7-21-02
Only 3 weeks left till the Denver race. (Aug. 11th.)
After
the decission to make this case work. It was off to EMS to have them do some
clearancing. its not he generic type you might get from Rimco, but a little
more specific. One of the nicest things I like about this clearance job was,
there was no burs or ugly left overs you get from a dull tool and left to
the next person to clean up. The last two cases I worked on from rimco needed
some extra massaging, this was a no brainer. nothing to touch.
Its
really nice having my own welder, so I can do things like these. welded only,
never a clamp on.
One
of the minor issues I also found with the aluminum cases, was the dowel pin
hole was drilled a touch too deep. I ened up cutting up some aluminum welding
rod, dropping it in the hole to push up the dowel pin, to where it would
actually do something if needed. (about .090" high)
Since
the case was in for machining, we made a call that made things easier on
me. if I had left the deck as is on the case, I would have had to cut down
the cylinders again. So the old case went in with this to measure. EMS cut
the deck down to match my old case, and after check out was on the money
and will not have to touch the cylinders. This was also a good oportinuty
to check out how accurate the existing deck was. It was slightly crooked.
Parrellel to center line but kicked at a real minor angle.(not really enought
to worry about) And at the same time, the 8mm case savers came out and replaces
with a heli-coil type insert to accomodate the new 10mm head studs. (now
I dont have to worry if I overboost, or if I want to turn the
knob.)
In
this picture, apoximately where the pen show, is the oil drain hole behind
the flange. Cant see it, and its mighty close to the back of the
flange.
So
talking to a few people on this subject, I made my own call and created
an extra groove to assist in oil drainage.
this
is the result. in the event I pump a lot of oil into this cavity, it will
be able to drain fast and not leak by or blow out the rear seal. (was it
worth it, I dont know, but for my eyes, it was extra insurance.)
Since
these aluminum cases are not proven to me yet, and i was doing all the tapping
on the case, I opted to plug up the oil outlet port of the pump to help insure
that I will have no leak back.
One of the other things I noticed that the distributor drive locating might be a bit on the loose side. one of the things I never payed close attention to was how much slop there was from crank movement to distributor movement. It never really caught my eye. But this one, I started to rotate the crank and notice a momentary hesetation of distributor movement. I thought ok, my brass drive gear is a little warn, so I swapped it out for a new one. it got better but there is still almost 3 degrees of movement worth of slop. now I figure some of this will go away with an oil barrier, but not much. I will check and monitor timing and see how bad it jumps around. if its really bad, then I will have to do a crank trigger in the future.
6-26-02
Case number 2
Strike 2
I
got another case last week. It came out of the second batch to arrive into
the U.S. (from Auto Linea) Pretty much looks like a stock case.
So
it was off to do the usual check up. plug some holes, and stuff a funnel
in it to fill with solvant. WHOOO HOOOO, no leaks this time.
BUT!!! Most of the distributor drive measured perfect except for a
little bump that protruded about .0035"
it
looked like the cause of the bump was from the press in plug next to the
distributor hole. It was rather easy to fix with a small half round file
just to take the high spot off. On another note, when I pulled this plug,
there was a couple of good size shavings behind it. So I might have made
a good call when deciding to pull and tap all the plugs.
PROBLEM 2. The oil relief ports where you drop in the small pistons
and springs to control oil pressure and divert oil to or from the cooler.
I will do my best to explain on text what I found. It looks like there was
a boo boo in the cnc program or the rough cut drill was not set properly.
My theory of what happened here. A rough cut drill opened up the hole but
went a little too deep. Then the final drill or ream that finishes the hole
size and puts the flap spot at the bottom came in and did its thing, the
only problem was there was no material to make flat at the end because the
previous drill went to far. So what we ended up with was a small step in
the port and down to a tapered surface. (Kind of like you would get with
the end of a drill bit)
EMS ordered 3 of these cases, and I picked one pretty much at random. So I thought, ohh I have 2 more to choose from. Well that was not going to help me one bit. The other two cases were in the same shape.
At
this point, I am running out of time quick to make my motor come to life
again before the Denver race. So instead of trying to go through the exchange
process and probably find out that maybe the whole batch of cases might be
this way, the decision was made to make this case work. (what fun would it
be if it only bolted together) I consulted with Dick Nuss at EMS and he measured,
stared and then took a stock piston, machined it down to fit pass the step,
dropped in some dykum and checked to see if the piston would seat on the
taper. And sure enough, it cut a nice seat into it. So now, Dick is going
to make me a custom piston for the rear (oil pressure control end) that will
be .100" longer then stock with the step. Why .100" longer? Well once we
could get it seated, the piston was .100" deeper then what a stock piston
would sit at. This keeps the use of the stock spring with out having to shim
it up or find another longer spring. The same held true with the oil cooler
port. But it was only .060" deeper, but since this is not a street driven
motor, its ok if I loose tension on the front spring as the oil will end
up I the same place and maybe loose some flow through the cooler. So a stock
cut down piston will go there. This is all with the assumption that the releif
cross drilled hole is at the stock depth too. I did find that the side hole
that will ultimately dump the oil back into the case was farther down the
hole then stock. with an un-scientific way of measuring, it was close to
.060"-.070"ish deeper. so had the stock seat been there, it may have still
dropped off the oil pressure sooner. (by the top of the piston reaching the
relief hole sooner, or taking less spring pressure to get to) And this means
I may still have to shim up or even try an adjustable pressure cap
with the screw in it to make sure I can maintain pressure.
And
during the time I was waiting for the second case, I figure I might as well
check out the new crank. So I stuck it in my old case half and put the dial
indicator on it to check for strait-ness. These are just some of the things
that one can do if they are really picky about their motor building. This
crank was only a half thou out.
6-5-02
In
an effort to make sure this case is good, and after hearing about another
case with porosity around an oil galley, I wanted to check mine out thoroughly.
So I popped on a block off plate and my gauge in the side of the case so
it will not leak.
I
got some putty and closed off some holes in the lifter bore area.
Put
a funnel in the inlet port of the oil pump area, and tilted the case back
a touch. Then added some solvent to fill up the galleys.
Guess
what, the little porosity above the lifter bores leaks. you can't see through
it, and I put a pick to it and it doesn't cave in or any thing like that,
it must have just a bunch of small pockets linked together. But I haven't
given up on these cases yet. EMS is on the hunt for another one for me. We
really want to try one just to see how it handles things. It might come
out great, or maybe they will end up as junk. Who knows.
6-4-02
Well
briefly before the Sacramento race, I got a chance to dabble with Sixto's
motor again. Like all the oil pump covers bolted all over the case? this
is so i can move the magnetic based dial indicator all over the
place.
Get
a good clamp down on the cylinder to get an accurate measurement of
depth.
Fortunately,
I have a set of these .412" thick shims laying around to add to the bottom
of the cylinders, so I can get an accurate measurement. with the 84 crank
and 5.7" long rod, the .412 shim only gave me .039" deck. imagine if i didn't
have these shims to work with. Piston be sticking out the top and I would
have to measure a different way.
Our
weekend at Sacramento. This was "Methanol" Matt's first event and even the
first event my wife attended since this race a year ago. Notice the new
Aircooled.net logo on
the doors.
It
was a shame when Jim Hagethorn sold his red turbo car. But life goes on,
and so Jim purchased a new daily driver.
This
nice, simple, STOCK 65 pretending to do a wheelie. Actually Jim was changing
out the original shift bushing.
interior
is in excellant shape Most of the original stock stuff is still on it. It
hasn't been smashed or butchered or any thing like that. just the minor little
primer spots and door dings. it even look to have potentially the original
colored rubber fender beadings. I'm not really up with correct equipment
on these cars when they were new, but I remember something about the fender
beadings and running boards being the same color as the car from the
factory.
Motor
is still SMALL
Now
for my stuff. Well I did end up hurting the motor. So in mid season, what
does one do? One scrambles for new parts fast. And since things were going
to be new, I might as well go all the way. This is one of the NEW ALUMINUM
cases designed to replace the normal magnesium cases.
For
the most part the look very similar to the stock case. You can't really see
the detail but that is the end of the second crank I ended up hurting. Normally
I learn once, this time it took me twice to learn that flywheels just don't
like horse power with out some assistance from a wedgemate. I was hoping
to pass this off till the end of the season, but no good. This crank was
the old used and abused, pre hurt, and left for dead crank I borrowed at
the end of last season. it probably lasted longer then it should have any
ways.
Since
the rest of the crank was fine, I was using it as part of the check
out of this case. But still in the preliminary stages of check out. I will
try and get some closer pictures when I really do a close
inspection.
And
here is the lesson learned. Skip the wedgemated cranks and jump right into
a flange crank. This is a little more then I wanted to spend mid season,
but in hine site, I should have done this at the beginning, although I had
already planned it at the end of the season.
NO
more loose flywheels with this big grabbing hands.
6
big ARP bolts and 6 dowl pins holding this baby on. These are all
Bugpack products. In my
opionion, the best bang for the buck cranks. Bugpack does not sell directly
to the public, but sell through their distributors, so if you want one of
these, you will need to get a hold of one such as
Aircooled.net. They can
supply you with every thing you see here. crank, flywheel, custom bearings,
seal, bolts, etc. to do the job right.