# Fairbanks Morse



## Catminer (Mar 4, 2012)

Hi 
 No one in the house tonight, have to show someone my progress on my 1/3 scale F-M.

 Peter


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## chuck foster (Mar 4, 2012)

is that one from ted mc janet ?

is it hit and miss or is it a throttler ?

do you have some more pictures of it ?

build pictures ?

god i ask allot of questions eh? :big:

nice looking engine 

chuck the gas engine nut


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## Catminer (Mar 4, 2012)

Hi Chuck;

 Casting set is from Canadian Model Engineering ( Dave Ortlieb ) They are made with Ted's original patterns.
Throttle governed.
My picture taking has been somewhat erratic but I have taken some along the way, nothing spectacular but I can add a few more sometime.


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## Catminer (Mar 5, 2012)

A few pictures of construction up till now.

 Peter


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## lazylathe (Mar 5, 2012)

Hi Peter!!

Long time!!

Very cool stuff!!!
I like the Atlas Shaper shot!!!
See it is getting integrated into the build process quite well!

Another week and she will be done!! ;D

Take care and talk soon!

Andrew


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## Catminer (Mar 5, 2012)

Hi Andrew;

 I think maybe a little more than a week, maybe two :big:

 I am trying to incorporate the shaper into my work. I had all three machines running at the same time
when I was doing the bearing caps, very productive ;D.

 A Picture of the governor housing

 Peter


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## CMS (Mar 5, 2012)

Nice looking job, please keep us posted. I've had a few full sized F/M engines over the years, nice running engines.

Craig


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## cfellows (Mar 9, 2012)

Hey Peter, that's a dandy! What's the bore and stroke on that model?

Chuck


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## Catminer (Mar 9, 2012)

Hi Chuck;

 Thanks for looking.
 Bore and stroke 1 1/2" x 2"
 Flywheel diameter is 8"

 I started laying out the carburetor casting today, it is a two fuel carb. modeled after the real deal.
 I am looking forward to seeing if I really can run a model engine on kerosene.

 Peter


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## chuck foster (Mar 10, 2012)

peter you can run model engines on kerosene, but just like the full size engines you will have to warm the engine up real good to make it work.
as i am sure you know that is were the dual fuel carb comes into play.
i ran my perkins on kerosene and it ran ok.
when you get to trying kero let us know how it works for you.

chuck


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## Catminer (Mar 10, 2012)

Chuck;

 Thanks Chuck, now I am really keen to try it,I have an idea for a belted machine to bring the engine to operating temp. I love the smell of an engine running on kerosene, noisy, inefficient, and stinky, love it.

 Peter


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## Catminer (Mar 11, 2012)

Hi;

 Spent the weekend working on the carburetor, a lot more time into the fixture than the casting.
Went well, everything is dead on.
 The shims ended up in the fixture because apparently I cannot differentiate between .003'' & .030''

Peter


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## Catminer (Mar 17, 2012)

Hi;

 A couple pictures of this weeks progress on the carb.
Boring the filler hole in the starting fuel tank and 
the carburetor at home on the engine.
 A couple dozen more little parts and it will be a carburetor.

Peter


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## Catminer (Mar 24, 2012)

A little more done on the carb. this week.
Made a mandrel to turn the 1/2" throttle valve (butterfly) 80 degrees to the axis of the mandrel.
This gave the plate a 10 degree angle on the edge and the proper oval shape.
Also did the throttle shaft and arm.
Small parts sure do take up a lot of time.

Peter






Tapping 2-56





Throttle shaft,arm, and butterfly fitted


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## steamer (Mar 24, 2012)

Hey Cat,

That is some mighty fine looking work there friend.  :bow:

Dave


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## lazylathe (Mar 24, 2012)

Looking good Peter!!!

Andrew


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## Catminer (Mar 30, 2012)

Hi all;

A few days of no work this week resulted in some serious shop time, spent making carburetor parts.
Finished all but two clamps that hold the fuel needle assemblies into the body.

Test fitting of governor and throttle linkage, I chucked up the crankshaft between the three jaw and live centre,
ran it at 360 and 600 rpm. The governor works well. A bit worried about binding in the throttle shaft but after assembly and running, all good.






A view of this Weeks production of little carb. parts






Peter


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## Catminer (Apr 1, 2012)

Sat.

 Finished the last parts for the carb. today, I usually don't finish castings until an engine is running properly. Then I disassemble and grind off flash and repair defects, but since the body is in two pieces I finished the parts to see the fit up. 
 Compared to George's 1/8 Galloway this thing is gigantic at 1/3 scale.







You can see the join between the fuel reservoir and the body, a little bit of filler should hide it completely.





Peter


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## dsquire (Apr 1, 2012)

Hi Peter

I have been following along on your build of of the Fairbanks Morse. and just want to It appears to me that you are doing a mighty fine job of building it. I will be watching as it progresses. Keep up the good work. :bow:

Cheers 

Don 1311​


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## Catminer (Apr 1, 2012)

Thanks Don, I am also trying to improve my descriptive/ creative writing as I go along. Never paid much attention to that kind of thing in school, now it seems maybe useful. 

Peter


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## lazylathe (Apr 1, 2012)

That looks great Peter!

I agree that it looks monstrous if you compare it to the George made.

Cannot wait to see this one all painted and chugging away on a table in your workshop!

Andrew


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## b.lindsey (Apr 2, 2012)

I am just now catching up with this build Peter, and it looks great. Such nice work on that carb too!!! Will be following along more closely from now on.

Bill


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## gbritnell (Apr 2, 2012)

Wonderful work on your carb Peter. Yes that think is a monster compared to most small carbs.
gbritnell


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## Catminer (Apr 4, 2012)

A little more this week;

 As cast the piston was quite wobbly on the outside but the inside was true to the pin bosses.
 I turned up a quick aluminum mandrel and pressed the piston onto it. This allowed me to turn the OD rough and the chucking piece concentric to it.
 Reversed it in the chuck and cut off the mandrel. I was then able to bore out the mandrel stub and finish the inside of the piston. Then finished the OD to size, (1.4985") and ring grooves to depth at ring thickness +.005".









 The drawings call out two piston rings but the full size used three, I am sure two rings are adequate but an extra groove won't hurt anything




And it fits! ( no hammer required )





Next step the milling machine for the pin hole.

Peter


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## rhitee93 (Apr 13, 2012)

Neat approach with the mandrel. I'll have to file that one away...


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## Catminer (Apr 14, 2012)

Brian;
I've used the mandrel idea a few times now, I just press it in tight and bore it out. Seems to get me started
ok.
Peter


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## Catminer (Apr 14, 2012)

A few more pictures of the Fairbanks progress. I've fallen behind on posting this week, my son is home from
the oil fields in western Canada, "the patch" they call it. So I have been living the adventurous life through his
descriptions. 

Using a piece of flat stock inserted in between the piston pin bosses to set the future pin bore true to the mill.
I clamped the piston in the mill vise by the chucking piece and checked for square with a dial indicator in the spindle. Then machined a flat about 13mm wide on the chucking piece, this becomes the reference surface for the next setups.
 I repositioned it in the vise with the flat to the fixed jaw, trued and centred the piston and drilled and reamed the 5/16 pin hole.
 Repositioned to vertical this time and using a slotting drill opened the pin bosses to 14mm, then drilled and tapped one boss for a set screw to retain the piston pin.
 Then chuck the piston in the lathe and part off the extra and face to length




















Completed piston, I forgot to mention the oil hole in the top side of the piston, but that is just
another operation using the reference surface in the vise.






Peter


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## Catminer (Apr 15, 2012)

Piston rings, I have been making some piston rings with reasonable results, also have bought a couple sets.
This kit came with a commercially made pair of 1 1/2" piston rings.
I fitted each ring by pushing it into the finished bore square using the piston, then measuring the gap with a feeler gauge.
Since my bore came out slightly undersize (.0005") the ring ends butted together I had to file the gap.

I have always used a file but decided to build a grinding jig to improve the squareness of the gapped ends.
Found a 3"x .0625 cutoff disc with exposed grit on the sides, other makes had the sides completely covered in resin. 
The rest was put together with some very scratched 1/4"x 2" aluminum and a drill rod shaft




By holding the ring square against the stops a couple turns of the crank CCW grinds the ring end to suit.
Cleaning and rechecking a few times resulted in a square ring ends and .004" gap.













Peter


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## ronkh (Apr 15, 2012)

Great build so far and looking forward to the rest.
Love those little parts.

BTW, I can see a lot of those "grinders" being made! Brilliant idea and thanks for showing. One of those ideas like "now why didn't I think of that" Thm:

Kind regards,

Ron.


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## Catminer (Apr 15, 2012)

Thanks Ron, I can't take credit for the idea of the grinder .It's my miniature version of the real thing. These were used many years ago when each ring had to fitted to the bore it was going into. 
I did see a performance engine being assembled in a machine shop a few years back using a modern version , with a diamond wheel.

Peter


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## Catminer (Apr 22, 2012)

Connecting rod,
I always seem to stumble when it comes to cast connecting rods and this was no exception.
The sides of the beam portion were parallel so I started with the rod in the vise, I centred from the vise jaws 
and milled the sides of the big end equal using the dro. I should have taken the small end to the same width
with this set up but that turned out to be hindsight.





Using the milled surface, the layed (is layed a word?) out rod was set in the vise on a parallel (1/2" toolbit)
With a centre finder I swiveled the vise until both centre marks were even on the X axis. Then working from the rod eye as zero drilled a 1/8" hole at each centre 





With pins in the centre holes the casting was set up square on an angle plate to drill and spotface the 
bolt holes. After this the cap was sawn from the big end, and the rod remounted square on the angle plate.
The mating surface was milled down to 1/2 of the centre hole diameter. 





I set up a plate in the mill vise centred, located, and drilled the 1/8" centres and threaded holes for clamping down the part.This plate was zeroed with the dro and not removed till finished. 
The connecting rod cap which was set up using the spot faces and milled to thickness after being cut off, was bolted back in place. Following real world practice I assembled it using shims (3X.002") for bearing adjustment..
With an end of one locating pin filed to half the diameter to suit the half hole at the big end, the rod was located and clamped on the jig plate as pictured.
 I had to shim the small end because of not making the thickness equal to the other end. I used a dial indicator on the surface of the rod and shimmed until it read zero deflection when clamped.





Drilled, bored and reamed to size.









After the holes were finished the assembly was removed and reset in the vise to drill oil and grease passages, 
using the jig plate to locate the drillings.
After removing from the plate the rod was clamped on a mandrel in the lathe and the big end turned to width





Hope this makes some sense, even writing it seemed clumsy
Peter


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## vcutajar (Apr 22, 2012)

Peter

You are a life saver. I have come to the stage of working on the conrod casting for my engine and I picked a couple of tricks from your explanation. Unfortunately my casting is not as good as yours but you still helped.

Vince


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## vcutajar (Apr 22, 2012)

Peter

Forgive my inexperience but when you said :



> Following real world practice I assembled it using shims (3X.002") for bearing adjustment



Why does one do that?

Vince


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## lazylathe (Apr 22, 2012)

Love the action boring shot!!! ;D

Have you moved the mill Peter??
Does not look like it is against the wall anymore.
Sneaking more tooling into the workshop?? :big:

Andrew

PS- Thank you so much for the full set of drill bits!!!
Used one the other day and it cut like butter!!!!


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## Catminer (Apr 22, 2012)

Following real world practice I assembled it using shims (3X.002") for bearing adjustment

Why does one do that?

Vince

Hi Vince;
It was common practice with poured and inserted babbit bearings to have shims between the cap and 
connecting rod. Because lubrication was marginal at best a lot of bearing wear was experienced, also
many engines have the shims extending in between the bearing halves to stop them from rotating.
My reasoning is originality and functionality, I am using aluminum bearings and plan on this engine
doing some work because it is throttle governed. I do expect some break in wear to occur.

Peter


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## Catminer (Apr 22, 2012)

Hi Andrew;
Nope I haven't moved the mill, it's too big or I'm too lazy so it will stay where it is.
No new tools lately
Your welcome for the bits, use them in good health.
Did you go to Names?

Peter


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## lazylathe (Apr 22, 2012)

Hi Peter,

I just thought the mill looked like it was moved...
Don't remember the bench behind it.

I did not go to NAMES....
Hopefully we can go to Cabin Fever next year??
Did you make it out to NAMES this year?
We had to do stuff with the kids this weekend.

Andrew


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## Catminer (Apr 22, 2012)

Con. rod continued,
After completing the con. rod I made the bearing halves using 6061 aluminum. Made two complete bearings
and cut each one a little more than half. Each was set in it's seat and filed to the height of the rod/cap.
Some controversy about aluminum bearings on HMEM in the past but has worked well for me, and has the look of a Babbitt bearing.
The drawings called for a .250" piston pin, I enlarged to .3125" and it looks like I could have gone even larger 





The connecting rod installed in the engine










Peter

Assembled and soon ready to test run!


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## lazylathe (Apr 22, 2012)

Wow!!!!
That looks amazing Peter!!!! :bow:

Can't wait to see and hear it running!

Andrew


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## Catminer (Apr 25, 2012)

It's running!
Not well yet, but I'm working the bugs out, first run it was firing on maybe every third compression.
Tried some carb adjustments on the air valve but little help.
The spark plug hole is very deep and opens into a recess above the intake valve, so I thought a longer 
reach spark plug might be the answer. this is my first time for making a plug, I looked around on here and found George Britnell's tutorial and followed his excellent instructions.
The bottom spark plug is a 1/4" 32 long reach Rimfire 





Since this is a pratice piece I tried making it with a fixed gap, kind of a modification of a surface gap plug. I made the bottom of the plug body.030" larger in diameter then the electrode. the centre electrode extends from the insulator flush with the body leaving a gap of.015" around it. Tested and running with a full size T type buzz coil, it works. Lights up bright blue and no visible leakage, I did not grab it to find out more.





This helped the running slightly, I also found an intermittent problem with the ground contactor for the ignition.
Finally runs well enough that the governor acts to close the throttle. Before I got things smoothed out any more the governor spring adjusting sleeve unscrewed itself, meaning complete disassembly to correct. Getting closer.

Peter


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## Catminer (Apr 28, 2012)

Since I started posting about this engine partway through construction this will seem a little backwards.
The governor adjuster unscrewed itself during the first test run, to correct this the gov. must be 
disassembled.
The gov. is part of a cast assy. that bolts in front of the crankshaft on the left hand side. The cam gear, exhaust cam, ingnition cam , and governor are all part of this assy. A faux magneto also mounts on top of the bracket covering the ignition timer. 
The 60 tooth cam gear drives a 15 tooth gov. gear and is driven by a 30 tooth crankshaft gear.
The gears are all cut from cast iron except the magneto drive gear (not shown ) which is aluminum, the original
being cast zinc.
Looking at the backside with the governor wieghts, pin ,and linkage removed.






The parts of the flyweight governor.





The front side showing cam gear and governor gear.





The complete cam bracket assembly.
1 Igniton timer switch ( vibrating coil ignition )
2 60T cam gear
3 Ignition cam, exhaust cam is behind this on same shaft
4 Exhaust cam follower
5 Governor assembly
6 Grease cups (2) to cam and gov. shafts
7 Speed control adjusting screw





Peter


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