Swifty's build of Howell V4

[Gerhardvienna]

Hi Paul
Well done, there are so many things I can copy on my Saurer-Engine! The fan looks great, I would have done it the same way.
Regards
Gerhard

 

[Swifty]

I made a start on the fuel inlet manifold, also included in the manifold is the coolant return to the radiator. Castings were once available for this, but I don't think that you can get them now. Another member posted a couple of drawings a while ago, showing how they made one from scratch, so I'm using a similar method to make mine. First off, I made a few measurements where the manifold will sit between the heads on the engine, I then drew it up on Cad and dimensioned enough to get me going. I used a piece of 1"round brass and machined it to the sizes required.


The manifold is hollow inside, so to machine this, the inside is milled to suit and eventually a side is silver soldered on to enclose things. In the next photo, the shallow bores that I am pointing to with the pen are tooling marks for later machining the 45 degree angles on the ends. I will mill the ends until these marks disappear.


I machined the ends at 45 deg, and then thought about how I was going to enclose the side. I initially was going to mill a pocket to suit an insert, but decided to mill the whole side down and solder on a piece that overlapped everywhere. Every time I silver solder, I think about the German toolmaker who instructed me when I was a first year apprentice in 1970, he always told me "An die spitze sitze der hitze", not quite sure about the spelling, but it means that the heat is on the point, so only use the end of the flame.


I then trimmed the excess off and also did a bit more machining to the profile. Next step, I will have to solder on some flanges to either end and machine them to suit.


If it's any consolation to Gus, I scrapped 2 parts before I even started to machine the inside, dumb mistakes, I was working off pencil sketches and looking at the wrong sizes.

Paul.

 

[Swifty]

PI managed to put quite a few hours into finishing the manifold today. Carrying on from where I left off yesterday, I drilled 3mm dia holes in the ends where the flanges are going to be attached, then turned up 2 flanges with a 3mm locating spigot on them.



I planned to use lead solder to hold these flanges on, I didn't want to apply too much heat and melt the silver solder on the side plate. First thing I did was to put some soldering paste on the face of the flanges, applied some solder until the face had a good coverage, and then placed the manifold on top, making sure that the solder was flowing well. I held the manifold with a pair of vice grips, and held the parts until they started to cool down, repeated on the other end. I cleaned the excess solder and flux off.


Next step was to hold the manifold and start to machine the flanges, drilling the fuel inlet and some fastening holes. The flange thickness was left oversize at this stage so I could do a trial fit to see how much to take off.


Paul.

 

[Swifty]

I sat the manifold on the engine block with the flanges touching the heads, then measured the gap under the centre portion that sits on the block. A bit of a calculation told me how much material to remove from the flanges to get the correct seating. I was very cautious at this stage, as I didn't want to ruin anything, so I removed only about half of what I calculated, then repeated the measuring. Next step was to finished size, and all came out well. There are O rings on the base as well as the flanges, so all should seal well. The hole in the base is where the water exits to the radiator.





And here's the manifold resting on the block, you may notice that the holes on top are offset, this is correct, as this matches the offset on the carby.


Paul.

 

[gus]

Great job on the inlet manifold. The Howell V Engines have so many miniature and intricate parts to make.In full size engines, these manifolds would be big and machining done easily on production jigs/fixtures. Nowadays the CNC Machine Centre or FMCs comes in. With this miniature parts, HomeModelEngineMachinist would have to painstakingly/manually turn/mill/dill/file. All along the way with the risk of making fatal mistakes. You just got to love and enjoy doing it. When the V Engines are built and running.All our pains and anxiety is forgotten.

Paul. We landed 15 pcs today. See FB.

 

[Art K]

Swifty,
The manifold looks great. I appreciate seeing how you set up the different parts.
Art

 

[Swifty]

I started work on the water pump, the impeller first. I turned up a piece of brass to the correct diameter, and leaving it attached to the rest of the bar, I mounted it in the 3 jaw chuck on my rotary table. I then machined the 5 slots that will pump the water and also drilled and reamed the 5 holes that will hold the magnets that provide the drive. The pump is a sealed unit that is driven by magnets in 2 of the parts, the magnets on the outside are mounted in the pulley and attract the magnets on the sealed impeller.




Paul.

 

[gus]

Very interesting pump and impeller and magnetic coupling. Will follow post.

 

[Swifty]

Not a lot of work being done lately, I have a groin strain, just like the pro footballers get, but mine was from walking at a brisk pace. It only reinforces my thoughts that exercise isn't good for you, people can die from it, so I'm hobbling around with a walking stick these past 4 days, I can stand all right, it's just getting between machines that is difficult.

Despite this, I managed to do a bit more work on the water pump, the pulley with magnet holes. I have ordered the magnets, just awaiting there arrival.




I also made a start on the inlet and outlet tubes. The piece in the foreground hasn't got the tube retaining bump on it yet as I'm going to hold it by this end for machining the radius to match the pump body. Both parts will have further machining on them later.


Just after first posting this, my wife said "did you see the parcel that came today for you", well there were the magnets that I was waiting for.

Paul.

 

[jimjam66]

Too much good stuff will kill you, Paul! Take it easy, parts are looking good!

 

[Swifty]

Some more progress on the water pump, I made the wedge piece that fits inside the water pump housing. First off was to hold the piece in the rotary table and machine a couple of flats and the outside diameter.


For the inside diameter, I was lucky enough to find a cutter the right size to machine this, otherwise I would have had to set up the boring head, I should have mentioned that the centres of the inside and outside rad's are offset. Pictures a bit out of focus.


And then parted off with a slitting saw.


Next, I finished off the radius on the water outlet, and the rest of the machining on the inlet and outlet.



Paul.

 

[Swifty]

Started work on the main body, this has an undercut on the inside and an offset threaded hole on the front. I worked out how big a hole I could put in first before having to offset the part later, I bored a plain hole and turned the outside to size, I couldn't find any tool suitable to machine the undercut, so I had to think of another approach. I decided on a 2 piece approach, silver soldering the parts together. So I parted off a piece that I could use for the front, and machined a deeper recess in the back part to the finished diameter, then parted it off. I reversed the front part in the chuck, faced it to length and machined a small location shoulder.


The parts could be clamped tight together, but I allowed a .005"gap for the solder to flow around.



The parts silver soldered great, the solder flowed well around the joint. It gave me a part that had no excess solder inside and cleaned up well on the outside, I forgot to take a picture after soldering. Next step was to hold that part in the 4 jaw chuck to machine the offset threaded hole, .064"offset meant a .128" reading on the dial indicator. This is where things started to go bad, whilst aligning the part in the chuck, I managed to slightly squash the body with the jaws, I forgot how thin the wall was, so scrap one part. Now I have to wait a couple of days before I can get some brass big enough to machine another piece. I think that I will still make it in 2 pieces as it worked so well, I will just use another method of holding the part for the offset hole.

Paul.

 

[gus]

Take your aweet time. There must be a long list of teeny weeny itsy bitsy parts to make. I am having my fair share and trying to enjoy it as there is no delivery date line.;D

 

[jimjam66]

Sorry about the oopsie, Paul. Your work is magnificent overall, though. I wondered how it might feel if that little tiny crescent-shaped thing had pinged off the table while it was being parted with the slitting saw - that's the sort of thing that happens to me, leading to me being arse-up for 20 minutes hunting for the durned thing on the floor.

 

[Swifty]

Hi David, when I look at that picture, I feel that a cutter with more teeth would have been better, but I wanted one that was not going to flex. I cut the crescent until it was hanging on by a thread, then just broke it off, didn't want a lost part. However, I was making an oil fitting using a small piece of brass and some .125" tubing, I polished the tubing a bit in the lathe, then used a tubing cutter to cut a piece off, you guessed it, the piece fell into the swarf tray that was full of brass swarf, took about 5 minutes to find it.

Paul.

 

[Swifty]

Whilst waiting to get some more brass, I have carried on with the oil galley, this item joins the oil hole that comes out of the front of the block, to the oil pump, there is also a bleeding hole with cap. First thing to do after fly cutting a block to size was to drill an oil way in the edge of the block, then insert a shallow plug to block the end off.


Next step after the loctite on the plug had time to cure, was to drill 2 small clearance holes for the fastening screws, and 3 x 3mm dia. holes that are tooling holes for me to machine to. Rather than relying on measurements from edges etc, it was easier to draw the part in CAD and work out where the tooling holes go, I will machine these faces until the tooling hole disappears.


Here is the easy milling done with the part held in the milling vice, the angle is 45deg. If you look at the previous picture of the block with the tooling holes, you can see how I have milled down to them. I can't help thinking that the piece looks like a little scottie dog,


A bit more straight forward milling.



Next step was to set up the rotary table to mill a radius that matches a part on the block. I clamped a dummy aluminium plate on the table and drilled and tapped 2 holes that suit the block, these holes are my locations for the block.


And here we have the radius machined.


I also machined a couple of straight faces whilst in this setup.

Paul.

 

[Swifty]

After a lot of juggling at various angles, I finished off the remaining faces and oil holes with counterbores for O rings.


The hole on the left hand face mates with the oil pump, while the hole on the right hand is the bleed hole where a cap will be fitted.


Here is the face that clamps to the engine block, the second hole from the right mates up with the oil hole in the block, there is an O ring in the block.



Once I get a sand blaster, the part will have a nice matt finish.

Paul.

 

[jimjam66]

Nice work, Paul!

 

[gus]

Paul.

This is very very tough piece to make but you did it.th_wav

 

[michael-au]

Nice work Swifty

Will be a Good looking engine when it is finished

Michael