2 little Indians

Stop press!


I've finally got the cylinder out without damage, yes, firmly glued in with old Castor oil!


This engine has had very little use, I'm guessing just a proving run and then put away for years.

Now the bad news.

The connecting rod is bent!

Not good photos but you can see clearly that in the first the rod bends towards the web and in the second, away from the web. So I'll have to make a new one.

As long a the bearings themselves are not distorted I would just bend it back!
More important than perfectly flat is that the big and little end bearings are parallel to each other.

More bad news, the gudgeon pin (wrist pin in American) for #1 is 3/32" , 2.38mm, the same pin on #2 is 2.45mm. I can get a 3/32" reamer but it's not going to help. #1's pin is a rattle fit in #2's piston and connecting rod and #2's pin won't fit #1 at all! I suspect that any connecting rod that I can buy will have a small end that's too small.
So, as you suggest Simon I have to straighten the rod.
To put things in perspective here, a hair from my head (I have very fine hair) measures 0.06mm or .002" (2 thousandths of an inch) and yet the difference renders the component unusable!

Now we have a new problem!


You will remember I noticed file marks on the nose of #1, a glance at the pic shows that #1s' nose is actually shorter and worse, not even square! The measured difference is 1.5mm (1/16" Garry)

I think I would send them back, as beyond reasonable repair, seems they have been vandalised :ohmy:

Presumably that means the crank shaft protrudes 1.5 mm out of the front or are the two shafts different lengths?

Apart from the threads being .1mm different in diameter the crankshafts are identical.
I thought I'd start on the new prop washer today.


3mm Gauge plate


A cut square, oversize, with 3.5mm hole.



Dummy shaft turned and fit tested.


4BA thread going on.

Very interesting, most people would have given up and returned them, well done, boz

Very nice Klippy.
That 3 jaw has an interesting....er.....finish on it! :woohoo:

great to see the repairs taking shape, nice work Klippy ....great thread

Quorneng wrote: Very nice Klippy.
That 3 jaw has an interesting....er.....finish on it! :woohoo:

At altitude with a clear sky the temperature can drop quite low at dawn. The instant the sun is fully above the horizon warm moist air moves in and everything, especially metal, which holds the coolth, gets soaking wet! I try and keep things oiled up but it doesn't always happen. Even things kept in drawers gets a fine patina of rust very quickly.
Well I've done some more


And turned to the finish od.


Job done, milling next.


This old girl is very aggressive when she's got kids and terrorises the dogs!

I then pulled the dummy shaft forward to trim the nose.


Turned down to be a tight fit in the crankshaft bearing.


Mounted up


And finished. I had to take 1.2mm off to true it up! If you look very closely you can see casting metal intruding into the bronze bearing. I'm pretty sure these crankcases were cast around the bronze bearing which was then reamed to size.

While the dummy shaft was in the chuck I decided to check something.


My boring bar is a little large for this job but I've skimmed the rear of the engine mounts to give a flat surface. Just a feasibility study on this engine. The carburettor attachment boss gets in the way but enough of the mounts can be machined to give a true surface. What showed up here was that the facing and threading of the rear case is way off centre and out of true!
The moulds for the pressure die casting machine are obviously badly worn which means machining the rear is out of true for the jig they had.


Since this was only a feasibility study I only went far enough to touch both sides. What showed up is that the turned and threaded rear of the crankcase is .3mm out of true with the crankshaft.