

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[Go Go Diablo]

Put the coat of red on the chassis. It's looking awesome. The big parts are painted and will put a clear coat on them in a few weeks.

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The hood scoop (Nacelle Cover) is red on a 500, so I prime the new plastic with some adhesion promoter and then paint it red with the same paint I use for the rest of the parts.

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The nose tin on this 500 will be the very first original design which is very wide as you can see compared to the 502/503 nose tin. It also will have only two bumper brackets holding the chrome bumper in place. Not very strong, but original.

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[Go Go Diablo]

The very first Diablos had their "Serial Number" decals attached to the back of the plastic dash. As you can imagine, many of them either fell off or as the dashes were so thin and flimsy, the dashes broke and off came the decals.

In later months, the decal was moved to the engine post. The Diablo 500's did not have the "Patent" decal on them.

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