Ageless 9 and 18 Radial

[Bentwings]

Decided to make rocker covers. Added some grooves for curb appeal Three at a time. The grooves are 0.03125 wide and take quite a bit of time to machine due to how fragile the end mills that size are.View attachment 135845View attachment 135846

Very very nice!
Byron

 

[rlo1]

Machining the backside relief that will allow the rocker arm to fully cycle. Doing a three at a time it was easiest just to make a jig to hold the work

 

[rlo1]

Annealing brass tubing for the intake manifolds.

 

[rlo1]

Fabricated the doublers for the intake manifolds that will be folded over later and brazed to the pipe.

 

[rlo1]

Spent a lot of time aligning and clocking the cylinder heads to the cylinders. I am all prepared to start loctiting them together. I need 27 assemblies. And I have 30.

 

[ShopShoe]

OT Follows - Attempt at cheap humor:

Your last photo above shows what appears to be an alien army massing to attack, perhaps Dr. Who is nearby....

--

Actually, congratulations on coming this far. I am following along with the build.

--ShopShoe

 

[Bentwings]

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Annealing brass tubing for the intake manifolds.

if you are going to bend this stuff I suggest you get some low melting point “cero bend metal to fill the tubes it melts just above room temp looks like solder but pours like water . It will kinking to a minimum it’s a bismuth alloy there are several melting point levels you can get mc master Carr has it.
Byron

 

[rlo1]

I picked some of the filler from Micromark. Still figuring out how to use the stuff. Expensive too.

 

[Vietti]

For low temp alloy, Woods Metal, try Rotometals. $9 a pound

John

 

[rlo1]

$15.59 per pound now... If you wanna play, you gotta pay! Thanks for the link. I did order some more so I have plenty.

 

[Vietti]

Their site is hard to navigate. They have various melting temperature alloys, hard to find though.

They have 117, 154, 203, 208 degree metal, the lower the melting temp the higher the price. I think the $9 stuff was 203 degree. Search under low melting point metal.

 

[Bentwings]

I picked some of the filler from Micromark. Still figuring out how to use the stuff. Expensive too.

I forgot to note it’s expensive per volume.
I made a tight fitting aluminum foil plug, then filled the length of tube. I had made a very tight bender using grooved rollers for the bending surfaces. Stainless steel took a lot of force fore small diameter but it worked very well. Just dig the foil out and gently heat with small soldering torch . Drop the cero bend into cold water . Then you can remedy it with hot water or the little torch . Just make the tubes a bit over length . I’m going to make intake and exhaust headers for my steamer . I’ll have to make a new bender. I had an inside radius that formed the actual bend. The outside roller just rolled the tubing around the inside roller . The cero bend forms a solid bar that doesn’t really stretch much. Sometimes it actually cracks if the bend is tight but that doesn’t ent seem to affect the bend. Be sure you get the final part hot enough that no cero bend is stuck to the inside of the tube
Byron

 

[rlo1]

I forgot to note it’s expensive per volume.
I made a tight fitting aluminum foil plug, then filled the length of tube. I had made a very tight bender using grooved rollers for the bending surfaces. Stainless steel took a lot of force fore small diameter but it worked very well. Just dig the foil out and gently heat with small soldering torch . Drop the cero bend into cold water . Then you can remedy it with hot water or the little torch . Just make the tubes a bit over length . I’m going to make intake and exhaust headers for my steamer . I’ll have to make a new bender. I had an inside radius that formed the actual bend. The outside roller just rolled the tubing around the inside roller . The cero bend forms a solid bar that doesn’t really stretch much. Sometimes it actually cracks if the bend is tight but that doesn’t ent seem to affect the bend. Be sure you get the final part hot enough that no cero bend is stuck to the inside of the tube
Byron

Do you end up reusing the bismuth metal? Or is that a one time only use material? In other words do you collect and reuse it after you flow it out of the tube? Thank you

 

[stevehuckss396]

Collect it and reuse it.

If you use a thicker wall tube chances are you won't need to fill the tube. I used 5/16 x 1/4 (1/32 wall) which is double the wall thickness as the k&s telescoping tube and I had no trouble with kinking.

 

[Bentwings]

Do you end up reusing the bismuth metal? Or is that a one time only use material? In other words do you collect and reuse it after you flow it out of the tube? Thnk you

ii am a cheap skate so I collect it and reuse it when needed. Be sure to get it all out so it doesn’t get into solder or braze joints

 

[rlo1]

After realizing that I had fabricated most of the parts for the rotating assembly of the engines that I should probably consider start assembling them. So the first task after reading the assembly instructions is two install all the 440 studs for the cylinder hold downs. I installed 216 set screw studs in the engines using Loctite. Each stud was about a 1/16th of an inch too long and I had to trim all the studs down by about a 1/16th of an inch by using my cordless drill and chucking them on an Allen wrench and spitting them in my belt sander to taper the tip. 216 times. My hands are sore after setting all the studs. This project would’ve been incredibly tough had I had to use hand taps for all the thread work. Thank goodness for CNC thread Milling. You truly gotta give the older guys a lot of credit for what they were able to accomplish with hand tools.

 

[Bentwings]

After realizing that I had fabricated most of the parts for the rotating assembly of the engines that I should probably consider start assembling them. So the first task after reading the assembly instructions is two install all the 440 studs for the cylinder hold downs. I installed 216 set screw studs in the engines using Loctite. Each stud was about a 1/16th of an inch too long and I had to trim all the studs down by about a 1/16th of an inch by using my cordless drill and chucking them on an Allen wrench and spitting them in my belt sander to taper the tip. 216 times. My hands are sore after setting all the studs. This project would’ve been incredibly tough had I had to use hand taps for all the thread work. Thank goodness for CNC thread Milling. You truly gotta give the older guys a lot of credit for what they were able to accomplish with hand tools.
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A while back one of the members here was about as far as you are. Very nice work by the way. He was about to start to assemble but saw that once the crank is in it’s really hard to disassemble if it’s pinned I think he re designed the crank so it could be slip fit assembled as the build continued. I have only the plan set but I could see where this could be an issue. The original P&W had a special spline joining the crank parts. It had a massive bolt that took a big big torque wrench to tighten . Or remove. I can’t remember the name ofvthe guy. Tom something maybe maker . He had a web site that he showed progress. Also did considerable cnc work on the engine. You probably can see the issue if ou have the crank pieces in hand. I was just going to start this project when I ended up in the hospital . Since I realy am not in a good position to be of great help I can only offer what I thought of at the time my thought was to either get a splined shaft from grob machine then have a mating spline wire edm in the counter weight where the master rod pin is . If you have a shaper you could probably cut the internal spline . Extreme patience you might be able to do it on the mill with a rotary table or indexer. I had considered making a special bushing and using a standard jetway broach here. I had only guessed at this so don’t quote me. If the crank is slip fit it needs registration so it is perfectly aligned . The square tool bit will work however check it for size and squareness. They are not always perfect . It’s been a while since I looked at the drawings so I’m just going off un proven thoughts. From the looks of your work I YHINK you will have no issue looking at this issue and coming up with a solution . The book on the 4360 engine has a couple pictures that might be worth the cost of the book I’ve only seen one good picture of the 18 cylinder crank . The 4360 had very complicated balancing system but as a model I don’t think it’s necessary . It might be worth a call to hogson himself to talk about this. He is fun to chat with . He knows his engines inside and out .
I also looked at a two piece master rod but there just is not enough meat there for good bolting. Also looked at making the master rod a bit wider for the two piece construction. There still is not much room to make things bigger. . I’m looking forward to your further progress. There is a gear machined on the crank that I YHINK drives the oil pump or distributor . I did a little searching and it’s possible to purchase an end mill to cut this . The gentleman I noted ground his own just for this. I think the standard gear cutter will cut notches in the counter weight but I don’t think that will hurt anything .

Byron

 

[rlo1]

Have assembled the engine cores. Everything is going together very well. Using assembly lube as I go. Crank is pinned and loctiting. Distributor driveshaft and drive gear and impeller on the nine cylinder is assembled. I have to wait to install the cam gears until after all the cylinders are installed. I’m gonna set up the cam timing last. My next step is to set up a break in station with full oil oiling system to motor the engines slowly and break them in.

 

[Bentwings]

Have assembled the engine cores. Everything is going together very well. Using assembly lube as I go. Crank is pinned and loctiting. Distributor driveshaft and drive gear and impeller on the nine cylinder is assembled. I have to wait to install the cam gears until after all the cylinders are installed. I’m gonna set up the cam timing last. My next step is to set up a break in station with full oil oiling system to motor the engines slowly and break them in.

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I’m green with envy. Nice wok !
Our race cars use a semi dri sump oil system there is a returned oil tank that is initially filled with about 3/4 ofvthe oil the engine will circulate during a run . There are two oil pumps or a split oil pump. One pump picks up oil from the pan and returns it to the tank. The other oil pump is the main pressure pump . It draws from the bottom of the tank and offers full oil pressure as soon as the engine is started . There is an initial spin of the engine to prime the pumps. Then the engine is started, so there is immediate and continuing full oil pressure as the engine is running. A real dry dump tank will have a separator section that forces the air out of the returning oil . Simply placing the return line dump so it blows onto the side wall of the tank is enough for top fuel engines . By the end of a run the tank will be nearly full of artistes oil. Given the few minutes to get back to the pits the oil has settled so it it looked like tan vomit when drained. . I’m not sure how the real r 2800 oil system worked but my father in law said that they used nearly all of the oil on each mission he said oil was as critical as fuel . I YHINK for a model a simple tank and pump system would be fine for bench running from what I’ve heard these engines don’t use a lot of oil . Anyway something to consider. You seem to have a good handle on running your engine it doe have a built in dump so an external oil pump and a return system should not be too hard to add.

 

[rlo1]

I tried using two cheap 12v windshield washer pumps as oil priming pumps in series. My pwr supply is 24v. Works great for about 2 min..... then I let the smoke out out of the motors... LOL. They burned up quick trying to pump 0w-20 oil... I located a better option for small gear pump. Waiting for the mailman.... Again. Live and learn.