# PeeWee V4 slow build



## Cogsy (Nov 3, 2014)

The time has finally come to start my build of Bob Shores Peewee V4. I know I don't yet possess the skills I need, but I plan on learning what I need to know along the way.

I've been busily collecting most of what I need, although I'm stuck on a couple of seals that McMaster-Carr refuse to sell me and don't seem to be available anywhere else in the world, but I'm sure I'll solve that problem when I really need to.

This will be my first attempt at using castings and I haven't got the money for any more, so i hope I don't screw them up beyond repair.







They generally look pretty good, although I'm a little disappointed with the Oil Pan casting as it has some surface holes on it. I don't think it will affect operation but I was hoping to polish it up to simulate a chromed, tin pan rather than a casting.





The metal is a heat treated aluminium that's supposed to machine nicely and I'm eager to make a start.

I don't know how long it will take me to finish but I know it won't be for a long time. Fingers crossed, I'd like to have it running by Christmas 2015 but that may be unrealistic.


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## gus (Nov 3, 2014)

Hi Al,

No Worries. Take your time. In our retirement, there is no date line. No bosses breathing down our neck.


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## mikemott (Nov 3, 2014)

Is it possible to get the manufacturer to replace the oil pan exchanged for a better one? If it were my business it would be replaced no questions asked ,the metal would go back in the pot.

Michael


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## Cogsy (Nov 3, 2014)

Thanks Gus, but unfortunately I still have work to do (I just turned 40...).

Michael, I'm in Australia and the castings came out of the USA. Postage time both ways would be at least a month and the oil pan is needed for the first machining operation. I'll have a think on it. Maybe I can start with the crank, etc first while I wait for a replacement. If I don't start machining something soon I'm going to chicken out though.


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## mikemott (Nov 3, 2014)

Al I hear you. You could send them a picture and ask that they just send you a new one right away, and you will return their bad one collect.

Michael


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## Brian Rupnow (Nov 3, 2014)

Cogsy--Make a new oilpan from a block of 6061 aluminum. It doesn't look like it would be that difficult.---Brian


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## aonemarine (Nov 3, 2014)

you paid for it, you should get it replaced for free. that casting flaw may run way more than skin deep...


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## GKNIPP (Nov 3, 2014)

Believe me, you may be surprised at how fast the new part will come.  No kidding, I have had better luck with timely postage from overseas versus here in the States.   

Greg


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## bmac2 (Nov 3, 2014)

Hi Al
I have to agree with aonemarine, if the companys reputation is worth its salt they should supply a replacement and I cant see any logical reason to have to return the defective part. If you want we could all gang up on them with e-mail? *knuppel2*
Worst case you could do like Brian (engine builder and now author ) suggested and make one from solid.
Over the last couple of months I keep looking over the Whippet plans but I make way too many parts twice to dare anything with castings yet. Ive got my chair pulled up on this one so if you feel you have someone looking over your shoulder, its only me. Take your time, Im in no hurry.Thm:


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## stevehuckss396 (Nov 3, 2014)

Best of luck Cogsy. If you need anything let me know. I have some pictures and a complete drawing set from building mine. When you bought the plans were you supplied this set of drawings? If so make sure you have version 1.01.







I also checked and found I have the front and rear crank seals in stock. I could ship them for the same price as McMaster Carr plus shipping if your interested.


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## Cogsy (Nov 3, 2014)

Thanks for the ideas and support guys. I've had the castings a few months - I should've examined them more closely but I was more concerned about a different flaw on the oil pan, which turns out to be all machined away so it doesn't matter. Anyway, I don't feel right about raising this issue after so long has passed. If I come across any hidden/internal flaws that affect the engine I will definitely go back to the seller.

So I have 3 plans now. 

1. I could try and source locally some aluminium solder and see if I can patch it up. Not sure if that's going to be economically viable though.
2. I'll attempt to make one from solid. I know I can make one that will function correctly but I'm not sure I can make one that will look right. Looks are important to me on this build so that's a big factor.
3. I can just use the one I've got. The holes will still be there but at least they'll be underneath and difficult to see. It means I can't polish the pan as planned but it will still look pretty good painted.

I'll work on plans 1&2 and keep 3 as a backup.

bmac - I'm in exactly the same boat as you. I make many parts twice before they're good enough but you only get 1 shot at a casting. My plan is to go through every machining step 2 or 3 times before actually cutting, especially the 'easy' stuff where simple errors are easily made. Realistically, the block and bell housing are probably the only bits I couldn't make from solid if I had to, and it should be nearly impossible to go wrong on the bell housing. That just leaves the terrifying thought of machining the block - and it's the first step 

Steve - I got Bob's original plans on paper with the castings, as well as electronic versions 1.00 and 1.01 of yours. I've printed 1.01 out and I'll be running with them. They sure look good, even I should be able to follow them!

And thanks for the offer of the seals, it'd be great to get them off you. Just send me a PM with the cost and Paypal address to pay and I'll shoot off the payment. Postage is to Western Australia post code 6112. 

BTW Steve - it was stumbling across your Peewee video on Youtube that got me hooked on this engine. I hope mine turns out half as good as yours.


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## Swifty (Nov 4, 2014)

I've used aluminium welding sticks from Bunnings, they come 2 to a packet. Not much good where any force is involved, but would be fine for filling holes. I used a Mapp torch with them.

Paul.


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## Cogsy (Nov 4, 2014)

Sounds good Paul. I found some in my local Bunnings (4 to a pack for $10). It doesn't mention any requirement for fluxing but I assume I'll have to have a nice clean part to start with. Any idea how to achieve that with a raggedy hole?


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## canadianhorsepower (Nov 4, 2014)

Cogsy said:


> I'll have to have a nice clean part to start with. Any idea how to achieve that with a raggedy hole?



Hi I would grind the excess so you would have a nice concave finish
and build it from there.

I think you should go to a welding shop that does aluminium with a tig
and ask him to weld it. 
I have a Tig and do aluminium but the problem is that Aluminium
oxydise real fast and doing a good job without any gas could be challenging

good luck


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## Swifty (Nov 4, 2014)

Cogsy, no flux required for the Bunnings sticks. The ones I have do a good looking fillet weld, but the joint is not strong.

Paul.


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## stevehuckss396 (Nov 4, 2014)

Cogsy said:


> And thanks for the offer of the seals, it'd be great to get them off you.
> 
> BTW Steve - it was stumbling across your Peewee video on Youtube that got me hooked on this engine. I hope mine turns out half as good as yours.




I just double checked and the seals I thought would work were 5/16. I have 1/4 but they are too thick. Sorry to get your hopes up.


Half as good? Shoot for twice as good and settle for just as good.


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## gus (Nov 4, 2014)

Hi Cogsy,
Gus will be following your thread closely. For now I am not up to mark to make any engines beyond one cylinder. I have a very serious disease--------''Impatientitis''. Usual symptom flares up at last cut. 
There so many minor projects to pick. For now will do the DIY ''MiniMagneto'' to drive the Webster Engine. 
Take Care. Take lotsa tea breaks before the last cut.


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## aonemarine (Nov 4, 2014)

I remember having a conversation awhile back about castings,  and I'm pretty sure it was about Bob shores.  I had though he poured his own castings, but had actually had a foundry do them.
The discussion was about how well they machined, they didn't gum up like cast aluminium will if its not aged or heat treated.  After researching someone pointed out that the castings are not aluminum, but a magnesium aluminum alloy.  Someone double check me on this please....
  Keep this in mind when welding on them....


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## gus (Nov 5, 2014)

*Aluminium Crankcase Cover*

Have done my fair share aluminium gravity castings . The pour temperature cannot be too high and hence shrinkage. Getting ideal pour temperature can be tough. The pattern profile comes into play too. Pouring speed too. Degassing,fluxing and refinement a must.
In 1986 Gus spent two weeks in the foundry at Shanghai Heavy Compressor plant. My Foundry Gurus were cramming into my poor head with their knowhow. Big pieces 715 C and small pieces 730 C. Applies to their aluminium alloys only. Gus was using any old aluminium scraps and came up with best pouring temperature at 680---690C. Cast and machines 300 pcs aluminium condensate traps
Gravity Casting engine pistons in Cast Iron Moulds is another skill. Spent three days auditing piston supplier in Southern China and pretending to be expert. Got smart and let them do all the talking.


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## e.picler (Nov 5, 2014)

Hi Cogsy!
I will be following your project with very close interest.
More than a year ago I also purchased a casting kit for the PeeWee V4. I have checked the casting after reading your thread and I found everything to be OK.
I have got it from Dirk Tollenaar in USA I think he has the rights to sell the castings and plans. He was very nice with me with an outstanding service.

After finishing the actual project `Tiny 4 inline from Kelly`I plan to get the hands on the PeeWee in order to get more `skills` on multi-cylinder V configuration before I start my dream project wich is the V8 from Steve Huckess.

I wish you the best on your building.

Edi


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## Cogsy (Nov 5, 2014)

Hi Edi, this is going to be a slow build so I wouldn't be surprised if you finish your Peewee before me! I've got the same plan as you, first the V4 then Steve's V8. I can't look any further in the future than that.


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## Cogsy (Nov 5, 2014)

Aonemarine - thanks for the heads up. I did some checking and these castings are heat treated 356 which has only a 0.3% magnesium content and is supposed to have excellent welding characteristics. Still, I hadn't considered the possibility of high magnesium alloys in aluminium. I'll be a bit more cautious with unknown alloys in the future.


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## aonemarine (Nov 5, 2014)

???  I thought they were almag 535.  7% magnesium....   Ok.now I'm totally lost...  Was the information you received from the mfg?


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## Cogsy (Nov 5, 2014)

I'm only assuming they're still made from 356, as per the description at this link. Just to be on the safe side, if/when I attempt to weld I'll do it outside in a safe area.


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## aonemarine (Nov 6, 2014)

Ok, so this engine was passed along to Dirk to produce them? That explains alot.  More research is required LOL


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## Cogsy (Nov 7, 2014)

I still haven't made the decision about the oil pan yet. I do have some aluminium 'solder' that I might try out as long as my attempt at making the pan from solid works out. I don't want to burn up my casting when I don't have a replacement. If I can't make an acceptable pan from scratch then I'll take the casting to a professional welder to be repaired.

Here's what I've managed so far.









To give you an idea of how slow this build will be, so far I've spent 11.5 hours on this oil pan alone and I still don't know if it's going to work out. I know there's a few guys on here that could have built a complete single cylinder engine in that amount of time...


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## aonemarine (Nov 7, 2014)

you know you could all ways drill a hole thru the bad area, then turn a plug on a slite taper, drive it home, then machine it.


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## e.picler (Nov 7, 2014)

Hi Cogsy,
You are doing really well.
The oil pan you are making from solid is OK, it looks really good, and 11 hours for a person that have no experience in machining is not bad at all. I`m sure you will end up not using the cast one.
My building of the Tiny 4 inline is also progressing in a very slow pace, but getting there. 
Don`t rush yourself.

Keep up the good work.

Edi


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## Brian Rupnow (Nov 7, 2014)

Cogsy--Obviously, the gentleman from Brazil has no knowledge of your previous machining exploits!!!!---Brian


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## Cogsy (Nov 7, 2014)

Brian - I have to admit, those photos do make it look like I machined it with a chisel and a sledge hammer and I've never even touched a machine before. It looks a little better in the flesh but will need a heap of finishing. Of course it was looking really nice until I made a mistake, then compounded it several times trying to fix it.

I did consider plugging the cast one but I'm not sure how the different colours of the alloys would turn out considering I wanted it polished. I'm starting to think a little JB weld then paint might be the best option after all.

For now I'll just keep going in multiple directions until the problem resolves itself.


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## gus (Nov 8, 2014)

Oil Pan looking good.


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## Cogsy (Nov 11, 2014)

Finally I believe I have made a decision and I will be using my from-solid oil pan. It still needs further machining but I'll wait until it's mounted to the block before I do any more. Then I will need to improve the finish and polish it up properly.

Now I need to take a few days off and take care of some jobs for the lovely wife, and clean up the mountains of swarf in my shed, then I'll be making a proper start to my engine.

Here's the last shots of the oil pan saga...









Thanks for looking.


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## Brian Rupnow (Nov 11, 2014)

Ha!!! Knew you could do it!!!


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## mikemott (Nov 11, 2014)

Very nice piece of machining.

Michael


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## Swifty (Nov 11, 2014)

Didn't realise that it was so small, unless that's a giant lighter. Great job on that.

Paul.


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## gus (Nov 12, 2014)

Oil Pan looks good.
Will follow this thread . Meanwhile Gus has too many distractions.


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## Cogsy (Dec 4, 2014)

My 'few days off' lasted longer than I'd hoped. Turns out my few jobs for the wife included a major plumbing problem that raised it's head. It's all fixed now, I just have to wait for the ground to dry out a bit so I can replace the patches of concrete floor I had to dig up. Luckily for me it was only a grey water problem - I DO NOT deal with black water.

So with my work space all clean and tidy I tried to make a proper start to the Peewee yesterday. I spent nearly 2 hours measuring, marking, aligning and clamping the block onto the mill, after careful study the night before and writing up a machining plan step by step. I was really nervous and I wanted to make sure I did everything right.

I took my first couple of passes and found some holes in the casting. I machined to the full depth that I needed, hoping the holes were just in the bottom, but I discovered more and more, especially the smaller holes. 

I've never machined a casting before but I think this one is no good. Can I get some expert opinions please?

If the castings are bad I'll have to get on to the seller and in the meantime I'll shift onto other stuff like the crankshaft and camshaft. I don't want to stop now and I definitely still want to build this engine.


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## Cogsy (Dec 5, 2014)

I've had it confirmed that the castings are no good. I also checked the heads and oil pan and they're the same. There has been some issue at the foundry, but more castings are going to be sent to me. I hope the new ones are OK.

No pictures yet but I've started preparing for the crankshaft. I've cut the stock to length, faced both ends and machined flats on one end. Now I'm making a 'jig' of sorts to hold and drive the stock, almost like 'between centres'. Then it's on to the mill for roughing and back to the lathe for finishing.

So far I have about 3 hours into it and I'm guessing it'll be a 20+ hour piece. I really, really hope I only have to make one.


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## michael-au (Dec 5, 2014)

It's good Dirk is replacing the castings 
Hope the ones I have are ok, have to machine mine to see if they are the same


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## michael-au (Dec 7, 2014)

Just took a cut of my castings and they look the same as yours.... bummer


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## Cogsy (Dec 7, 2014)

I feel your pain Michael, I guess the only bright side is that you're not quite ready to build yours yet, so hopefully getting the castings replaced won't hold you up.

I sure hope the foundry issues have been sorted out now.


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## michael-au (Dec 7, 2014)

I have sent some pics to Dirk, I hope he will replace them


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## Cogsy (Dec 8, 2014)

As it will be a while at least before I get more castings, I decided to have a go at the crankshaft. This will be my first one piece crank, my first multi-cylinder crank and also my first attempt at offset turning. 

I could be going about it all wrong but here's what I've got so far.

A nice lump of 1" 1144 stressproof cut to length and faced, along with a set of (most) dimensions.





I started by squaring the blank to the mill and machining a flat 1/4" deep on one end. My first impression of the 1144 is that it machines beautifully. I have some 12L14 to machine later on, I hope it machines as nice as this stuff.





Then I flipped it over and used this setup to indicate level on the cut edge, then machined another 1/4" deep flat.





I didn't take any photos of the next couple of steps, but I used the machined flats and centre drilled 3 holes for crank and throws offset. Then using the flats again I indicated the other end and centre drilled the matching 3 holes.


As I've never turned between centres, I machined up a drive out of some mystery steel - it's not pretty but it is machinable.


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## Cogsy (Dec 8, 2014)

Here's my complete set-up being tested between centres. First on the centreline.




And then one of the offsets.




It all seems to be working as planned so far. I don't know what sort of RPM to spin it at, but at the moment I've tried it at around 500 RPM and it doesn't seem fussed about the imbalance.

As I now intend to do all of the work on the lathe (no roughing on the mill) I thought a couple of carriage stops for the lathe would be helpful. So without any sort of plan or research I whipped these pair up. They work well and should do the trick nicely.







Now I need to grind up my parting blade, make sure my gibs are adjusted and start making chips on the crank. I may start tomorrow but the wife may have other ideas. Any good advice would be appreciated (about the crank, not the wife).


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## michael-au (Dec 8, 2014)

Take you time and measure twice before cutting ( advice I should have followed ) and you will be ok
When you have one of the offsets turned bolt a block in the gap so it does not flex when turning the next offset, when that one is machined bolt a block in the gap, so when you turn the ends it won't flex and should stay straight


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## gus (Dec 8, 2014)

Hi Cogsy.

Will be watching the crank shaft cutting. Soon or later will get enough Dutch courage to cut same.


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## stevehuckss396 (Dec 8, 2014)

Cogsy said:


> Any good advice would be appreciated (about the crank, not the wife).



Rough it out in the mill first. It will save a lot of time and increase your chances for a good result. It will also be easier on the tooling in the lathe.


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## Cogsy (Dec 12, 2014)

The crankshaft is done - when I say done, I mean destroyed, in the garbage. It was going well and I thought I'd thought of everything, but I forgot to allow for sheer stupidity and it snuck up and bit me. I managed to miscalculate my roughing cuts and missed my dimension on the first throw :wall:.

So how annoyed was I? I said a bad word (just one), then I thought some more bad words (lots), then I had a bit of a think about it and I made my peace. Even though I had quite a few hours in it, I wasn't overly confident I'd be able to pull it off. Now I have a test piece that I can finish machining with no worries about making a mistake. At the end of it I'll have an interesting paperweight and hopefully the skill to make a successful crankshaft.

I'll make a start early next week. It's forecast to hit nearly 40 degrees celsius here by next Friday and I'd like to be done by then. With nothing but a small fan my shed is uninhabitable one the mercury hits 36C.


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## Swifty (Dec 13, 2014)

That's a bummer Cogsy, but put it behind you and get on with another, it will soon be forgotten.

Paul.


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## michael-au (Dec 13, 2014)

That's a shame....best you can do is look at it as a learning curve.
Hope the next one goes well


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## e.picler (Dec 13, 2014)

Al
If the problem is on the diameter of the throw you still have a chance to use the crank, just make a special connecting rods for that specific throw.

Good luck on the next.


Edi


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## Cogsy (Dec 13, 2014)

Thanks for the thoughts everyone. A stupid mistake is what it was - just forgetting from one moment to the next what number I was aiming for and hitting the wrong one.

Edi - I have made a commitment to myself with this engine that close enough will not be near enough. If I make a mistake on a part I will remake the part. It's not the way i normally operate (we have a saying here in Oz - "she'll be right mate") but I'm making the attempt to get some better habits happening. 

Really, we are in this hobby for the fun of making parts, otherwise we'd buy the pre-machined kits, so I look at it as being some extra 'fun' in the build. Really though, that 'fun' was hours of gritted teeth and 'pucker' while I hoped nothing would go wrong...


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## Cogsy (Dec 15, 2014)

Here is the prettiest piece of scrap I have ever made.




I learned a lot about the cutter I need to use and the machining steps, etc, but I'm still concerned I don't have enough skill to make a usable crank.

Somehow, even with my spiffy drive thingy, I still managed to have the crank slightly off centre from one set-up to the next. I'm not sure how this is possible - I didn't remove the drive from the chuck at all during the whole machining and never moved the tailstock either. All I can think of is there may have been a little bit of swarf in the centre holes at some point and I didn't notice.

I machined the centre bearing journal, then the tailstock end shaft and finally the shaft closest to the chuck last, all without removing the crank from the lathe, so all 3 sections should have been concentric. The first two went OK but on the final shaft I was having trouble with taper, then I noticed run-out on the other 2 sections. I assume I got some shaft flex while I was turning the final shaft. I measured the run-out at a maximum of 10 thou on the centre journal. Far too much. I'm not sure why this happened, except maybe I let my cutter get a little bit blunt and had to apply more cutting force. I guess I won't know until I try the next one.

Well it was fun, now lets see if I can improve on it.


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## MCRIPPPer (Dec 15, 2014)

even if you didnt remove the drive dog from the chuck, you could still get runout if the center spike is not perfectly centered, and you flipped the crank 180. could also be the bolt you have for clamping onto the crank. you could probably do without the bolt and just let the crank float.


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## gus (Dec 15, 2014)

Hi Cogsy,
Been following the crankshaft machining. Will continiue with the next. No worries.


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## Cogsy (Jan 4, 2015)

Since all the holiday duties are over and I have a bit of free time again, I thought I'd start on the next crankshaft. As I knew it was going to get hot here today (the forecast was 39C), I got a reasonably early start and managed to get some work done.

But, after a couple of hours I noticed my head getting a bit 'fuzzy' and I had to keep checking everything I was doing, so I figured I'd had enough. Then walking to the radio to shut if off I had a little stumble for no apparent reason. Weird, I thought. I was feeling a little queasy and wondered if I was coming down with something. Then I checked my trusty thermometer which advised me the air temp in the shed was a balmy 47 degrees celsius . And I hadn't had a drink in at least 2 hours . Into the cool house and a couple of litres of water later and I felt a lot better.

I've never had proper heatstroke but it was surprising how easy it can creep up on you. I'm guessing another half hour in the shed and I might have been in some real trouble.

Tomorrow is forecast for 41 C so I think I'll get some inside jobs done instead.

The crank is looking good so far though. Fingers crossed.


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## gus (Jan 4, 2015)

Cogsy said:


> Since all the holiday duties are over and I have a bit of free time again, I thought I'd start on the next crankshaft. As I knew it was going to get hot here today (the forecast was 39C), I got a reasonably early start and managed to get some work done.
> 
> But, after a couple of hours I noticed my head getting a bit 'fuzzy' and I had to keep checking everything I was doing, so I figured I'd had enough. Then walking to the radio to shut if off I had a little stumble for no apparent reason. Weird, I thought. I was feeling a little queasy and wondered if I was coming down with something. Then I checked my trusty thermometer which advised me the air temp in the shed was a balmy 47 degrees celsius . And I hadn't had a drink in at least 2 hours . Into the cool house and a couple of litres of water later and I felt a lot better.
> 
> ...



Hi Cogsy,

Take care. 

Gus could not handle 36----38 C while on Biz Trip in China. Was sweating away losing too much salt.


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## Cogsy (Jan 4, 2015)

Gus - I struggle with heat as well, but high humidity is worse for me. I spent a month in Darwin once and I almost couldn't drink enough to keep up with the sweat I was loosing. I'm guessing Singapore is probably worse.

BTW - it's 10:30 in the morning here right now and already 38.2 degrees. Looks like it'll be warmer than the 41 they predicted.


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## /// (Jan 4, 2015)

Jeepers Al!!!
Glad you're ok.

I experienced similar many many years ago when I passed out in the shed. Was a typical Perth summer day, stood up to exit the shed and I got tunnel vision followed by complete white-out. I made it to the doorway and clutched on hard with both hands waiting for my vision to return.
Next thing I can remember is waking up on the concrete floor with a very sore bump on the back of my head and a ringing in my ears. I have no idea how long I had laid there, I was home alone at the time. Scary stuff.

I think you are right about today's temp, feels over 40 already outside.
I'm in a nice air conditioned office but miles away from my shop 

EDIT: You were on the money Al, 42.9 in the city at 12:25pm. (~110 Fahrenheit for you US viewers)
Temps typically peak around 2 to 3pm, so could go higher!


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## Cogsy (Jan 5, 2015)

We ended up hitting 44 degrees here today (115F). Needless to say I didn't get any shed work done. There's a cooler change expected about the end of the week so with luck I'll get the crank finished then.


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## /// (Jan 5, 2015)

Yup, just 1.8 shy of the overall record(46.2 back in Feb 1991) and the third highest January day on record.
I walked outside of work(Canning Vale) during the peak and got the following open-air temperature, in the shade!


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## Cogsy (Jan 5, 2015)

Nice. I'm just down the road in Armadale. We always claim it's hotter out here than in the city.

Might have to move to Tasmania - mid summer and the maximum in Hobart today was 20.6! Then there's the snow in winter to look forward to as well. I'm so sick of being hot.


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## mikemott (Jan 5, 2015)

Al where I am it was -35degrees Celsius yesterday morning not as cold today only -25degrees I am just about to go out to light a fire in the workshop it will be around 0 in there this morning.

I complain about our cold winters but I don't do well in the heat, your tale reminds me of that.

Mike


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## gus (Jan 5, 2015)

Cogsy said:


> Gus - I struggle with heat as well, but high humidity is worse for me. I spent a month in Darwin once and I almost couldn't drink enough to keep up with the sweat I was loosing. I'm guessing Singapore is probably worse.
> 
> BTW - it's 10:30 in the morning here right now and already 38.2 degrees. Looks like it'll be warmer than the 41 they predicted.




Hi Cogsy,

I do OK with 2 beer mugs of water in the morning and 2 more in the late afternoon to keep the body system topped up. The only problem is after 1 hour there will be a few pee brake. 
The body needs plenty of water to function well. Too much beer not a good idea as it takes out more fluid than the body require.

Take Care


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## Brian Rupnow (Jan 5, 2015)

Cogsy---Glad you are okay. It is colder than a witches tit here, high temperature today was -10C and we got about 20 cm of snow. If freight shipping was cheaper I would gather up five or ten tons of that damned white stuff out of my yard and send it to Oz to keep you cooler.---MikeMott--where the heck are you?---Brian


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## bob shutt (Jan 6, 2015)

HI Cogsy,
 I hear you about being correct but a lot of the machining is fit to another piece. If the bearing diameters fit the bearings I would match the throw diameters to the connecting rod.  If the TIR is out on the middle bearing journal I would grind between (centers) our if you can mount it on the bearings and grind the center journal until it cleans up then match a split bushing with it. I had to do this to the Demon V8


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## mikemott (Jan 6, 2015)

> MikeMott--where the heck are you?---Brian



Brian I am in (sunny) Alberta 50 miles west of Edmonton on the shores of Lake Wabumun

Mike


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## gus (Jan 6, 2015)

Fly over and fish with Gus. The Met.Station says its 26C but my M.I.C. Gages are reading otherwise. The MIC Hygrometer need to be checked .At 85% and Gus is not feeling the humidity???With the ceiling fan at #1 ( top speed #6) I have having a great time at the PC Desk.
The N.E. Monsoon been cooling down the other 31-----33 C. I have no complaint except that when it rains too much,I catch no fish for dinner. There is a saying in China----------""When Winter comes,Spring is not too far away.


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## Cogsy (Jan 6, 2015)

bob shutt said:


> I hear you about being correct but a lot of the machining is fit to another piece.


 
Thanks for the advice Bob. It was the first throw I made the first error on and I'd already missed the diameter on a roughing pass so I knew it'd end up way too small when I cleaned it up properly. I did think very briefly about matching the rods to fit but as the journals are already quite small, I didn't want to take the risk of breaking the crank under power. If I have problems with the next crank I will attempt to save it using your suggestions though.

It's all for the best - I really didn't have a handle on how to machine the crank properly. This second attempt is looking a lot better and has taken less than half the time that the last one did to get it to this point. Weather permitting it should be finished in the next couple of days.


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## Cogsy (Jan 11, 2015)

The next crankshaft is done - when I say done I mean finished, completed! Well, almost. I still need to trim both ends and do a bit of fettling/polishing, but all the difficult stuff is done. It's not perfect but should be close enough to use. Total runout is less than 3 thou but is concentrated on the rear portion of the shaft, so the only wobble will be the flywheel and that will be hidden inside the bell-housing. This should be ok shouldn't it? 

I changed my machining process, the tool I used and modified my fixture from the last attempt. Including building the fixture, I spent 13 hours on the first one before destroying it with the first lathe operation. Including modifying the fixture, this one has 18 hours in it in total.

I really don't want to do that again for a while.

Here's how it turned out so far (with another giant lighter for Swifty).




Now it's on to mounting a motor on the power hacksaw I just got, then making the fixture for making the camshaft. Then making the cam.

Thanks for looking.


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## Swifty (Jan 11, 2015)

Looking great Cogsy, I think that I'm past miniature engines, I like things that are a bit bigger, easier to work on.

Paul.


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## gus (Jan 11, 2015)

Swifty said:


> Looking great Cogsy, I think that I'm past miniature engines, I like things that are a bit bigger, easier to work on.
> 
> Paul.




Hi Paul,

Some engine bigger than the Nemett-Lynx Engine???
Now still studying the V-2 Engine Drawings.


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## Cogsy (Jan 11, 2015)

Swifty said:


> Looking great Cogsy, I think that I'm past miniature engines, I like things that are a bit bigger, easier to work on.
> 
> Paul.


 
Thanks Paul. I hadn't really thought of it as miniature, just small really. Now that I give it some thought, I guess it is. I don't think there's any parts that will require me wearing magnification to build though, so it's not really tiny.

I don't think I'd like to build much smaller though - my eyes are getting too old.


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## michael-au (Jan 14, 2015)

Cogsy,
 your crankshaft looks good, take your time with the cam, it can be a long process and easy to loose concentration (for me anyway)


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## Cogsy (Jan 24, 2015)

Getting the power hacksaw running is a bit bigger job than I thought, and I haven't had much free time lately, so I haven't started the camshaft yet. I did manage to get a few hours in the shed today, so I worked on something small just to get something done.

I dug up this bearing plastic leftover from a racecar suspension mod years ago, and banged it into the lathe.




Then it was on to the dividing head on the mill and cut a few slots (worked it out yet?).




Then round the leftover chunks, and drill a few holes.




Some hollowing out on the lathe and it now looks somewhat like a dizzy cap.




I'm not sure if I'll use it or use what I learnt making it to make a nicer one. I'll see if I can smooth it out a bit better, possibly a quick pass under a flame? It does look better than this in the flesh but I still want it nicer. 




Maybe I used the wrong sort of plastic. Can anyone suggest a plastic that turns easily and finishes nicely?


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## Davewild (Jan 24, 2015)

Cogsy said:


> Getting the power hacksaw running is a bit bigger job than I thought, and I haven't had much free time lately, so I haven't started the camshaft yet. I did manage to get a few hours in the shed today, so I worked on something small just to get something done.
> 
> I dug up this bearing plastic leftover from a racecar suspension mod years ago, and banged it into the lathe.
> 
> ...


Hi Cogsy 
I'm going to purchase mine from SS Machine, fairl play you for making it.

Dave


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## Swifty (Jan 24, 2015)

Cogsy, you need to use a harder type of plastic, this way you won't get a lot of burrs and it will machine just as easy. Now comes the hard part, I can't recall what type I used at work when poly parts were called for. We did a lot of machining on plastic, but I always changed the specs from what was on the drawing, it may be UHMWPE. http://www.dotmar.com.au/polystone-7000/polystone-7000-uhmwpe-sheet-uhmwpe-rod.html

Or again, it may have been this http://www.dotmar.com.au/acetal.html, I recall that we used both types at some stage.

Paul.


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## Cogsy (Jan 25, 2015)

With the weather set to hit 40 degrees C over the next few days, I figured I'd better sneak a couple more hours in the shed before the heatwave. 

I started with a little test of the plastic I made the dizzy cap from. It does file and sand, although it's not the easiest, and once it's flat a quick burst of the mapp gas torch puts an excellent semi gloss, smooth finish on it. So I may use what I have left to make another one, unless I can afford a lump of Delrin (thanks for the tip Swifty).

So instead of spending my precious shed time filing and sanding (I hope to sneak that task inside the house, into the air conditioning) I chucked up a piece of 1" Ali and cleaned it up, hoping to make a distributor body.




Then I turned the outside to finished dimensions.




Next I drilled through for the shaft, bored the body out and made the double stepped pocket for the flanged bearing.




After parting it off I reversed it and lightly gripped it to double step the bearing pocket in the bottom. I used a piece of Monster Energy can to protect the finish but it did get a little marked up.




Once that was done it was onto the mill for making the slot for the hold-down screw and trimming the excess off the hold-down tab.




Here's the completed part with bearings installed and mocked up with the cap and drive gear. Again, like all the parts I seem to post, it still needs touching up and polishing, but I think it's a keeper.




That's all I can do until the weather cools down a bit. Hopefully we'll only have a week or two of the really hot stuff.


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## michael-au (Jan 25, 2015)

Good job Cogsy


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## gus (Jan 25, 2015)

World smallest distributor cap that money can't buy !!!! Following this thread everyday.


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## Davewild (Jan 25, 2015)

Cogsy said:


> With the weather set to hit 40 degrees C over the next few days, I figured I'd better sneak a couple more hours in the shed before the heatwave.
> 
> I started with a little test of the plastic I made the dizzy cap from. It does file and sand, although it's not the easiest, and once it's flat a quick burst of the mapp gas torch puts an excellent semi gloss, smooth finish on it. So I may use what I have left to make another one, unless I can afford a lump of Delrin (thanks for the tip Swifty).
> 
> ...


Nice, love it, oh so small


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## Cogsy (Jan 26, 2015)

It's small but easy to make. You'll have no problems with it I'm sure.

This engine is starting to get addictive. The more parts I build, the more I want to build. My wife is starting to get a little touchy over the time I'm spending in the shed already and I'm only 2% complete :fan:.


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## gus (Jan 26, 2015)

Hi Cogsy,

When you get so near to completion,its about time to take it easy. Take Care.


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## Cogsy (Jan 30, 2015)

I managed to sneak the dizzy cap into the house for filing and sanding after all. It took a while but smoothed out reasonably nicely, although it was quite dull, so I hit it with a quick flash with the mapp gas torch. That was a mistake. The posts distorted quickly and the finish isn't what I was after at all. So it's into the trash and now I need to find a suitable piece of Delrin at a reasonable price. Oh well, it was a learning experience.

The weather has been horrible here lately, with 40 degree Celsius days interspersed with a massive thunderstorm that raged over the area for a good 4 hours or so. Our main air-con in the house has decided to blow up (we're waiting on the warranty dept to call us to arrange a time to look at it...) so the house has been almost uninhabitable. On the plus side, it has been easier to spend the odd hour or two in the shed as the temp difference between the house and shed is much closer than usual.

A couple of pieces of simple turning resulted in a magnet disk and rotor blank for the dizzy. Just need some 2-56 grub screws (like hens teeth in Australia), the rotor contact and the trigger magnets to finish these pieces and the inside of the dizzy is complete (except for the electrics later).




Next up I decided to make the timing cover. I machined a piece of 5mm ali plate to 1.6mm and bored some holes in it, then machined a couple of slots before removing it from the rest of the stock with a hacksaw.




The bottom radius is centred on the bottom large hole so it was simple to set up in the dividing head with a bolt through the hole as a pivot. The top radius is centred below the top hole though, so I had to make a jig to mount the piece with the correct pivot point. I bolted it up and used some super-glue to hold it together, then took light cuts and it worked as expected.




Then I turned up the snout for the fan assembly with a flange to locate it in the cover. The whole timing cover and snout is drawn as 1 piece and I did have a go at carving it out of a piece of 3/4" plate, but I wasn't happy with the result (it actually morphed into the jig you see in the photo above), so I made it 2 piece and I've JB welded it together. I hope it'll be strong enough.




The completed part looks like this, although it's now in a clamp while the JB Weld cures.




Finally, some simple turning but extremely difficult drilling and countersinking yielded these 2 fan centres. I only need 1 but again wasn't happy with the first attempt so I made another. I'm not 100% happy with the second one either so I may revisit this piece later. I might also experiment on them with some anodizing dyes I've got stashed under the bench and see what I can do as well.




So that's where I'm at right now. Not much progress but progress nonetheless. Next up I think I'll try the fan pulley and the fan itself, although I'm yet to work out exactly how I'll go about the fan.


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## canadianhorsepower (Jan 30, 2015)

[quote managed to sneak the dizzy cap into the house for filing and sanding after all. It took a while but smoothed out reasonably nicely, although it was quite dull, so I hit it with a quick flash with the mapp gas torch. ][/quote]

I use clear nail polish on plastic it gives a great finish

good job on the motorThm:Thm:


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## /// (Jan 30, 2015)

Cogsy said:
			
		

> Maybe I used the wrong sort of plastic. Can anyone suggest a plastic that turns easily and finishes nicely?


Hi Al, I have used black acetal(delrin) with great success for some of my astronomy adaptors.
This stuff machines beautifully with HSS tooling, I can't speak with any authority about how it behaves with inserts, but I have used an insert for threading (M48 x 0.5 internal) and it was easy peesy with excellent finish.

Like Paul(Swifty) I got the acetal from dotmar, they're located in Canning Vale over here, but they have a MOV which from memory was about $70 or something.
I have quite a lot of 60mm round, if you need any and you're ever around the Canning Vale area, give me a yell.


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## Cogsy (Jan 30, 2015)

Thanks for the offer Simon, I might just take you up on that. Funds are a little tight at the moment to spend $70 on stock but I'll gladly buy an offcut from you.

I'll drop you a line when I'm headed out that way. Cheers.


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## /// (Jan 30, 2015)

No worries, I have 2 metres of it!
I'll cut a lump off, 100mm be enough? 200mm?
No cash, knowing it'll be used for good(IC engine) vs evil(taking up space here) is enough for me


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## Cogsy (Jan 30, 2015)

100mm would be heaps. Really, the dizzy cap is only about 1" tall plus a bit to grab in the jaws of the chuck. Thanks again.


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## Cogsy (Feb 1, 2015)

With the thunderstorms keeping the temp down, today was a perfect day to get into the shed. It's a pity then that the kids start the new school year tomorrow so the wife had me doing all sorts of things to prepare for that adventure. I did sneak a couple of hours though.

I made the fan pulley and it turned out to be the very first part on the Peewee that I didn't have to make 2 of. Yet. I have to learn to take better photos, it does look good in the flesh, I promise.




The bolts to hold the fan in place are tiny little 0-80's and as I'm mainly a metric guy, I had to buy taps and dies for this imperial engine. I toyed with the idea of just buying the sizes I needed, but in such small sizes it has to be online and I couldn't be sure of the quality of Dubro, etc. So in the end I took a risk on this kit from Chronos in the UK. I believe it's Chinese as we have an Aussie seller here selling the same kit that solely deals in Chinese stuff. I don't like him as a supplier (he's the guy in Adelaide for all the Aussies on the forum) and Chronos was within $0.50 of the price including shipping anyway. So far it's been absolutely brilliant. I've tapped 00-80 in Aluminium, 2-56 in ali and steel and externally threaded 0-80 on drill rod. The kit includes taper and bottoming taps in each size and the handle holds well and keeps straight. If you need a cheap small tap and die set (it's billed as a watchmakers set) I'd recommend it.




No photo but I did try and rough out a fan in ali. I got something resembling a fan and a reasonable machining process that should make me a decent fan, but trying to angle the blades I destroyed it. I'm not sure yet whether I'll switch to steel or brass instead, or try and 3D mill the blades with the angle included - without CNC. We'll see how I feel when I get back in the shed.


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## /// (Feb 1, 2015)

Cogsy said:


> So in the end I took a risk on this kit from Chronos in the UK.
> .......
> So far it's been absolutely brilliant. I've tapped 00-80 in Aluminium, 2-56 in ali and steel and externally threaded 0-80 on drill rod. The kit includes taper and bottoming taps in each size and the handle holds well and keeps straight. If you need a cheap small tap and die set (it's billed as a watchmakers set) I'd recommend it.



Ha!
A few weeks ago I took the risk and bought the metric version and like you I would recommend it.
Years ago when I was managing a Jaycar store these kits came in as a new product and I immediately dismissed it as junk.
Then a month ago I was looking for tiny metric taps and dies and worked out that pretty much the only decent thing out there was a Bergeon watchmakers set, which at around $1000 was not going to happen.
I then looked at these cheap sets on ebay and remembered Jaycar. Turns out the Jaycar price is better than eBay, surprisingly, and I can have instant gratification( no waiting weeks for delivery from China), have a good look before buying and even return them hassle free if I didn't like them after trying.
Looking at the taps under a x10 loupe, they looked OK so I had a look at the dies and decided they were very rough but I'd give them a go anyway..... well, I'm impressed, very.
I'm yrt to try the taps, but as junky as the dies look, the finish on a thread under a x10 loupe is pretty damned good considering the tiny size.
$1000 Bergeon good? No way, but at ~$60 for 9 dies and 18 tiny taps of acceptable quality, I'm a very long way from complaining!!!

I just wish I'd given them a chance when I was working there to get the staff discount, which at Jaycar is very generous (can be as much as 75% off on some stuff)

http://www.jaycar.com.au/productView.asp?ID=TD2443


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## Cogsy (Feb 10, 2015)

Next up, for no particular reason, I'm attempting the water pump. First piece is the pump body.

I didn't really put enough thought into the order of machining ops and realised fairly early that I'd messed up so I started again.

The second one was virtually finished (although I wasn't entirely happy with the internal finish - but I would probably have used it) then I managed to ding the OD with the chuck jaws on the final op. I used pieces of aluminium can to try and protect the finish, but must've over tightened the chuck.

For the third try I machined up a jig to hold the delicate part for it's final op and I got it done. Although the pictures aren't great, the internal finish is much better on the final one.

So here they are left to right is 1st, 2nd, 3rd. 








The internals, fittings, backing plate and pulley are still to come and next on the list.


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## michael-au (Feb 10, 2015)

I know the feeling of the  3 in 1 part, your doing a good job, keep up the good work 

By the time the new castings arrive you will have most of the parts made


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## Cogsy (Feb 10, 2015)

Thanks Michael. I don't know about that though, it feels like I have done a lot of work but my completed parts pile is pretty small. I really need to stop making so many of the same things when I only need 1 good one.


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## Cogsy (Feb 14, 2015)

It took far more effort than I thought it would, but I finally managed to cram two 9 tooth spur gears into the water pump body. It seems I didn't take any photos of them in there but trust me, they are in place.

Then a reasonably simple backing plate and a drive pulley and the water pump is complete, except for the small o-ring to seal the shaft.




And here it is actually pumping water! It pumps more than the picture makes it look, in fact I'm thinking I may need to restrict it further. It was a real pain trying to take this shot and run the drill at the same time. I took several and this was the best. I may make a short video to better show how it pumps.




That's all for now - that 'simple job' took me 4 trips to the shed over 4 days to complete. Not sure what to start next. I'll study the plans more and see what jumps out at me.


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## gus (Feb 14, 2015)

Hi Cogsy,

Please take a shot of the gears in mesh. Gus will be making same gear type lube oil pump for the 
Howell V-2 Engine.


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## Cogsy (Feb 14, 2015)

No worries Gus. Might not be today - I have visitors staying, but will get it done for you.


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## Davewild (Feb 15, 2015)

Hi Cogsy

Looking great, what gears did you use? The ones on then plans require you buy a 3 foot length!!! As I'm in Thailand and the gear stock is in the US I don't teally won't to buy 3 feet when I only need maybe 1 inch, have you come up with a different solution.

Thanks 
Dave


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## Cogsy (Feb 15, 2015)

Hi Dave

I bought a 1 foot length from the US when I bought the bevel gears for the distributor. It is true that you technically only need about an inch of it if all goes well, but I used nearly 2 inches trying various things and then there is also some slight damage to a section where it was clamped in the jaws of the chuck (probably could still be used though).

I could always post you an inch or so but Aust post is expensive to ship overseas, so for probably not much more you could get a whole foot, especially if you're also going to buy other gears at the same time. I found SDP-SI to be the cheapest supplier and they had everything I needed in one order. Plus, they're completely online, freight is calculated automatically and everything.

Anyhow, if you need me to I can find out a shipping cost to Thailand and send you some gear stocl. Let me know if you need it.


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## gus (Feb 15, 2015)

Davewild said:


> Hi Cogsy
> 
> Looking great, what gears did you use? The ones on then plans require you buy a 3 foot length!!! As I'm in Thailand and the gear stock is in the US I don't teally won't to buy 3 feet when I only need maybe 1 inch, have you come up with a different solution.
> 
> ...



Hi Dave,
2---4 weeks from now I am cutting Module 0.8  Spur Gears for the 
Howell V-2. Please email gear drawings. CTC does stock Imperial Gear Cutters. I have Module 0.8 and 1 Gear Cutters.


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## Davewild (Feb 15, 2015)

Hi Gus.
There is no gear drawing, the plans call a of the shelf gear stock, but the supplier in the US only sells in a 3 foot length????


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## Davewild (Feb 15, 2015)

Cogsy said:


> Hi Dave
> 
> I bought a 1 foot length from the US when I bought the bevel gears for the distributor. It is true that you technically only need about an inch of it if all goes well, but I used nearly 2 inches trying various things and then there is also some slight damage to a section where it was clamped in the jaws of the chuck (probably could still be used though).
> 
> ...


I may take you up on your offer of sending but I will check your supplier first, I been trying to find a cheaper source for the bevel gears as they are very expensive, I will get back to you, did you get your new castings yet?


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## Cogsy (Feb 15, 2015)

No news on the castings yet . Fingers are still crossed.

I'll find out a shipping cost for you to send a piece of the gear stock.

Gus - the gears for the water pump are 32DP (so close to 0.8 mod) but are only 9 tooth. As far as I know the cutter for the smallest gear only goes down to 12 tooth so it wouldn't cut a 9 tooth gear.


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## Cogsy (Feb 23, 2015)

gus said:


> Please take a shot of the gears in mesh.


 
Here you go Gus - better late than never (I nearly forgot:hDe. The punch marks are for 'timing'. I figured I ran them in in this particular configuration so they might as well stay in the same config.








Davewild said:


> I may take you up on your offer of sending but I will check your supplier first


 

Postage isn't all that bad depending on the size of the parcel it will go in (thickness not weight). Somewhere between $2.50 and $10.00 so if you need it then it's definitely do-able.


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## Davewild (Feb 24, 2015)

Nice work Cogsy, I might tackle the water pump next, as I am not happy with my crankshaft and am waiting for new bar stock to arrive from the UK, I would like to take you up on your offer, if you could send me enough gear stock for the two gears that would be great, please let me know what the cost is so I can reimburse you, is PayPal OK?


Cogsy said:


> Here you go Gus - better late than never (I nearly forgot:hDe. The punch marks are for 'timing'. I figured I ran them in in this particular configuration so they might as well stay in the same config.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


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## Cogsy (Feb 24, 2015)

No worries Dave. I'll suss it out and PM you.

What steel are you making the crank out of? I used 1144 stressproof that I ordered off Amazon and it cuts beautifully. I just used some 12L14 for the first time and am hard pressed to tell the difference in machinability, except the 1144 makes smaller chips (almost like cast iron). If you can get 1144 I heartily recommend it.


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## Davewild (Feb 24, 2015)

Cogsy said:


> No worries Dave. I'll suss it out and PM you.hi Cogsy.
> The crankshaft is built u from parts, so I'm using drill rod for the journals and main shaft, I bought some steel bar stock locally for the webs not sure what it is but it is very hard, anyways I messed up the alignment of the holes so I going to make new webs once the new bar stock from the UK arrives, I bought free machining steel for the new webs, I will post some pics soon.
> 
> Dave
> ...


hi Cogsy.
The crankshaft is built u from parts, so I'm using drill rod for the journals and main shaft, I bought some steel bar stock locally for the webs not sure what it is but it is very hard, anyways I messed up the alignment of the holes so I going to make new webs once the new bar stock from the UK arrives, I bought free machining steel for the new webs, I will post some pics soon.


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## gus (Feb 25, 2015)

Cogsy said:


> No worries Dave. I'll suss it out and PM you.
> 
> What steel are you making the crank out of? I used 1144 stressproof that I ordered off Amazon and it cuts beautifully. I just used some 12L14 for the first time and am hard pressed to tell the difference in machinability, except the 1144 makes smaller chips (almost like cast iron). If you can get 1144 I heartily recommend it.




Hi Cogsy,

Will try out 1144 for crankshafts meanwhile I am using Bright Mild Steel Bars from the regular bar stock supplier. BMS been used for my Webster, Rupnow and Nemett-Lynx w/o any problems so far. Guess I am lucky. Also used Japanese 5-----8mm o.d bar stocks bought from TokyuHands. They machine well. Shy to say they are to J.I.S.. Specs unkown. 
Copy Cat Gus learning from HMEM Veterans/Experts.


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## Cogsy (Feb 25, 2015)

Same as you Gus, I've always just used what I had for crankshafts, but I've always just made built-up type cranks before. For this one being a one piece, I needed better material that was less likely to warp from internal stresses as it was machined so I went with the 1144. It was a pleasure to find out how easy the stuff machines - so much so that I'll be ordering more and using it instead of other steels where practical.


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## gus (Feb 26, 2015)

Please post when the multi-throw crankshaft is WIP and when done. Todate I still shy away from such c/shafts.
Looking forward to learn from Meister Cogsy.


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## Cogsy (Feb 26, 2015)

gus said:


> Please post when the multi-throw crankshaft is WIP and when done.


 

Not sure I'm really the one to be learning from but the crankshaft was completed back in post number 70. There were some WIP updates but it took me 2 tries to make a useable crank.

It was a stressful job but a huge amount of satisfaction once it as done. I will make more 1 piece cranks in the future.


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## Cogsy (Apr 18, 2015)

It's been a while since my last post. I've been distracted building myself a small furnace and playing with casting a little bit but I'm back on to the Peewee for now.

The Peewee castings are still in limbo at the moment so I'm still working on the little bits and pieces I can do without the castings. First up I decided the rocker arms looked reasonably simple.

In theory the arms could be carved out of a piece of 1" 12L14 round bar that I have in stock, but the stock would need to be offset in the 3 jaw on my dividing head. I had a couple of attempts (and wasted over a foot of stock) at trying to set the offset plus square the tailstock and the bar itself to the mill. Tough to explain but it was too difficult to get right so I moved on to my backup plan - cutting them out of a 1-1/4" piece of tool steel I inherited.

Once the stock was squared I took it down on the first side and milled a series of steps with the dividing head to get the rounded central profile.







Then rotated it 180 degrees, took down the other side and used the dividing head to machine in the correct top angles.




From there it was a relatively simple matter of drilling the pivot hole, parting off and drilling/tapping the adjuster screw.





Although this is a small bunch of less than impressive looking parts, the problematic setups and absolutely horrible-to-machine tool steel meant that it took a lot longer to make these than it should have. I haven't worked out a better way to make them yet but I'm sure I went about it all wrong.


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## Cogsy (Apr 19, 2015)

I was inspired by Gus when he explained he was taking care of some of the 'fiddly' parts of his V twin build early in the build so he didn't rush them at the end. I often suffer from the same sort of problem so with that in mind I decided to start building the carb. 

It seemed a little daunting looking at the plans but really wasn't too hard to make.

I started by roughly offsetting a piece of 3/4" ali in the 4 jaw and turned the two round sections.




Then milled each of the 4 sides. Each side had 2 steps in it so it was really 8 sides, but really straightforward milling.




Back in the lathe for the boring of the drum cavity.




Then drilling and tapping the various holes in the body. The plans call for an air bleed hole to be drilled with a number 70 drill, then test the carb on the engine. If it leans out at full throttle then the hole needs to be opened up to the next size and re-tested. Repeat until it's right. Instead of this procedure, I've borrowed Steve Huck's idea and drilled and tapped a 4-40 hole instead. Eventually I'll make a series of small 'bolts' with different size holes in them to get the bleed hole size right without the danger of going too big or snapping a tiny drill bit off in a completed carb.

The plans also call for a .070" hole to be drilled completely through the back of the carb, then each end opened up and threaded 2-56. One side is for the fuel inlet and the other side is for the needle, which is supposed to act on the 0.070" section in the middle. Instead of this I drilled and tapped 2-56 all the way through and I'll have the needle act on the end of the fuel inlet instead. It seemed an easier and safer way to make it so I hope it works and I haven't overlooked something important.




After turning the drum (no pictures of that but very straightforward) the drum was clamped into the carb and the carb was centered on the mill and bored through the body and drum. Then the drum was removed and the throat opened up.




Next I parted the carb off it's parent stock, shaped the bottom flange freehand with a file and made and fitted a throttle stop and fuel inlet.




Next up, the needle.


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## Cogsy (Apr 19, 2015)

The carb needle is a hand-sewing needle about 1.2mm (0.047") in diameter, fitted into a brass adjusting screw.

To start I turned and threaded a piece of brass 2-56 - actually it's the guts of a garden tap. I ran out of brass stock and had this laying around so I cannibalised it. Then I peck drilled with a 1.2mm drill bit, 0.25mm at a time for the full length, about 9mm. Here it is with the sewing needle test fitted.




Then I knurled the end as I won't be able to slot the head with the sewing needle embedded in it.




Once I parted the piece off I chucked up a piece of ali and dilled and tapped it 2-56 to use as a mandrel. I drilled it extra deep as the screw will need to screw into it with the needle attached eventually. This allowed me to shape and clean up the end, and to countersink a slight recess for solder to bed into.




To solder the needle in the correct place I first tightened the screw all the way in, then backed it off about 1-1/2 turns. Then I inserted the sewing needle all the way through and made sure it was fully closing the fuel inlet and soldered it in place. This means I can fully close the needle and have it completely block the fuel off, giving me the absolute maximum amount of adjustment. It also guarantees correct alignment of the needle to the fuel inlet.




This is the nearly completed needle. I just needed to trim the excess needle poking out the back of the screw, then stick it back in the mandrel and carefully clean up the end with a file and sandpaper.




Here is the completed carb except for the air bleed 'bolts' I mentioned earlier, a throttle arm and of course the obligatory clean and polish.




Next up - I have no idea and my posting has again caught up to my building so it could be a while...


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## Swifty (Apr 19, 2015)

Nice job Cogsy, I have loctited the needle in before, with no problem.

Paul.


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## gus (Apr 19, 2015)

Hi Cogsy.

Great job on the Jet Needle. Did same for the Nemett-Lynx Engine. Used Loctite to hold sewing needle.

Was looking for ways to make same as per Jerry Howell's drawings. Will post later today. 

I have yet to DIY a knurling tool. The knurls are on the PC Desk begging me to put them to use.:rant:


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## Cogsy (Apr 19, 2015)

I wasn't sure loctite would work. I thought maybe the fuel would dissolve it over time. Now I know it works I'll probably use it for ease next time.


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## gus (Apr 21, 2015)

Hi Cogsy,

No worries. I loctited the sewing needle for the Nemett-Lynx Engine. The Carb is not expected to get very hot and no danger of needle falling out.

I am taking too much sweet time with the Howell V-2 Carb. Going a snail pace but enjoying the work and finishing.Carb body now mounted on to O/Head and waiting for the throttle barrel. Just figured out a way to machine the barrel.


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## Cogsy (Apr 23, 2015)

I managed to get a little shop time and make the throttle arm and screw, plus one of the little 'bolts' for the air bleed hole. I'll make a few of them and drill them various sizes once I get a micro drill set.

This completes the carb and I'm looking at attempting the camshaft next. First I need to make the fixture but that's a story for another day.


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## michael-au (Apr 23, 2015)

Looking good Cogsy, you will soon have all the parts made


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## gus (Apr 25, 2015)

Hi Cogsy,

Very well done Carb!!! Beats mine.


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## Cogsy (Apr 26, 2015)

I've been delaying attempting the camshaft as I still haven't worked out a way to mount the electric motor to my power hacksaw - it's an old motor that doesn't have any mounting points or holes. I think it may have been clamped originally. Anyway, I had to beak out my manual hacksaw and attack a piece of 1/2" plate and some 1" square bar I found at the back of the shed. More energy than I like to expend later, I had the rough-sawed bits.





A bit (lot) of milling later, plus a bit of drilling and a little tapping, and the fixture is almost done.




Here I've added the ali disc for the degree wheel and it just needs the bushes to secure the cam blank.




And finally the cam blank itself. The blank was more difficult to make than expected. I've discovered an issue with my lathe that I had to work around and I had to turn it in very small sections at a time. 




Now I just need to actually cut the lobes. Fingers crossed I'll be attempting to get it done in the next couple of days but no promises.


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## Davewild (Apr 27, 2015)

Hi Cogsy.

Great work, I'm at a standstill with mine, work keeps getting in the way, any update on your castings?


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## Cogsy (Apr 27, 2015)

Hi Dave,

Still waiting on the castings unfortunately. Word is the foundry will be trying another pour in the next couple of weeks. Fingers crossed it goes well - I'm catching up to the point that I really need them soon.

So far it's been a really fun and challenging build. I look for new posts about yours all the time.


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## Davewild (Apr 27, 2015)

Hopefully you will get an update soon, likewise I check out your build regular as I can offshore, I'm home now for a week trying to get the crankshaft finished, will be posting soon!!!





Cogsy said:


> Hi Dave,
> 
> Still waiting on the castings unfortunately. Word is the foundry will be trying another pour in the next couple of weeks. Fingers crossed it goes well - I'm catching up to the point that I really need them soon.
> 
> So far it's been a really fun and challenging build. I look for new posts about yours all the time.


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## Cogsy (Apr 28, 2015)

For my attempt at turning the cam lobes, I set the cam fixture between centres in the lathe. Actually I put it between a live centre in the tailstock and a nice big, pointy countersink in the lathe chuck :hDe:. The main reason I used the countersink instead of an actual centre was because I don't have any drive dogs. I contemplated making something up but decided to see if the countersink would provide enough drive. It worked better than expected - not only did it drive just fine, but if I ever made a grave error and ran the cutting tool into somewhere it wasn't supposed to be (like the side of a lobe or the end of the fixture) the slight 'crash' would overcome the driving force of the countersink and no damage would occur. Don't ask me how I know this though :wall:.

Here's the cam after the first of 72 'sides' has been cut. This 'side' took a whopping 50 minutes to cut. Luckily the rest were much quicker. The black marker on some lobes was just to help me keep track of which lobes not to cut for each 'side'.




After a bit more progress it started to take shape. As I made the fixture in 3 pieces I was able to easily shim either of the end pieces to perfectly align the cam blank in the lathe. Here you can see the piece of 5 thou feeler guage poking out from under the drive end. I'm not sure if I made the fixture slightly out or if the 5 thou was the inaccuracy of the 3 jaw chuck and countersink combined. It doesn't matter though - the shim took care of it.




Here's the cam after all the cuts on the lathe were completed (about 1/2 an hour ago). I still need to blend all the facets and round the nose transitions, then give it all a good polishing up, but my wife called me inside to make dinner so that'll be tomorrows job.




And a final shot to show the size of it. Most of the back portion is only for holding it in the fixture and will be removed.


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## gus (Apr 28, 2015)

Looks like a very good looking cam shaft coming.

Thanks for posting. I knowing nothing with turn cam shafts on a lathe. The two cylinder inline engine require such cam shafts.


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## stevehuckss396 (Apr 28, 2015)

hold the cam between centers in the lathe to file the nose profile. The lathe does a good job of holding the shaft and you can rotate it easily as needed. Then just pinch the lobes with a piece of 150 or so grit sandpaper and run the lathe forward and then backwards  for just ten seconds or so and the facets will disappear. 

Nice job on the cam. How long did it take to make. I remember mine taking about four and a half hours after the fixture and blank were done.


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## Cogsy (Apr 28, 2015)

Thanks for the tips Steve, they'll make it easier for me. 

Not including making the fixture or the blank, and also not including setting the blank up in the lathe and grinding a few different HSS tools until I worked out the right shape, it took me about 7 hours spread over 2 days - I think maybe I should have run it at more than 300 RPM and it would have saved some time but I wasn't in a hurry. 

I didn't want to stop on day 1 but my back was absolutely killing me and I had no choice. I also think I might have held my breath the whole time. With every cut I was sure I was going to mess it up somehow, and the closer I got to finished the more nerve-racking it got. Now that's it's all over I can sit back with a massive sense of achievement and say it was fun!


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## Davewild (Apr 28, 2015)

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, well done, was it as bad as you thought? You can't have many pieces left now? My crank is coming along nice hopefully I will post before the weekend.

Dave


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## Cogsy (Apr 28, 2015)

gus said:


> Looks like a very good looking cam shaft coming.
> 
> Thanks for posting. I knowing nothing with turn cam shafts on a lathe. The two cylinder inline engine require such cam shafts.


 
Gus, there is a fantastic document in the downloads section by Steve Huck that explains the procedure in great detail. You'll have to do a little math but if you follow the steps you'll have no problems. Here's the link.


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## Cogsy (Apr 28, 2015)

Thanks Dave. It wasn't a bad job at all, just a little nerve-racking keeping track of all the steps and trying hard not to run the tool into places it wasn't supposed to go. To be honest, once I recover from making this one, I might make another cam just for display.

What's left to make (in random order) : all the castings will need machining, liners, the rods, pistons, rings, wrist pins, valves, guides, retainers, gears (modifying not making), flywheel, adapter plate, intake manifold, exhausts, dipstick, various external fittings, engine mounts, radiator and re-do a dizzy cap.  Then it's just mounting the whole lot to something and fitting an ignition. Really not as much as I thought once I see it all written down. I may just complete this thing this year!

Good luck with the crank, I'll be keeping an eye out.


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## gus (Apr 28, 2015)

Davewild said:


> Hopefully you will get an update soon, likewise I check out your build regular as I can offshore, I'm home now for a week trying to get the crankshaft finished, will be posting soon!!!




Hi Dave,

Where are you now??? Loyang Marine Base or Batam???

Am glad you can get on to HMEM while overseas.

Take care.


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## e.picler (Apr 28, 2015)

Congratulations Cogsy!
Very good job, you are progressing well on your PeeWee. For sure I will use your thread as reference when building my PeeWee (next project).
I also machined the lobes on the blank of the Tiny 4 inline this weekend. I did that on the CNC milling machine, it took me more than 2 hours to machine the 8 lobes because I used a very conservative (slow) feed rate.
I will post pictures before the end of the week.

Edi


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## Cogsy (Apr 28, 2015)

Thanks Edi. I've been watching your Tiny build and I think I may have to build one in the future as well. Great looking engine and you're doing a nice job on it.


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## Cogsy (May 1, 2015)

I chucked up a piece of scrap ali and bored it to suit the hub of the distributor gear so I could bore it out. As per Swifty's suggestion I drilled and tapped for an M3 set screw to secure it as well.




Then I pressed it onto the cam, with a bit of loctite for safety as well. The next step was supposed to be turning the O.D. of the gear hub to accept the rear cam bearing, but due to a slight error in the plans, I didn't have the bearings on hand. The plans call for the cam bearings to have a 0.187" I.D. but the front of the cam is 0.250" and the shaft the gear presses onto is 0.187" meaning the entire hub would need to be machined away to fit the bearing. I've got the correct bearings ordered and I should have them next week, so I continued on to the other gears.




Again I used some scrap ali as a fixture and this time made the hole a tight tap-in fit. I didn't use a set screw and was hoping I could part through the fixture and the hub as well, as I needed to remove the Hub and I didn't want to try holding the gears by the teeth. It worked reasonably well and only required a little clean up and the teeth were untouched.




Here's the gear-train all completed, except for a bit of polishing. I was a bit disappointed with the cam gear. I had to reduce the hub length and drill/tap for a new set screw. The unfortunate thing is the old set screw hole was not completely removed and looks unsightly. It won't affect anything, and will be hidden inside the engine, but I'll know it's there.




Now I have a little clean-up of some parts and a bit of polishing, then I think I'm pretty much stuck waiting for castings.


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## Cogsy (May 5, 2015)

For a bit of fun I decided to try and whip up a Holley-style air cleaner for the Peewee. Not sure I'll use it while it's running but should keep the crud out of the carb when it's on display. I had fun making the tri-corner 'nut' and it takes me back a few years when this style was all the rage (including on my car).


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## michael-au (May 5, 2015)

Like the air cleaner Cogsy, good job


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## gus (May 5, 2015)

Hi Al,

Great looking Air Intake Filter. Very sporty. Makes mine antique.


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## Cogsy (May 5, 2015)

Thanks guys. I wanted a bit of old school charm and I figured it'd be an easy piece. Turns out I was right for a change.  

I'm thinking I might have to ask Santa for a better camera though, some of my pictures are so bad I don't want to post them. I promise most of my stuff looks better in the flesh.


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## Cogsy (May 15, 2015)

With still no word on the new castings, but a desire to keep machining something, I decided to have a go at casting my own heads.

I cut up an old alloy intake manifold from a Ford 6 cylinder engine and threw in some bits and pieces I had around the place as well. Once it was melted I also added around 4% copper to the melt, based on some experiments bmac2 did recently, to improve the machinability.

I measured the castings I have and there was plenty of meat in them to use them as patterns directly so that's what I did. Here's the result straight out of the sand.





Here's a shot of them with an original casting for comparison. You can see my surface finish is nowhere near as good.




I figured I could fix the finish problem later, so I attempted to machine them. They cut very nicely, not gummy at all, but they were full of tiny little gas holes and were unusable. I was annoyed so I didn't get any photos of the porosity.

So I have decided to abandon my casting attempts as everything I cast lately has been porous (I think I might be making the melt too hot), plus my surface finish isn't up to scratch. Instead, I grabbed a couple of scrap Ali bars from my stockpile and I will attempt to machine the heads from solid. I don't have a bar big enough to make the two heads together so I'll have to make them one at a time and hope they come out the same.

Here's the first piece of scrap straight out of the pile.




And here it is all squared up and ready to go.




Next update we should know if this plan is going to work.


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## michael-au (May 15, 2015)

Nice try bad luck it didn't work out for you, bummer

The silver bullet head I made from bar stock its not that hard to do, hope it goes well for you

Michael


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## gus (May 20, 2015)

Hi Cogsy,

Molten Aluminum absorbs hydrogen and when poured, the absorbed hydrogen is released and porosity or very small pockets appear. Before pouring, the melt must be degassed and if better surface finish is desired,use refining chemical. Have done my fair share casting auto condensate traps for compressed air. Some where in the YouTube a gentleman used household chemicals such baking soda and sodium chloride. Please surf YouTube.Good Luck. After 20 years,I cannot recall the trade names of degassing cakes and refining additive.


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## Cogsy (May 20, 2015)

Thanks Gus. I have seen people using table salt and others using lite salt (Sodium Chloride and potassium Chloride I think) as degassing agents. I tried the lite salt for this pour - I think the theory is to change the gaseous hydrogen into Hydrochloric Acid - but it failed. I really think my crucible is the wrong design and the metal can't melt fast enough, so the metal that melt first gets way too hot and absorbs far too much hydrogen. This casting stuff sure is tricky - I got better results melting aluminium in a stainless steel bowl over a fire made from BBQ briquettes! I think I'll improve as I get more experience.


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## gus (May 21, 2015)

*Degassing Molten Aluminum.
*
Here's how I did it years back with 50 kg aluminum charge.
The degassing tablet must pushed all the way down to bottom of crucuble so that gas release with garbage floats up.Degassing Chemical thrown on the surface and stirred,will not do a good degassing job.I did this and got poor results. Called the Foundry Supplier for expert advice.  A DIY thermocouple Pyrometer would be needed to check melt temperature. With scrap pistons, pouring temperature ideally is 715 C as advised but I got best results at 680/690C.
The DIY 50kg capacity gas fired furnace too 3 hours to melt. This is a slow melt.
Refining chemical can be sprinkle on top and stirred . Resulting dross skimmed off.

Will DIY Pyrometer with thermocouple wire and ''millimeter ammeter. Will find a way to calibrate. Thermocouple wire comes in different grades and class. I lost touch could be type J    K   L ?? Will experiment with multimeter .

All in, it took me 2 months to get the first piece of perfect casting. Bought and read a big pile of reference books and even went to Shanghai Compressor Plant to learn from the masters. ( Went there for a meeting)Over a sumptous dinner and lots of millet wine, lots of technical advice came forth. Phone numbers if I need to check with them. All in made 300 pcs of Auto Condensate Traps to assemble 300---------7.5hp Air Compressors.


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## Cogsy (May 21, 2015)

I've made some progress with the heads. First up I measured the rocker post as best as I could, then scribbled half a page of math to work out the angle of the post and the height of the block I needed for the sine bar. I had to rest the sine bar on parallels as it's 5 inches long and the vise is only 4 inches wide.




Then I machined a groove with one of my new, cheap end mills.




And rounded the top of the rocker post with a carbide tipped wood router bit.




It was then a simple matter of machining the rest of the top to the same level and machining the side and bottom to required thickness.




Then a couple of cosmetic grooves with a 3mm ball nose end mill finished it off. I then repeated the whole process a second time and now I have 2 head blanks all ready for many holes to be drilled.




Next time - many holes will be drilled!


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## michael-au (May 21, 2015)

Nice work on the blanks Cogsy &#128512;


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## Cogsy (May 25, 2015)

I got some more done to the heads, although I currently have some meds keeping me out of the shop most of the time. 

First I used a centre cutting 1/2" endmill to start the combustion chamber, then enlarged it to 0.628" with the boring head. This was interesting as it showed me just how 'domed' a plunge cut with an endmill actually is. You can tell by the small pip left in the centre after flattening the rest with the boring head. 




I then spotted and drilled the valve cage holes and drilled a blind hole for the first part of the water passages.




Then the rocker post was milled away where the rockers will go. I toyed with the idea of removing all the remaining post except for what is actually need to support the rocker shaft (3 x 0.152" posts) but decided it would look nicer as designed. I may try out the other look on one of my scrap head castings just to see. I can always change it later.




With the head bolt holes drilled and counterbored the heads are starting to take shape. I won't be drilling any of the ports until I have the valve cages made and installed, which will be my next step.


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## michael-au (May 25, 2015)

Nice job Cogsy, the heads look really good &#128077;


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## gus (May 25, 2015)

The heads look good.


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## Davewild (May 25, 2015)

They look great Cogsy, another part that I'm fearful of, they are just so small, I been home a week and am nearly caught up with other work, shop time very soon.

Dave


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## e.picler (May 25, 2015)

Hi Cogsy!
Your work is progressing very well. 
Very good machining work. I'm following with close interest as the PeeWee will be my next project.

Congratulations.

Edi


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## Cogsy (Jun 1, 2015)

Thanks for the kind words guys.

Got a little more done and made the valve cages. Made 2 extra for spares (plus one not in the photo that I forgot to ream). This is the first time I've ever had to 'mass produce' a part and I thought it would get a little boring, but it was fun to get into a routine and see a small pile of almost identical parts build up. It was also surprisingly satisfying to see how close each part turned out in relation to the plan and each other. Every one of these parts are between + 0.01mm / - 0.00mm of the plan in diameter, which is good for me.

The packaging in the background is for my 3/32" machine reamer - rather an unfortunate brand name they chose 




Next up will be the retainers and the valves themselves, then I'll fit the guides and drill the ports.


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## spurgear (Aug 3, 2015)

http://www.floridaame.org/GalleryPages/g1m0210.htm

AS per dirk
The castings for the Peewee engine were proven by Bob Shores himself.  This was the last engine he built in the year and a half prior to his passing.  His engine ran, and is now placed away for safe keeping by his family.


That engine was never ran, & donated to;


https://www.flickr.com/photos/157942...57649482852173



craftsmanshipmuseum.com/KnappCol.htm


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## Cogsy (Jan 9, 2018)

I can't believe it's been over 3 years since I posted in this thread - time flies when you're too busy to have fun it seems. I have made some progress with the engine in all this time, though not as much as I would like (it's not running yet), so I thought it was time to post some updates.

As part of my 'getting back into machining' strategy, I built Brian Rupnow's vertical single engine as documented in this thread [LINK], and I made a change to the way I do things while I was building it. Previously, I tended to put parts aside 'for later' when I got to a tricky procedure or where I could destroy the part with a mistake. This leads to a large pile of half finished parts. So as part of my new philosophy - "build it til it's done" - I started back on the Peewee with the idea of drilling the intake and exhaust ports to complete the heads.

All set up with a sine bar to get the correct angle, and using my new cheapy DRO it was a very simple procedure - I should never have put it off in the first place.




And a shot of the heads with the rocker arms temporarily installed just to see what they look like after all this time.




Next instalment will be the much-dreaded machining of the new block casting. I spent years worrying about this point...


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## Cogsy (Jan 10, 2018)

After reading everything I could to prepare myself, I finally sucked up the courage to make an attempt on machining the block casting. This was my first real machining on a purchased casting and I knew a major mistake here would probably mean the end of this engine for me.

To start with, I found the centre of each cylinder bank and drew a line down, perpendicular to each bank. I then drew a line through the centre of the block, down through the intersection point. Finally, I marked a line 90 degrees to the centre line, again through the intersection point. This intersection point is the centre of the crankshaft, and the horizontal line will be the bottom of the cylinder block.




Now that the marking out was finished for this point, I completely disregarded it, flipped the block over and took a quick cut over the bottom just to have an even surface to work with.




Flipping the block back over, I shimmed one side until the centreline I marked earlier was as close to vertical as I could make it and then took a very slight skim cut over the very top edges of the cylinder banks. So slight in fact, that it doesn't really show in this picture, but trust me, it is there.




The skim cut over the top of the block became a level datum point so I could again flip it over and cut the bottom until it was level and parallel to the top. From there I indicated the block to as square as I could in the Y plane. The picture is a bit of a mock-up and shows the indicator running along the front of the block but in reality (because that surface is later machined square and is irrelevant as-cast) I actually indicated both sides of the block and attempted to get them as even as possible. The casting was quite close to being parallel on each side and I had no real trouble setting it reasonably square along the plane. I also want to mention that my camera seems to amplify the amount of surface rust on my clamping set - it looks like I store them in a bucket of salt water but in the flesh they don't look anywhere near as rusty. This picture was taken during the damp ofwinter and I have cleaned and oiled them up since it was taken.




Now I had the block square in the Y direction I took a shallow pass across the end so I had a square surface in the X direction to indicate from in the next steps. You can see from the angle of the cut how out of square the end of the casting is. This is no problem at all as both ends of the casting are completely machined flat and square to the sides.


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## Herbiev (Jan 10, 2018)

Looking good so far Al


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## Cogsy (Jan 13, 2018)

Indicating from the previous cut I made to the rear, I could square the back of the block with a nice finish, but stayed clear of the final dimension for now. I probably didn't need to do this step and could have just used the earlier cut but it only wasted a little time and allowed me to sweep the entire rear face and check for square.







From there, I was able to set the block entirely square with the mill by angling the vice as I indicated the back, which allowed me to mill the bottom to final dimension and set up for the drilling and tapping of the oil pan (sump we Aussies call it) for 2-56 bolts and the centre main bearing housing for 4-40.




At the same time I also pocketed the bottom of the block and trimmed the installed centre bearing housing and centre web to width.




Finishing up with this setup, I machined a 1/2" deep portion of both ends of the block to 0.005" over final dimension to use as reference points for the final operations on the ends.


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## Cogsy (Jan 13, 2018)

I just noticed the water bottle in the last picture and thought I'd better explain. Despite what it looks like, I'm not (yet) bottling my urine in case of emergency but instead it's WD40 in an old water bottle with a couple of holes punched in the lid. I got sick of buying horrendously expensive aerosol cans and bought 4 litres for about the price of 5 cans. At the rate I'm using it (which is much easier to control than a spray can) I estimate it will last me about 8 years. I tried using pump spray bottles to dispense it but not only does it spray it far too heavily than I need, the WD40 seems to 'eat' the seals in the things (at least the cheap ones) and they fail quickly. I still have a spray can around somewhere for those times I need the pressure (like a stuck padlock or something) but I never need it for engine building.


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## pickleford75 (Jan 13, 2018)

Great to see you back at it.... I'm doing the same thing on my Hodgson radial project I started about 10 years ago :hDe: great work on your peewee v4 looking forward to seeing it completed.


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## Blogwitch (Jan 14, 2018)

Al,

If you are using WD40 for aluminium most of the time, then paraffin (kerosene) is a lot cheaper and works just as well, in fact better sometimes than WD..

John


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## Cogsy (Jan 14, 2018)

Thanks John. I'll grab a bottle next time I'm at the hardware (it's no longer available at petrol stations round here as far as I know) and give it a whirl. My wife doesn't appreciate the smell of WD40 on my clothes when I come in from the shed - in fact she claims I "stink" - so the kerosene might solve that issue as well.


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## Cogsy (Jan 15, 2018)

At this point I could bolt the sump on and use the previously machined strip to indicate the front of the block nice and square. The overhang of the front of the sump was a convenient way to pick up the exact bottom surface of the block as well.





Once I machined the front face down to final dimension, the centre of the block along the bottom (if that makes sense) was then picked up so the crank tunnel could be drilled, bored and reamed to 1/2" and the cam tunnel was similarly drilled and reamed in reference to the crank.










Next step was the boring of the gear recesses. This engine uses an idler gear in the geartrain so the camshaft rotates in the same direction as the crank does. I assume it was designed this way to give a nice vertical separation between the crank and cam while also keeping the individual gear sizes relatively small.




The timing cover mounting and associated accessory holes were drilled and tapped at the same time while I still had the crankshaft centre point as a reference.




Finally, the block was flipped over to the back face and again indicated off the previously machined strip. The whole face was then taken down to final dimension and (although they're not in the picture) the 2 rear coolant holes were drilled and tapped. Apart from 2 bell housing adapter holes which have their placement determined later in the build, the front and rear block faces are now complete. So far, so good.


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## deeferdog (Jan 15, 2018)

Looking good AL, I like your work. Cheers, Peter


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## Cogsy (Jan 24, 2018)

Moving on to the cylinder 'bores' (though they will have liners installed so they're probably officially called something else), which was another job I was afraid of messing up.

I started by aligning the scribe marks on the front of the block square to the mill and marked each side of the 1/2" drill rod, which is standing in for the crankshaft at the moment. I can't remember why I marked each side of the crank but I'm sure I thought it was important at the time.




After drilling and tapping the head mounting holes, the bores were started with several drill steps up to 1/2" (which is the biggest drill I have that's still smaller than my needed finished dimension).




The bores were brought to size with a boring bar and a counterbore cut into the top for the liners to locate in. In this picture you can see the coolant passage in the back of the rear cylinder. This passage connects with the front when the coolant chambers are cut.




Before I changed setup and lost square with the bore, I drilled and reamed the lifter bush holes and spotted with an endmill to flatten the top of each hole.




Back to the cylinder bores, I used a 5/8" diameter woodruff cutter to machine the coolant chambers. The cutter is small enough to insert into the bore then I fed in the required depth. From there I simply moved the table in a square pattern and the chamber was done. You can see how the cut has now connected with the coolant hole from the rear cylinder and although you can't tell from this picture, it connects with the vertical coolant outflow passage towards the front of the block as well (the hole between the front 2 head mount holes).




Once all the operations were repeated for the second bank, I machined the boss for the distributor but neglected to take any photos it seems. As the block is almost completely machined at this point, I figured it was a good idea to weigh the block for a comparison against it's original state. You'll have to convert to your preferred units if you desire, but you can see I machined away close to half of it. These castings machined reasonably well and although they have a tiny bit of porosity they will work just fine. The few surface pinholes that show up on camera are mostly invisible in the flesh and aren't big enough to cause any difficulty.




And finally I just had to bolt the heads on for a quick mock up to give me an idea of size. As it turned out, the block was tricky to machine at times and I'm glad to have it behind me, but I'm reasonably happy with how it turned out and I did enjoy the work.


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## michael-au (Jan 24, 2018)

Looking good, you will be finished in no time, great work


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## bouch (Jan 26, 2018)

Cogsy said:


> At this point I could bolt the sump on and use the previously machined strip to indicate the front of the block nice and square. The overhang of the front of the sump was a convenient way to pick up the exact bottom surface of the block as well.
> 
> View attachment 92852
> 
> ...



Quite a bit of extra metal to remove off that casting...

I like the fixture you use on the sides of the block to help clamp it in the vise.  I'll have to remember that for future use...


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## Cogsy (Feb 4, 2018)

With the block now complete I thought I'd give the liners a go next. So I dug up a piece of 1" 12L14 bar and lopped a suitable bit off with my trusty hacksaw (I really need to get a motor mounted on my power hacksaw one day).




A simple bit of turning later and I had these 4 liners within spec of each other - actually that's not true, I spec'd each one to the hole it was intended for which is why I marked them. At this point they've been reamed but will be honed after they're installed in the block and finish machined.




I applied some Loctite to the OD of the liners and pressed them all in. No pictures of this operation as I needed more hands than I have just to get the job done and had no way to take photos as well. You can see in this shot they all sit proud of the deck surface.




Now it was back into the vice and I swept the deck surface to align it perfectly square. From here I face milled the liners and deck down to finished height which removed the last smidge of deck height and ensured the liners were flush with the surface of the block. Except for final honing the liners are finished and now I truly have holes I can call 'bores'.







With that somewhat nail biting portion of the build finished, I thought a nice quick part was in order, so I decided to build the PCV. The body of it was a simple turning and threading operation but I ran into a problem with the top. The body has a male thread and the top of the valve screws on to it. The problem is I don't have a bottoming or plug tap for this size, just a tapered one. With the very short length of the part I couldn't even start the thread. After a little head scratching, I ended up making basically a threaded bush, then soldering a piece of brass on one end.




I then mounted the body back in the lathe and screwed the top on so I could machine it to shape. Again, I did not take any photos of this operation as I honestly didn't think it was going to work. I expected the thin body wouldn't be able to hold up to the cutting forces, especially with an interrupted cut. However, with lots of very light passes it ended up ok.




I've never been this deep into a build without making pistons so they are next on the agenda. I always enjoy making pistons as even people with zero engine knowledge recognise them and are impressed by how small and shiny they turn out.


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## Brian Rupnow (Feb 4, 2018)

Al--I'm watching your build closely from over here on the far side of the world, and you are doing a marvelous job. Your engine looks great.---Brian


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## Sleddog (Feb 4, 2018)

Good work Al. I enjoy the step by step build log. Keep it up. 

Jack


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## michael-au (Feb 4, 2018)

Good work Al, block looks really good


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## Cogsy (Feb 19, 2018)

Instead of the pistons I figured I'd attempt the centre main bearing first so I could finally mount the crank properly. I started with a chunk of 1-1/2" LG2 bearing bronze but I couldn't face another marathon hacksawing session, so I used a slitting saw to cut it in half instead. Once I had 2 pieces I took a quick skim cut to smooth the cut sides.




From there I soft soldered the two halves back together. I tried to get both halves lined up but it's a tricky job that needs more than two hands and it's not critical at all, so rough enough was good enough.




Then it was into the 4 jaw and adjusted til the join was centred. I used the point of a live centre as a reference and it took no time at all.




I would like to say it was then a simple boring and turning operation but in reality the thin thrust edges of the bearing deformed during machining and took a lot of fettling to reshape and adjust to fit. Then a quick flash of the torch (after marking both halves to keep them matched) separated them ready for fitting. After having seen how Michael-au machined his big-end bearings using a dummy conrod end for support while turning, I'm going to copy his method for my big-ends and I expect they'll go a lot easier than this one did.




Finally, I slopped a bit of light weight oil on everything, temporarily fitted the crank and spun it by hand (with a spanner) to free it up a little. Once I was happy everything was properly aligned and fully lubricated, I spun it over at a few hundred rpm using the lathe to drive it and it now turns nice and smoothly, though it's still got a little ways to go before I'd call it free-spinning.


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## Cogsy (Feb 19, 2018)

And with the crank now in place, I could finally start on the pistons. The first operation is the most fun, with a nice and simple turning job to make some cute little piston blanks. I used a reground parting blade to cut the ring grooves (they're about 0.035" wide from memory) and took a partial depth parting cut at the correct piston length (plus a smidge for final facing) leaving a decent stub, machined concentric to the piston, to hold onto for further operations.




Onto the mill, I held the stub in a 5C collet in a square holding block and centred with the ever-useful coaxial indicator. From here cutting the conrod clearance slot was a simple piece of milling.




Laying the collet block down and rotating it 90 degrees ensured the gudgeon pin hole was perfectly orthogonal (that's a fancy word for perpendicular I've been wanting to use ) to the slot I'd just milled. Then it was just a matter of repeating for the rest of the bunch (7 in total for some extras for safety and maybe a key-chain or something).




Then they were returned to the lathe and parted off from the stubs. I elected to hold them by the stub for the parting to make sure the fragile pistons weren't damaged, then I lightly chucked each piston in turn, wrapped in some protective masking tape, and faced off the final couple of thou to finish. These 4 are the ones destined to go up and down really fast and make lots of noise.




Really happy to be getting the main rotating elements done now. Hopefully soon I'll be able to spin the crank and have things going up and down which will amuse me for hours at a time.


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## michael-au (Feb 19, 2018)

Coming along nicely


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## Brian Rupnow (Feb 19, 2018)

Great work, as usual Cogsy. I'm watching.--Brian


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## Herbiev (Feb 19, 2018)

Looking great so far Cogsy. Keep the pics coming.


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## Cogsy (Mar 24, 2018)

With the pistons all finished I thought the next logical step was the conrods. This is a part I've had issues with getting right in the past and now I had to make 4 exactly the same so I was more than little worried about how to go about it. In the end though, I came up with a procedure that produced 7 almost exact copies with relative ease - again I wanted spares and tiny pistons on tiny conrods are just so darned cute!

I started by machining a rectangular lump of ali for the end caps, then drilled the bolt holes and oil passage for a bunch of caps at a time. Exact sizing of the blank wasn't really important here, though the height of the caps was machined to final dimension and the bottom face of the blank had a nice finish on it.




As this engine relies on oil splash lubrication, each big-end cap has a 'dipper' on it to splash the oil from the sump. To achieve this feature I used an endmill to remove all but a thin strip own the centre of the blank, then cut away all except the required dippers. They'll receive a final shaping later on.







The cap strip was then bolted to a drilled and tapped plate and the whole thing was skimmed down to required thickness. From this point on the caps are matched to their rods and can't be mixed up.




The big-ends were drilled and reamed along the joint of the two pieces of stock and the little-ends drilled and reamed at the same time. I didn't have an appropriately sized reamer for the little-ends so I made one up from drill rod. I tested it as it was created so it would achieve the fit I was after and it turned out well (although it doesn't look the best). The blanks were then sawn apart in to individual pieces with extra material all round.




With an appropriate bush for the big-end, the blanks were screwed to a sacrificial plate and a dummy gudgeon pin pressed into the little-end/sacrificial plate to accurately locate the blank. Shaping was then a simple process with an endmill. For the little-ends I trimmed to size at this point, then used filing buttons to radius the end. As they're so small this only took a couple of minutes total.







Now the rods were shaped, each rod/cap set was marked to keep them paired and correctly oriented, then I could finally separate them and do a final shape of the oil dipper. A little bit of cosmetic finishing (though not a huge amount as most will never be seen) and they're complete.







So in the end they weren't as tough to make as I feared but there sure was a lot of work in them. As I anticipate the big-end bearings are going to be quite a challenge as well, I think I'll move on to something a little easier for now.


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## Brian Rupnow (Mar 24, 2018)

Are you going to drill passages through the dippers and up to the inside surface of the rod cap?---Brian


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## Cogsy (Mar 24, 2018)

Brian Rupnow said:


> Are you going to drill passages through the dippers and up to the inside surface of the rod cap?---Brian


 
Looking back, it doesn't show up well in the pictures but yes, they are all drilled through the dippers and the cap. The pic where it looks like I'm making the top of a castle wall shows the through holes, but when the angles are cut the holes are on the cut edge and don't show up well.


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## Cogsy (Apr 15, 2018)

Just a brief update today while my lunch is cooking (beef, cheese and bacon pie in the oven as we speak). I decided to tackle the backing plate, or, as we used to call it, the sandwich plate between the block and the bell housing.

I started by chucking a bit of rough sawn (hand sawn ) ali plate in the 4 jaw, with enough offset to have extra material all round, and drilled the crankshaft through hole. I marked the approximate edges and hole location with a sharpie just for ease of setup in the chuck.




After facing the whole plate flat I kept taking what were basically facing cuts but leaving the raised centre section to locate the ID of the bell housing. Once that was done it was off to the mill to cut the basic outside shape of the backing plate.







Once I'd drilled the mounting holes, I removed the part from the vice remounted it in a vertical orientation. In fact, I had to reorient it quite a few times to cut the various angles, cutaways and chamfers.




Once the outside had the correct shape, I remounted it horizontally in the vice but upside down to what it had been. Then it was a simple matter of face milling it down to required thickness, which removed all the extra material as well. A quick hand file of the upper 'tang' chamfer and it was complete.







As the backing plate was a relatively quick and easy part to make, I followed it up with another simple part - the flywheel. The hardest step was the first one, where I had to hand saw a lump off a piece of 40mm tool steel. It's decent stuff to machine but incredibly tiresome to hacksaw.




I turned it to major diameter, drilled the centre and recessed for the retaining nut. From there, although I didn't take a picture of it, I cut a series of steps by eye as the rear face of the flywheel is a domed shape and I still haven't made a radius turner yet. 




I blended the steps using a file under power, then cleaned it up with sandpaper to a very nice finish (if I do say so myself). This part is entirely contained within the bell housing and is not visible on the completed engine, so it really wasn't necessary, but the tool steel cleaned up so nicely I just couldn't help but polish it.




Again I didn't take a picture, but after parting it off I turned it around, faced it flat and cut the 10 degree taper to mate to the crankshaft to finish it off. I can't take a picture of the finished flywheel now as it's currently hidden inside the bell housing which I've installed just to see how the whole engine is looking so far. My pie is now ready so I'm off to scoff it down!

Edit: I thought I'd better include a picture of the mock up since I mentioned it and someone might be interested.


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## stevehuckss396 (Apr 15, 2018)

Nice job on both pieces.


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## Johno1958 (Apr 15, 2018)

Cogsy that look an absolute treat mate .
John


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## Cogsy (May 11, 2018)

I finally had cause to try out the Alum dissolving ferrous materials trick :wall:, so for anyone interested I thought I'd post my results.
For starters, I can't find anywhere in Australia that actually stocks Alum, and I've always meant to import some to have on hand, but haven't gotten around to it yet. However, the kids have a couple of Chemistry and Crystal Growing kits and I managed to find the stuff in both of these kits under it's chemical name (which I can't remember off the top of my head), so I stole theirs and promised to replace it later.

The saga (as it turned out to be) started with breaking off a very small drill bit in quite a deep hole, in a part I thought I had too much time in to start again. Actually, the part wasn't that difficult to make but I wanted to recover the base material that did take me a lot of time and effort to get. So I made up a solution of Alum and water, saturated at boiling point, and dropped the part in. In the picture, the hole closest to camera has the bit in it.





Once I had the mixture simmering away, the reaction started and I eagerly awaited the result. In this next picture, the 'milky' stuff coming from the hole is actually a stream of very small bubbles coming out of the hole with the drill bit in it.




Even though the reaction seemed quite vigorous, it took a really long time to get anywhere. Obviously the end of the drill bit was quite a small area and I imagine the flutes were full of chips and the Alum couldn't get down to the full length, so it was slowly eroded from one end only. I had to keep topping up the water and scraping the gunk from the bit out of the hole. In the end this took a solid week on the stovetop for a few hours every night, and made quite a mess of the stovetop and surrounds. Eventually though, it removed all the drill bit and left the brass/bronze? work piece almost unaffected. It changed its appearance to a copper tone but this was just a surface effect and easily removed. In the end, I should have just started again as it was more trouble than it was worth, however I would use it again for either a very complex or expensive part. I would expect it to work better with a tap or bit that wasn't fully choked with chips and allowed for more contact with the Alum and let it work faster. This pic shows the piece straight out of the Alum and the pretty colour it became.




And finally, here is the intake manifold I whipped up one day while I waited for the Alum to work.


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## michael-au (May 11, 2018)

Nice work Cogsy, won't be long before you have it running


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## Cogsy (May 11, 2018)

The actual parts I was attempting to make when I broke the drill off in the hole are the exhaust flanges. I started with hacking out a chunk from this old firehose fitting. I assumed it was brass by the look of it, but I have others that are definitely bronze (one of which became the outer ring of my Rupnow Vertical flywheel LINK). This one was absolutely terrible to machine, with blue curly chips coming off at times it and it seemed really 'hard', so I'm not sure what it is. You can see from the picture I've had several attempts to cut pieces out of it before (with a hacksaw) and gave up. This time, I used a slitting saw and got it done, but it took a while. Roughing it into a rectangle took far longer than I thought it would too, as it was so tough to machine I was restricted to light cuts. I'm wondering if it's possibly aluminium bronze or similar, which I've heard bad things about.




Once I had it rectangular it was in to the lathe and the end profile was cut, along with the first circular whatever-it's-called. I also drilled the full depth I needed at this point. As it turned out, I didn't need any of this outside profile at all but I didn't realise this at the time.




Drilling the mounting holes resulted in the whole Alum saga detailed in my last post. Once that was over, the outer angle cuts were milled in. The drill bit and circular protrusion set the required angle nicely.




Back into the lathe, I hand filed the radii required - not under power, just for ease of work holding. Then after a bit of sanding, I parted off the first completed flange. From there, I turned another circular protrusion and parted off, rinse and repeat until I had enough to satisfy me.







With the new flanges bolted to the head I could bend up some brass tubing into a somewhat exhaust-looking shape.


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## Cogsy (May 11, 2018)

michael-au said:


> Nice work Cogsy, won't be long before you have it running


 
Thanks Michael. I'm hoping it will be this year, but then I was hoping that last year too. I'm about to enter one of my busiest times of the year so likely going to be taking a couple of month break soon.


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## e.picler (May 12, 2018)

Congratulation Cogsy Good work!
I'm following your building with close interest because the PeeWee will be my next project.

It is very interesting what you did to remove the broken drill bit. I did not have a clue that it could be done 'very clever"

It seem that the PeeWee is almost finished.

Edi


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## Johno1958 (May 12, 2018)

Hi Cogsy.
Those flanges came out well . What did you use for the tube bending as they look very neat which is something I would like to learn down the track.
Cheers
John


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## Cogsy (May 12, 2018)

Thanks Edi - still a long way to go. I often rush the end of a build as I get close because I get impatient to hear it run. With the Peewee I'm going to do my best to finish it off properly. I think in theory I could have it running with only a couple of weeks dedicated work but it's likely to be far longer than that.

Thanks Johno - I bought one of those small benders off eBay, and also a set of spring benders but wasn't happy with either of them. In the end I imported some low melting temp alloy (Cerrobend), annealed the brass and coated the inside with olive oil, then filled with Cerrobend. Then I turned an aluminium disc of the radius I needed and used a ball nosed end mill to groove the OD. Then cut a matching groove in a rectangular block of ali and made a rough pivot point and handle. Clamped this hodge-podge in the vice and produced the bends you see here without too much trouble, then gently heated the tubes (after cutting to length) to melt out the cerrobend. There are a couple of marks on the tubes though, so it wasn't perfect, but for only about an hours work to make the 'bender' it was a decent result. I do intend to have a go at a better bender at some point, and maybe make a different set of exhausts. My next post (maybe today?) will show what I came up with for this set.


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## Cogsy (May 13, 2018)

This will likely be the last update for a while as life things get very hectic for me at this time of year, but at least I got the exhausts finished to a reasonable standard.

Following on from the last post, I had the basic pipes bent up and now I needed a way to join them. I chucked up a piece of mild steel and machined a thin walled collector with ID slightly less than the two pipes.




Next I machined 2 pieces of solid the same diameter as the pipes but with a slight taper on the ends, to use as 'formers' I guess you could call them. Using a bit of gentle persuasion (with a small hammer, that's why it was gentle) I got them both to fit, then tried to bend the sides of the collector in a little.




From there, into the vice to close them up and the basic shape was done. Parting off from the parent stock and milling of the flange end completed them.







Next I drilled and tapped a piece of steel bar as a fixture to hold the whole setup for soldering. I used liquid paper (white out) to stop the pipes soldering to the fixture and it worked well.







A few hours in a citric acid pickle and a quick scrub with some 600 grit paper and most of the solder scale was removed, but I still didn't like the look.




So I decided to try nickel plating them, and although they looked pretty good coming out of the nickel, in a few spots the coating wasn't all that thick. Instead of recoating in the nickel I went for chrome plating instead. In the pic below, the bottom yellowish coloured one is nickel plated, while the top one is chromed and, I think, looks a lot nicer in comparison. I have to say though, without the chrome to compare it to, I couldn't tell the nickel had that yellow tinge to it at all - it just looked shiny.




So that's where I've left it for now. Hopefully I'll be back at it in 8 weeks or so. Thanks for looking!


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## bluejets (May 16, 2018)

Alum common as up in Thailand.
We use it in the large fish bowls that have clay as a base for the water lily.
Alum settles any clay cloudyness in the water in a matter of 1/2 hour or so.
Get it in rock form just about anywhere up there.


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## e.picler (Jan 6, 2019)

Hi Cogsy!
How is your PeeWee building?  Did you finished it?
Long time since your last post.

Edi


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## Cogsy (Jan 6, 2019)

Hi Edi, No, not finished yet, life got in the way again. I have just started to get back into it though, and surprisingly there isn't that much left to do, so I'm hoping it will run this year. The speed you're going yours will probably be finished first though!


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## minh-thanh (Apr 4, 2019)

Hi Cogsy !
Do you use Split Bronze Bearing for this part ?


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## michael-au (Apr 4, 2019)

Yes you use a split bearing


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## minh-thanh (Apr 4, 2019)

Thanks Michael-au !


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## Cogsy (Apr 4, 2019)

Mine didn't turn out as nice as Michael's but you can see how I made them in post 172 - Link. The thin walls that form the thrust washer portion of the bearing made it difficult to construct them, but I stole Michael's idea of using a dummy conrod during machining of the big end bearings and it was much easier. Next time I make a center bearing I'll make up a similar clamping fixture and it will be far simpler.


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## sition (Apr 5, 2019)

What is the stroke and cylinder diameter of V4？


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## stevehuckss396 (Apr 5, 2019)

sition said:


> What is the stroke and cylinder diameter of V4？



.625 x .625 inch


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## minh-thanh (Apr 5, 2019)

stevehuckss396 said:


> .625 x .625 inch


I have a question:   it's too small, so how much  compression ratio ??
Thanks.


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## Cogsy (Apr 5, 2019)

Steve will need to answer that, I haven't got up to that point yet.


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## stevehuckss396 (Apr 5, 2019)

minh-thanh said:


> I have a question:   it's too small, so how much  compression ratio ??
> Thanks.



The compression ratio is set by the height of the piston in the bore so you can set it to what you want by increasing or decreasing the length of the rod.


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