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My 1910 Mitchell "parts car" project


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Having the flanges welded on was a good idea. I'm not sure the locktite would have held them securely enough for the next operation and brazing the threads on the inside would have prevented me from taking the thickness of the flanges down as much as I'd like to.

 

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I now set the manifold up on the table of the milling machine using the clamps I made. Getting it level is critical so I used my machinist's level on one of the flanges. The mill is actually about .003 out of level so I took a reading off the table and tried to match it. The graduations on this level are about .003 each.

 

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I'm not thrilled with the hold down capacity of these clamps, especially for milling. After having it slip once, I'm being extra careful. I'm also using the fly cutter seen on the left and taking small cuts - .010 at the time to minimize the stress on the part. I also added two more hold downs.

 

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All this worked well but I discovered that when the manifold was held by the fluted tube it was about .100 lower on the right than on the left. Actually, it was difficult to measure because my dial height gauge isn't tall enough. I guessed it was about .140 off and, in the end, simply eyed it up by running the tool up to one flange and traversing to see how it lined up with the other flange.  This wouldn't keep it from working but the thickness of the flanges would be noticeably different. I'm not sure why this was the case but I'm not really surprised. There are a lot welded and brazed parts involved. When bolted to the engine this slight "out of parallel" was invisible. I spent the next two hours rummaging around the shop looking for something shim the low end up with. On my third try, I came very close using a piece of brass about .090 thick.

 

With that done, I took my first cut. The flanges themselves were not quite as flat as I'd presumed they were but about .025 was all I needed to get a smooth face across both of them. It was gratifying to see that the front to back level was just about perfect. If it was off, the fly cutter would have hit on one side but not the other. Here it is with both faces cleaned up.

 

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I'm going to keep going with this at least until I've removed the material above the end of the threaded tubes so that the surface is completely flat across. I suspect I may go even further as I think a thickness of about .300 would look about right.

 

I also learned that until now I have been running the fly cutter much too fast. This time I used an on-line feed & speed calculator. In the past, I just guessed and usually guessed wrong. I treated the cutter as if it was a 4" face mill with one tooth. The spindle speed is much slower and the feed rate much slower than I would have thought. That's a good thing as the pressure on the manifold is greatly reduced and the milled surface is much smoother and uniform. The only drawback is that it's time-consuming. I could probably take deeper cuts but this is working so well that I hate to take chances experimenting with it.

Edited by JV Puleo
more concise wording & typos (see edit history)
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I really appreciate all your details that you give and the excellent photos. I have been following your posts closely. Being a new member to this forum I started reading your reports way after the start of your project. I have a mill and a lathe which I use, but not to the same high level of workmanship that you achieve. I have learnt a lot from your reports. Keep up the good work.

Mike

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Thanks, Mike, it's really all a matter of just trying things. I'm self-taught at this so I still make odd errors and there are gaps in my knowledge and experience. Although I had a shop 40 years ago, almost all of the machines you see here have been acquired or at least recommissioned in the last 10 years with this project in mind. I still have three more to get up and running. Practically everything in the shop is at least 60 or 70 years old (myself included) and some of the machines are much closer to 100 if not a bit older. The newest, a vertical mill that is partly dismantled, was built in 1962 which is shockingly new by my standards.

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Done - or at least as done as it will be. I decided to stop when I'd cleaned up both inlets. The flanges are now a little less than 3/8" thick and, to my eye, look a lot better. You are probably not supposed to take so much material off with a fly cutter but after they were welded to the tubes I couldn't think of any other way to do it.

 

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And the real test bolted up to the blocks. The fact that it isn't absolutely parallel to them is invisible and they are mechanically straight, flat and in line with each other. You can tell how much material I removed by the fact that the studs now project quite a bit further.

 

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The last step will be to braze the end caps in but for now, I'm going to put the tooling away and clean the mill up. I have a dead ash tree leaning against the side of my house so I fear this weekend will be devoted to getting that down and cutting it up.

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The clamps I made to hold the manifold have come in handy for things I didn't anticipate. I'm brazing in the end caps and the clamp, attached to the end of the milling machine table, holds it upright and firmly so I have both hands free.

 

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Here's the other end. My brazing technique leaves a lot to be desired but this will clean up.

 

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Other than the final cleanup, I am done with the manifold. Next week I'll send it to be ceramic coated in flat black.

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I'm no expert on brazing, but from looking at the photo it looks as if the brazed area has been heated to much. I find it difficult when brazing two bits of metal at different thicknesses. I'm told that the best way is to just put the flux on the areas you want the braze to flow and don't melt the brazing rod with the torch, play the flame on the thicker material and let the heat from the material being brazed melt the brazing rod. Easier said than done! I find nickel bronze welding a lot easier than brazing, although the rods are quite expensive. I am looking forward to seeing the manifold ceramic coated.

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I agree.  When you get a copper color it means you've overheated it and burned the zinc out. I've cleaned this end up though and it looks fine. The problem here is that the two pieces are different thicknesses, the cap being thinner than the tube. The other end looks worse but I want to partly clean it up before I try to braze in the flaws.

 

Thankfully, it looks better in the flesh than it does in my photos.

Edited by JV Puleo (see edit history)
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Today I finished cleaning up the ends. They actually came out pretty good despite my less than professional brazing job.

 

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Tomorrow I'll find a box, pack it up and send it off for ceramic coating. The place that does this sandblasts it before coating so I'm not going to bother getting it perfectly clean overall. They will know better what sort of surface they need for the coating to stick properly.

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Like everything I make, I can't help but see the flaws although I admit that most of those are invisible to anyone else. When something is really flawed I start over and make it again. The ceramic coating, in flat black, is slightly less than $200 + shipping. I've never had anything like this done before so I have no frame of reference but that is about what I expected. The flat black cost a little extra - most people want a shiny chrome-like finish. Presumably, this is because 99% of their work comes from hot rodders etc. They'd go out of business quickly if they were only servicing the antique car world.

 

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Joe,  A couple of my friends have had ceramic coating put on 1929 and 1930 Cadillac manifolds, looks nice but they didn't have real good luck with longevity.  I would like to try out your source also.  I am waiting to see your finished manifold. 

Al

PS: my latest adventure is helping a friend get a missing planetary reverse drum recast for his 1903 Rambler.  We were at our foundry just yesterday with our borrowed pattern and are now in line to complete his transmission.  That is the latest.

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That sounds interesting. Until a month ago I confess I didn't even know how a planetary transmission worked. Oddly enough, I was contacted by another gentleman with a similar problem although he has to make the entire transmission. That got me reading up on them and I think I'm almost to the point where I understand them. How big is the drum? My first thought would be to turn it out of a big slug of cast iron. It's slow work but a casting would have to go in the lathe to be finished in any case. I like working with CI even though it's dirty.

 

jp

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13 hours ago, JV Puleo said:

Like everything I make, I can't help but see the flaws although I admit that most of those are invisible to anyone else. 

 

My dad used to kid me that I just might as well circle all the imperfections in my work with a wide magic marker because that way everyone else will be able to see what I can.

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The manifold is off to be ceramic coated this morning. Supposedly, it's about a 10-day turn around so it should be back in two weeks. Next, I'll finish the intake and water manifolds but, in between I have some work to finish on my house and I'm making a radius turning attachment for my lathe so the work never ceases!

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When I get to the end of a project like the manifold I often find myself at loose ends deciding what I should do next. I should finish the water manifolds and intake manifold. Maybe it's the prospect of filing and polishing - a job I don't particularly enjoy that's keeping me from it for the time being. Instead, I started two other jobs.

 

This pile of bits will be (I hope) a radius turning attachment for the lathe. I need it to properly finish the bolts I want to make for the external engine parts. Period bolts had thicker heads and usually had a very slight rounded radius on top. Bolts like that aren't made anymore but it is the sort of detail that I think lends verisimilitude (a favorite word of mine) to the job. At least they don't look modern and, to an extent, distract from the "newness" of the parts I'm making. I also have a plan to make special bolts for the wheels that will allow me to tighten them properly and have the appropriate high crowned head. The piece with the square hole in it is the adjustable tool post - the only part I've finished. I don't really know if all this will work - and won't until I try to use it but I've been looking for a radius turning attachment that fit my lathe for a long time. I haven't found one I liked or could afford so I thought I'd design my own.

 

The worm and gear are to turn it. Most radius tools are hand operated - you turn them with a lever. If this works as I've envisioned it, I will be able to turn the tool post with a small hand wheel which should result in a smoother cut. The design also allows for precision sizing.

 

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This second pile of materials will be the oil pump. This is particularly challenging because I have to make it fit in the space taken up by the original rear camshaft bearing and its holder. There isn't much room between this and the face of the flywheel so I've re-designed it five or six times. I'm still not absolutely certain it will fit but it should if my measurements are accurate.

 

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I saw one on a lathe in the machine shop I frequented in Petone in the '90s. I think he might have made something for me with it. It had a fulcrum he could set on the centre line of the lathe and was basically a square section, L-shaped tool holder. It must have been set up on the cross slide. The tool was clamped in, it was set to size and turned by hand holding the top of the L. He made it of course - it was very basic - and did a smooth job with it. I saw the tool and asked about it but didn't see it in use.

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Here's the drawing... which won't tell you much because it was done in the graphics program I use in my real work. The basic element, which took me a long time to understand, is that the pivot for the tool post has to be ahead of the surface being turned. Like everything I do, I've probably overcomplicated it. It's going to be a challenge to make this stiff enough so that it won't vibrate. I think I can do it but the tool itself will be heavy. I was going to leave this out, presuming it wasn't of much interest.

 

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Mike...

I think simple ball turning attachments are made for the Myford. One of the reasons I started this project is that the only attachments readily available are for small lathes and I seem to remember that Myford was specifically mentioned.

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Thanks for all the useful information. I did have a look on the internet and found a lot of information. I now see how they work. I contacted Cronos in the UK who advertised them for small lathes on their website, they came back to me with 'not available anymore'. No problem, I can make a simple version from the information above and the information on the internet. The problem is always the time! I tend to get focused on one project and concentrate on that project rather than having more than one project on the go at the same time. At present it's getting the 1914 Humberette back on the road for the first time since it was last on the road in 1926. You have also helped me a lot with your drawing. I only started using Adobe Illustrator for drawing out 'stuff' this year (before it was old fashioned pen and paper). I have found I get a bit 'bogged down' with detail rather than using your method above using blocks which will make understanding what I am trying to achieve a lot easier. Mike

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I actually use InDesign - which in real life I use to design and edit books on antique arms & armour.

There are times when I wish I could stay focused on a particular project. I tend to work on two or three at a time, partly because if I run into a snag I like to step away and work on something else. It's amazing how often the solution to the problem comes to me a day or two later. Right now I'm struggling with having run out of shelf space in the shop (and at home but that's another problem) so in order to keep going forward, it looks as if I'll spend a couple of days building shelves. It's surprising how much stuff I can accumulate in a one-man shop.

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The oil pump... This unit is replacing the original cast iron housing that carried the rear camshaft bushing. Here we have the piece of steel bar, faced off, bored and reamed to 1-1/4". This is the OD of the bushing.

 

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It was turned to an OD of 3-1/2" and then the 2" section that will go into the crankcase turned. In both cases, I left the pieces a little long to allow for further operations.

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I then made the pump body. The operations were similar except it is made of aluminum and will have a cast iron liner in an asymmetrically bored hole.

 

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These are the pasts so far... the piece of cast iron bar will be the liner. The aluminum ring is a template for the holes that attach the pump to the crankcase. Sure enough, one of them is slightly off.

 

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Edited by JV Puleo (see edit history)
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One of the things I've consistently avoided is using socket head cap screws and set screws, presuming that they were certainly a modern contrivance. As it turns out, I was wrong about that. Last night, lying in bed reading the 1919 Chandler & Farquar catalog (they were a fabulous Boston machinist & mill supply house and are still in business) I came across this:

 

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Looking into it a bit further, it turns out that Allen started marketing his cap screws and "safety set screws" in 1910. They were relatively expensive and a bunch of cheapskates like the Mitchell-Lewis company wouldn't have used them but they aren't drastically out of place on brass cars back to at least 1910.

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Antique arms & armour: It sounds as if you have an ideal 'real job' which many of us would call a hobby! I was amazed to find so many books listed, many with your name mentioned, on the subject. All quite alien to us Brits, in the UK, where guns are not the norm. I am just writing an article for a cycling magazine, on our attempt at the human powered speed record, back in early 1980's, which was our first trip to America. I quote, regarding our first meal, on the first evening in a hotel, opposite Hollywood race track in LA  …. we were chatting away and Alan said “What do you think those holes in the windows are for”. We all looked and could not think of any reason why there should be holes in the plate glass, there seemed to be no pattern to the holes. Eventually a waitress came over and introduced herself to us in a lovely southern drawl. We asked her about the holes and she said “Oh, people drive by on the highway and take pot shots at the windows, see the traffic lights over there, some one was shot there a few days ago”.

Scary - we never sat in the window seats again!

Oil pump body: I have yet to figure out what you are up to in the third photo. It will become apparent when you are further on with the machining of the oil pump parts.

More than one project: What I meant was; that I only like to carry out one large project at a time. There maybe a number of small projects within the large project when I can distance myself from a problem, to give myself thinking time.

Socket cap screws: You have surprised me too, with this page out of an old catalogue. I have purposely avoided using them in the past on old projects as I thought they came into use much later than pre World War One.

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There is a great deal more arms collecting in the UK than you may be aware of. In fact, the leading authority on both the arms of the US Cavalry and post-Civil War American military swords is a retired British head teacher. We've been friends for years..I've edited two of his books and we are currently working on a 3-volume series on the period from 1832 to 1865. My real specialty, however, is the Birmingham Arms trade from the mid-18th century to about 1830. I'm currently working on my own magnum opus on the Ketland family - the Birmingham merchants that dominated the American trade from about 1792 to 1832.

 

Here's my drawing of the oil pump. I'm still working out the fine details but I think I've pretty much got it. The real challenge is that it has to be very precise in order to work well and not leak but it's also a rather simple design.

 

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As I refine my design for the oil pump I find that I will need an indexable holding fixture for the various parts in order to get all the holes in the right places and to bore it. This is almost as much work as the pump itself. The first piece will hold the pump in the rotary table for drilling. I'ts made of aluminum, 4-1/2" in diameter. Because it had to come out of the lathe to be drilled it was necessary to turn it on an arbor to make certain the OD is perfectly concentric with the ID.

 

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 These will hold 5/15-18 soft tip set screws to lock the pieces in place without marring them. The little center finding tool seen here is fine for "down & dirty" stuff like this where it isn't critical that the holes be perfectly located. It probably gets you within .005 of the perfect center of a round object. The arbor is held in a hexagonal collet chuck - a cheap and easy way to index it.

 

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The holes need only be slightly longer than 1/2" - the finished wall thickness of the fixture. The threads are just started as once they are started straight I can tap them by hand after the piece is bored. This will get bored to 3-1/4" and then counterbored to 3-1/2" - the idea being to have a small lip on the bottom edge so that when I'm drilling and boring the set screws will only have to keep the piece from rotating. I will also make a 2" x 3-1/2" split bushing to go into this fixture to hold the pump base when I drill the holes to attach it to the crankcase.

 

And... the manifold came back. I'm quite pleased so far and it will be a long time before I'm able to find out how durable the finish is but it looks quite good. I selected flat black because I thought that would be best to hide the little flaws. I think it was quite successful. On the finished engine, I don't think anyone will even notice it.

 

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Edited by JV Puleo (see edit history)
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Here is the drawing again but this time with all the necessary holes plotted. The blue circles represent the 5/16 cap screws that attach the pump to the crankcase. I can't change their location. The uppermost hole is about 10 degrees from TDC, at least in as far as I can measure it. The input and output are also fixed - or nearly so. I wracked my brain trying to figure out a way to put six holes in the housing, screwed into the base, arranged symmetrically and finally decided I couldn't. But... the eureka moment came when I thought "why do they have to be symmetrical?" So, I plotted them to come between the fixed parts and still distribute the clamping force more or less evenly around the edges. Because the holes are asymmetrical I have to be able to index both parts so that none of the holes overlap. I think I've got it... but the real test will be when I set it up on a test rig and see if it works!

 

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Edited by JV Puleo
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This is the holding fixture, bored out with a little lip at the bottom. There is one step left, marking the top dead center.

 

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And with the pump body in place as it will be when I bore it.

 

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I also put a TDC mark on the base, body, and cap of the pump. This will allow me to index the entire unit in one piece.

 

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Before I start drilling holes I thought it would a good idea to make all the parts of the pump – or at least start them. A few, like the rotor, can't be finished until I have assembled the pump body because the clearances are very close and I may have to adjust the dimensions a few thousandths. This will be the cast iron liner... the lump of cast iron is from a bar I bought at the local salvage yard (long since gone) about 40 years ago. I can't even remember what I made from the first piece.

 

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I intended to bore and ream this to 2" but made the mistake of using my small chuck and couldn't remember what size the hole in the center was. So, I drilled and reamed it to 1-1/4" to get something I could hold with an expanding arbor and turned the OD to 2.8" in order to get a uniform, concentric surface I could indicate. It turns out that the hole is slightly larger than 2" so that was a wasted effort. I then put it back in the chuck but moved it away from the face so when I bored it I could see the boring bar coming through. This required recutting the face so the hole and the face would be perpendicular to each other. Fortunately, there was more than enough material...if anything, too much.

 

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I then bored and reamed it to 2". The red dychem stripe is to remind me which surface was true.

 

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Here's the almost finished piece. The ID, when complete, will be 1.125 but the final boring will be done with the boring head in the milling machine.

 

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I also made some bits to hold everything together while working on it. The bolts (with center holes), washers and pieces of bar are for alignment purposes. The bars are 1-1/4 ground stock, something left over from another job. They fit the reamed holes perfectly. Since all of the holes in three pieces have to align perfectly they need to be drilled together so these will serve to clamp everything together while I do that. Some of the thicknesses have to be reduced as well. I still have to make brass inserts to screw the inlet and outlet fittings into but aside from that, I'm almost at the point where I can drill the holes and begin assembling the pump.

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Because I'm down to the wire here I decided to do the math over... and discovered I'd made a rather drastic error. Everything is based on cubic inches of oil per revolution and I've been happily using the projected RPMs of the engine for that figure - except that the camshaft rotates at half the engine speed so a pump that is attached to the camshaft is rotating at half speed. I'm not sure how to solve this problem but it may keep me up half the night.

 

 

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I hate when reality gets in the way of a good plan!!  At least you noticed it now, I would have noticed it when the engine seized from not getting enough oil.   How does the pump interface with the camshaft... is there room for a gear there?

 

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I spent a lot of time thinking about a gear pump but there is no good way of doing it. The second choice was a plunger pump running off the camshaft but that would have required both making the pump and putting a hole in the side of the crankcase for the actuating rod. Mitchell went to a plunger pump in 1911 but I don't know what it looked like or how it was mounted. It could have been in the sump. It was all very complicated and I have a strong reluctance to modify any of the original parts. Also, the Mitchell folks were none too generous with the aluminum so I worry that another hole would weaken the case... in all, it wasn't as good an idea as I first thought. The vane pump is clearly the way to go. It runs directly off the rear end of the cam and the pump unit simply replaces the big, heavy cast iron holder that was bolted there to carry the rear camshaft bushing. All of the oil lines are added and they will connect to the engine through the fittings that originally were connected to the total loss oiler.

 

All that said, I think I've got it now... in fact, I've reworked the internal dimensions to the point where I should get 783 cubic inches of oil per minute at 1800 RPMs. The optimum figure I was trying to match was  475 cubic inches so I may tweak the dimensions back a bit. In any case, all of this will be tested off the car before I attempt to use it. It's too important to fool around with. When I start the engine, I want to know the oiling system works. The 1800RPMs is based on the figures in the 1927 edition of Heldt's book. The 1910 edition used a maximum RPM figure of 1200. I'm playing it safe here... I think that at 1800 the car would be going about  57 MPH. I'm not likely to drive it that fast if only because it's uncomfortable but I want it to be capable of that speed in the very rare event I have to use a highway for a short distance. The only time that has happened to me was driving my 1910 REO to Long Island and back. In order to cross the Thames River in New London, I had to go over the new highway bridge or travel miles out of my way to one of the old bridges upriver.

 

Edit: I forgot one of the most important parts. Vane pumps are self-priming. Unlike gear pumps, they have excellent suction, which is one reason they are commonly used for vacuum pumps. Because this pump is not in the sump that's very important. I will probably try to incorporate a one-way valve of some sort so that the oil doesn't drain back into the sump but it may not be all that important. Chrysler used vane pumps in the 20s as did Frankin.

Edited by JV Puleo (see edit history)
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It looks as if I have solved the RPM problem, although the inside cast iron lines will have to be only .075 thick. The materials came in so I've made the split bushing that will work as part of the holding fixture.

 

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The additional hole will be located opposite the slit to give the bushing a little more flexibility. The working clearances here are only about .003 to .005. After it was reamed to 2", I turned the OD to 3.5" so it fit into the holding fixture, then slit it. I didn't have a slitting saw large enough to reach across the diameter so I opened up the edge to the small hole with a hacksaw.

 

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I also made the threaded brass inserts that the inlet and output fitting will screw into.

 

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The thread is 3/4-16, the finest 34 thread I have a tap for. The threads are purposely a tiny bit loose as these will be put in and secured with Loctite.

 

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I'm now down to the moment of truth. Tomorrow I'll start the finish machining and assembly.

Edited by JV Puleo (see edit history)
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The first step in assembling the pump was to mill the recesses for the input and output fittings. These also get a 3/8" hole in the center for alignment purposes. It actually took about 3 times as long to set this up as it did to do.

 

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With that done, I set the holding fixture up in the rotary table and put a "zero" mark on it. Without moving anything I assembled the pump body and the top, bolted together with the piece of ground rod in the center and drilled center holes for the 1/4-28 cap screws that will hold it together. I can't drill these holes in the milling machine because there is nowhere near enough vertical travel available so tomorrow I will have to move the entire setup over to the drill press.

 

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I also discovered that I have a problem boring the offset hole in the center. I failed to take the width of the chuck jaws into consideration. They project too far in to bore through so I'll have to think of a way around that problem. I don't think it's a major setback but it may require making another fixture of some sort.

Edited by JV Puleo (see edit history)
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