Howell v-2 four stroke gas engine.

[ShopShoe]

Gus,

I can't resist saying this.

You could MAKE a fly reel. I know I have seen some nice home machined ones on the web somewhere.

In the spirit of good fishing and good machining, Best Wishes. Can't wait till the current engine runs.

--ShopShoe

 

[gus]

Gus,

I can't resist saying this.

You could MAKE a fly reel. I know I have seen some nice home machined ones on the web somewhere.

In the spirit of good fishing and good machining, Best Wishes. Can't wait till the current engine runs.

--ShopShoe

Hi ShopShoe.
Did have pipe dreams to make BaitCasting Reel some years back but held back as I then had no gear cutting experience. After the V-2 Engine ,may jump in make a Fly Reel as starter and later on to BaitCast Reel. My fishy mates will have first laugh at my first attempt and hopefully Gus have the last laugh. Ha Ha.

 

[Swifty]

Gus, a fly reel will be a great project, they are very simple. When you come to Melbourne, I will show you the game fishing reel that I made many years ago, I had ideas about shark fishing, but did no more about it.

Paul.

 

[gus]

Gus, a fly reel will be a great project, they are very simple. When you come to Melbourne, I will show you the game fishing reel that I made many years ago, I had ideas about shark fishing, but did no more about it.

Paul.

Hi Paul.

Gamefishing FlyReels are very expensive. Please mail foto. I have wild and bright ideas. My hand line reel is bitty clumsy to reel in. Alvey Reels are too heavy. I have two .

 

[gus]

Day 2/ 21 22
Pump Housing

The tiny oil pump makes me worried. Took two days to figure the machining. Pit holes for pump gears and bearings not done yet. Jigs and fixtures required. This will tomorrow and Gus not fishing.

 

[gus]

Day 2 / 23 24

Oil Pump Cover

This 1 1/8 O.D. x 1/6 thick Cover humbled Gus.You just can't rush it. After ruining 2 blanks, I came with one good cover with slightly tight push fit for 1/4'' bearing. Did the reaming in two steps with 6mm reamer and finally 1/4'' reamer. The Oil Pump Body is next drill & reamto fit bearing.

 

[gus]

Day 2 / 25 26

Oil Pump Body Gear Case

Trusted Jerry Howell's center distance between the two tiny gears of 0.272'' and Paul Swift's 13 t pinion gears.Both were spot on with gears meshing well when fitted into gear body cavity. Depth of cavity was done spot with DIY Slide Stop. However its doubtful, I will get the full lube oil flow capacity with one gear having too much side clearance. Now deciding to scrap and redo. Making the second piece will be fast due to pitfall experience with scrap piece.

 

[Gordon]

Gus: Did you purchase the gears? Last I remember you were going to make them using a borrowed hob. Did I miss it?

 

[Swifty]

Hi Gordon, I can answer that for Gus. When I sent Gus the cutter, I also sent him a length of 13 tooth gear that I cut for him, otherwise, using the setup that Gus had for gear cutting he would have had to purchase a master gear to use for indexing when cutting. He will use the cutter for all the other gears needed.

Paul.

 

[oneKone]

Hi Gus,
I just had a read through your build so far and I'm amazed! Every time you do a build its awesome! Looking forward to more posts.

Cheers,
Chris

 

[gus]

Day 2 / 27 28 29

Oil Pump Casing

Was a rather long learning/goofing process to pick up new skills thru bad mistakes. The casing required multi-tooling,multi skills and plenty of patience with which I apparently lacked. The I.D. and depth of two blind holes are not very forgiving. Very accurate marking layout,centre popping and spot drilling required. Centre distance of the two blind holes must be spot on to enable the gears to mesh accurately. Miiling the oil grooves with 2 mm endmill is dicy. Bore hole for 1/4 bearings were done with 6 mm reamer and 1/4 '' reamer. The fit was good.Am glad casing done to my satisfaction. Paul's 13 t gears fitted in good.
Not fishing tomorrow. Will spent time enjoying the trial assembly of oil pump.
With the casing done. Will move on to the timing gear and cam casing. This is another job piece that require multi skills. Will the experience gained from oil pump, the main gear casing will be easier to make.

 

[gus]

Day 2 /30 31

Lube Oil Pump,Gear Type.

At long last oil pump with the running,same is easy to turn over w/o binding. This not a self-priming pump. Suspect it relies on the pulsating crankcase pressure maintain positive priming. Took my sweet time to fit/lap twin gears and casing and cover.Went to aeromodel hobby shop to buy the 1/8 steel shaft. Saved bit of time turning shaft. With pump inlet facing up and lube oil fed in,the pump did pump some oil out through discharge port. Trust at normal engine speed,same would pump enough oil to cam shafts and spray oil on to crankpin and big ends and in the process con-rod will splash oil into cylinder bores. Gus is humbled by this tiny oil pump.You got treat it with extreme care during the process of machining.

Moving on next to the gear case and cover. These two parts are very unforgiving with so many details and mess up any one detail gear case will be scrapped.

 

[ShopShoe]

Gus,

Thats a very nice bit of machining. Great job on the gears. I have been following your build and Swifty's V-4: It looks like the Howell V-2 and V-4 are definitely not for the faint of heart.

Looking forward to the next installment.

--ShopShoe

 

[gus]

Trying very hard not to rush,take sweet time to turn Gear Casing and Casing Cover. Lathe is stretched again to cut both. Gear Casing done but still remain as incomplete as there are too many details to do. Both parts could not be turned on the lathe at one go and need flipping over to do other side. Dialing is required as bearing bores must be aligned. Gear Casing Drawing took time to familiarise. Best to take time as one messed up means total scrap. Am happy I took day off not fishing to make these two parts. Sunday Tide is good fishing.

 

[gus]

Gear Case Cover.

The last cut killed the cover. Should have taken the tea/pee break.All I need was one more pass with 1/2 thou and to get snug fit for 1/2'' ball bearing. No worry. Will salvage with adapter bush,loctited in and rebore.

 

[Gordon]

I am also building this same engine so I have been watching your progress. The one thing which is getting me confused is the "odd" dimensions. When I see something like .491 I assume that it is important and should be held to that dimension instead of just making it 1/2". I have been trying to calculate clearances as I go along but still miss things. I may have to redraw an assembly drawing in CAD just to verify clearances etc. I understand that some things must be "odd" dimensions but the problem is in determining what is important and what is close enough. Gus is avoiding some of this because he is converting to metric so everything is "odd". I think that a lot of this is because the original builder made the parts and then measured the final part and made the drawing "as made". I have observed this frequently in other drawings on other projects. I frequently have redrawn the engine in CAD just to verify fits etc.

 

[Swifty]

I have noticed in the Howell V4 drawings, that some holes are called up to drill and ream to size when it is only clearance and a drilled hole is good enough. It certainly pays to study the drawings fully and check mating parts etc.

Paul.

 

[gus]

Hi Gordon.
Paul is right. The drawings must studied careful to have a good idea how the mating parts fit. The Howell V-2 can be very unforgiving. So far so good. Not too many scrapped parts. Its the mini parts and sub-assembly that kills and they can get to be very unforgiving. I have given up rushing completion. There are so many small parts to make. I am about to cut 14 spur gears. Before cutting the gears I have to DIY a DH with Dividing/Indexing Plates. This will take another month. The V-4 and V-2 is not meant for beginners and faint hearted. Many a time we cry over scrapped parts. Misreading dimensions and details deadly.:wall: After building and running the V-2 and acquiring the experience and some more skills, HMEM Member is well equipped to tackle advance engines. Good Luck and all success.

 

[Gordon]

Some things are really easy to determine if a dimension is critical. I am presently working on the rocker arm fulcrum for instance and it calls for a .260 x .260 square. Obviously 1/4" square stock can be used so I am not sure why it would have started out as .260. Also the stock I had for the main body is .020 too narrow so at some point I have to compensate for this. Calculating the stack up of mating parts gets pretty confusing and I am not sure if the gear case should be make longer or if the bearing recess should be shorter. I am not even sure that it is really important and perhaps I am trying to solve a problem which I do not even have. I guess that I should try to make a CAD cross section.

At this point I have built about 25 different engines ranging from simple to the Rudy Kouhoupt Case steam traction engine. I still learn on every engine. One of the most interesting aspects of this is determining the proper sequence and which of my machines is best for this part. I have frequently had to remake a part because I machined in the wrong sequence and now cannot hold on to the piece because I machined away the surface I need to hold on to for the next operation. Keeps life interesting. Sure beats sitting in the house watching TV. I look at some of my first projects and think I would certainly do it different knowing what I do now.

 

[nx06563]

I am truly enjoying the build progress. Jerry Howells designs are definitely works of art and sometimes complicated for aesthetic reasons rather than functional reasons. I built the v-twin a couple of years ago and it was about my fifth engine build. I learned that I wasn't smart enough to anticipate what dimensions were critical and which were "close is good enough". I would make a list of machining steps on complicated parts, draw the part in auto-cad if necessary, redimension the drawing in my order of machining steps. It helped with logic and math errors.
Take your time and don't get in a hurry. Believe it or not I only had to make 1 each of the crank case, gear case, and gear case cover-- don't ask me how many of the other parts that were made several times.
I still haven't finished two good carburetors and am using model airplane carbs. I did make two great ones of the same side before I realized what I had done. I have a few problems with spatial orientation!

By the way it is a great running engine- just be careful with the valve timing. It seemed to be very critical on my engine and caused a lot of trial and error with carbs-valves-and ignition.

Your engine looks better than mine- Keep up the good work!