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My 1910 Mitchell "parts car" project


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Machinist's jacks... they are readily available although usually more expensive than a cheapskate like me likes to spend. I think they are just one of these things you keep your eyes out for - chances are if they showed up at a yard sale no one will even know what they are. I have the pieces of another set of them that were given to me for just that reason and it was a long time before I figured out what they were.

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The next step was to move everything over to the drill press and line up the first hole. I'm using a transfer punch here because its taper will match the center holes I drilled on the milling machine. It is practically impossible to get the alignment absolutely perfect but it it is within a few thousandths it will be fine. By using the transfer punch with its tapered end you can see if it is deflecting when you bring the chuck down. The idea is to get it to seat in the center hole without moving side to side.

 

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With that done the holes were each drilled with a #3 drill...the size for a 1/4-28 tap.

 

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With that done, the pieces were taken apart and the base flange put back in the fixture to tap the holes.

 

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Then the body of the pump and the top went back in the fixture to drill the holes out. I did this with a drill about .007 larger than 1/4". One of the problems with drilling a relatively deep hole, especially through steel and aluminum together, is that the drills drift. This is the reason that bolts, in themselves, are a poor choice for alignment purposes. Some clearance is needed in order for them to work.

 

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This was the final test... the pump body attached to the flange. When these parts are finished I will assemble them and ream two holes for dowel pins so that all three will have to go together in perfect alignment despite the slightly larger clearance holes.

 

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I now have to improvise a fixture to hold the pump body while I bore it since using the chuck from the rotary table is a problem... but that can wait until next week. I still have a lot of work to do on my house before winter gets here so my weekend is completely booked up.

Edited by JV Puleo (see edit history)
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In playing with these parts I've decided to open these holes up a bit more and rely on the dowel pins I will add when the assembly is complete for proper alignment. It's important that these parts not fit together too tightly because the pump will have to be assembled on the car and, of course, disassembly could be a problem if that is ever necessary. Hopefully, it won't be because the pump is effectively behind the flywheel and to take it off I'd have to remove it. That's another good reason for thorough testing before it goes together.

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After a couple of days off to replace the rear brakes on my 2000 Olds Bravada and build more storage shelves in the shop I'm back to the oil pump.

The first project was to make something to hold the holding fixture since I'd decided that it wasn't possible to bore the body of the pump in the 3-jaw chuck I use with my rotary table. I had this piece of thick wall aluminum tubing, bought for a water pump that I later decided was the wrong way to go about it.

 

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Fortunately, it was thick enough to counterbore for the holding fixture.

 

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I set the fixture up in the mill and centered it...

 

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Then moved the table down .100 and started boring the offset hole in the center.

 

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I went out to 2.2". The finished size is supposed to be 2.5" but I want to leave material to be taken out after the brass inserts are in place. With that done I took the piece over to the drill press and aligned the input and output holes using the guide holes I'd drilled when I milled the recesses.

 

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They were then drilled to 11/16".

 

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And tapped 3/4-16 for the inserts.

 

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Screwing in the inserts was supposed to be the easy part. It wasn't. I had a lot of problems with them I suspect because the hole and the tap come out on the edge of a circle and deflect slightly. I probably should have cut the threads loose, especially as they are going to be permanently fixed in place. After struggling with it for two hours, I finally got them in.

 

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The piece now goes back in the fixture. I will bore it again so that the bottom edges of the inserts are flush with the inside diameter.

Edited by JV Puleo (see edit history)
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Once the inserts were in, I put the piece back in the fixture. It was gratifying to see that it seemed to align perfectly.

 

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Now it was bored out to the finished size which, because I must have made an incorrect calculation somewhere was not as large as I'd intended. I purposely came as close to the nearest hole as I could.

 

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So, here it is, bored as large as I dared go.

 

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Because my calculations were wrong, I had to go back and reexamine the math... and thought I'd made another serious error. After two hours of fussing around with figures,  I realized what I'd done wrong and that my original figures were fine. In fact, I was able to "redesign" the pump to be somewhat better than I'd originally planned.  I also changed my mind about the cast iron liner and decided to go with bronze, which would have been the preferred material in 1910. I probably should have made the entire pump body out of bronze but didn't have a piece big enough. Nevertheless, it would have saved a lot of time. For the bronze liner I cut a piece of Naval Bronze (actually, it's a piece of a prop shaft from a fishing boat).

 

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I put it in the lathe, drilled it and started boring but then had second thoughts. This bronze is very tough and I was not happy with the finish I was getting. For a pump, the inside has to be very smooth and I was not convinced that it would come out right after boring in the milling machine. That would have ruined the entire part as it has to be pressed into the aluminum piece first. So, I sacrificed a piece of cored bronze bearing stock that was really too big for the job... I could have ordered a big bushing to make this from but didn't want to wait until next week. Also, the milling machine is set up for this and I can't take the setup apart until I've finished this operation.

 

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You can see how thick it is... when its' all done, it will be a ring 2.350 in diameter with a wall thickness of just over .100 so most of it will end up in the rubbish.

 

Here it is turned down to almost the ID of the pump body. This was probably the fussiest part because I want a .002 press fit. It has to be tight but, of course, if it is too big it won't go in. For this I used the dial indicator on the lathe. I was able to hit it dead on with the last cut of .0005 which would have been impossible had I been using the lathe dials.

 

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I then faced both ends so it was about .025 wider than the pump body so that when I press it in it will bottom on one of the faces. This was done with my home-made press.

 

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Today's last step was to face off both sides so the bronze liner is absolutely flush with the pump body. In the end, the body measures 1.012 but I decided to leave well enough alone rather than try to make it absolutely perfect. The only result of it being bigger is that it will pump a tiny fraction more oil.

 

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The next step is to drill and tap the inlet and output holes but that was enough for today.

 

 

Edited by JV Puleo (see edit history)
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The next step was the inlet & output ports. The piece went back in the drill press and the hole was lined up with a 5/16 transfer punch.

 

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Then drilled and reamed to 7/16. Because the drill is meeting the inner bronze sleeve at an angle it wants to deflect so this had to be done very slowly. With the hole to size, I tapped them for 1/4" NPT flare fittings.

 

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Then back in the fixture for final boring. Since the hole is 2" and I'm only going out to 2.125 this went pretty quickly.

 

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The boring left a sizeable burr on the bottom edge. I probably should have faced this part after I bored it but hindsight is 20-20 .to get rid of the burr I lapped the piece on a piece of plate glass with 500 grit paper. This isn't ideal. I'd really like to have a proper lapping plate but plate glass is very flat so it will do. If I find a lapping plate before final assembly I'll still be able to do it.

 

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And here is the part with the flare fittings screwed in... not too tight of course but close enough to see what it will look like and check for clearance around the other parts.

 

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I also had this idea. I used the drawing of the pump to make a print of the gasket. The paper will be Strathmore wove writing which is about 50% rag content. Ideally, I'd like 100% rag paper - like banknote paper but I haven't found any 8-1/2 x 11 sheets. Having spent most of my working life in the printing business, paper is one thing I do know about. In fact, I had a large amount of banknote paper at one time (not for US banknotes!) but gave it away when I closed the business down. Now I wish I'd kept a couple of reams of it. I also bought a cheap circle cutter so we'll see if this works. Rag paper is very tough - much tougher than cheap copy paper. It measures about .0035 thick and will compress no more than .0005. Because clearances are so critical in an oil pump I don't want to use any sort of gasket cement.

 

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9 hours ago, Mike Macartney said:

Your excellent posts are encouraging me to try and use my milling machine more often. Keep up the excellent work.

 

I know what you mean!  Joe is a big part of the reason my Hendey lathe got restored and that I know how to use it.  Of course he's also "responsible" for me buying a milling machine, shaper and power hacksaw.  Joe is a great guy to know. :)

 

 

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10 minutes ago, Spinneyhill said:

I had to drill a hole in a rod, not on a diameter. I was told the best way to do that to prevent the drill deviating is with a mill end bit. It worked! The cutting edge being perpendicular to the axis means there is not much lateral force to deviate the cutting end.

 

Yes, that is exactly the way to do it although end mills in a drill press don't run all that straight. I usually use the end mill to get a flat surface, then use a center drill and then drill the hole. The deflection when the drill comes out should not be great...

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I only live about 45mins from N. Smithfield RI so one of these days I’d like to go visit joe and then when I leave go by that little gem of a restaurant called Lindys for some really good food. My little Logan lathe and alliant mill have come in extremely handy for this old car hobby. I’m lucky to also have a good friend who owns a machine shop and lets me borrow any specific tooling I don’t have.

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With the pump body almost done, I started on the rotor. I'm making this out of a free-machining steel and didn't have a piece the right size so I used this... it's too big but I didn't have the patience to wait a week for another piece.

 

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The hole in the center was drilled out and reamed to 1" (the diameter of the camshaft). Then I turned the OD and the length to about .025 larger than the estimated finished size. I can't really finish this until I am able to assemble the pump and get some final measurements. I'm waiting on a piece needed to finish the ends of the pump so I interrupted the job to make 3 brass hex nuts. These will be part of the oiling system - another of my 3 AM ideas. It is coming together quite well but, like all my projects, I find myself making changes while I'm making them.

 

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This is 1-1/2" brass hex stock. After going something like 5 years without any need for a 3-jaw chuck, I realized I needed one for this job and used the chuck I'd prepared for the dividing head. The pieces were cut in the hacksaw, then drilled and bored so I can tap them 1"-20 - a tap I have because I bought it to make the rotary turning fixture. The holes have to be bored because there is no standard size drill for this thread.

 

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With one face clean, I tapped them.

 

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Then mounted them on a fixture I also made for the rotary turning tool. Needless to say, the job went faster because I'd already made the fixtures I needed.

 

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The last step was putting a chamfer on the edges.

 

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The result was pretty good. These are going to retain two large Banjo fitting which I also have to make and it is critical that the faces be flat and parallel. I managed to find a reasonably inexpensive lapping plate so when it arrives I'll lap the faces.

 

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Mike... it is just threaded on and butts up against the collar. In this case, a piece of 1" rod with a 1-20 thread on the end. The collar lets me adjust the depth of the threads so that I can screw the piece on part way and have it stay there while I face the ends.

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Here you go....

 

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These are all made to work with collets. The smallest one has an OD of 1", the size of my largest collet. The larger ones were made for the exhaust and intake flanges. They have an ID of 1-1/2" to fit on one of my expanding arbors. The arbors have a rebated end that fits in a 1" collet. The usual technique for making them is to drill and ream the internal hole in a chuck. Then I turn the OD on the expanding arbor and thread them. That way the OD and the threads are concentric and the tool can be used indefinitely as long as you are working with the same thread. When I'm making large threaded parts where I will have to single point the internal threads as well, I make the holder first with the threads longer and use it as a gauge to check the internal threads.

Edited by JV Puleo
wrong word made it confusing (see edit history)
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The next step was to move the rotor along. The hole in the center is reamed 1". I pressed it on to a piece of drawn aluminum rod which is both soft and a few thousandths's larger than the hole. The idea was to get it on good and tight since I have to drill through it. You can see little bits of the aluminum peeled back from pressing it on...

 

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I then had to center it in the mill. I did this by centering the collet holder which is precision ground to 1-3/4 square. Here I'm finding the center with a piece of ground 1/2" rod. I apply a thin layer of dychem and then move the piece in very carefully until it just scratched the surface. The table is then lowered and moved in 1/2 the diameter of the rod and 1/2 the width of the collet holder.

 

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The same was done from the front of the piece.

 

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This will put the center drill in the middle of the piece. My intention was to drill right through but I underestimated how sticky aluminum is. It clogs the flutes of the drill so, in the end, I had to drill it from both sides. This worked better than it had a right to... then the holes were tapped for 5/16-18 set screws and a little chamfer put on the opening of the hole.

 

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I then put it back in the mill turned 90 degrees and milled 3/8 slots, using the dial depth gage to check them.

 

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With one done, I flipped it over and did the other side.

 

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Here's the rotor not quite finished. The length and the diameter still need to be adjusted but that has to wait until I've been able to assemble the pump and take some final measurements.

 

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To do that, I need to finish the top of the pump. The first step was to surface grind the inside fact to get it as smooth and flat as possible.

 

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I hate using this machine... it is always throwing its belt although it only did it once today. I've gotten too good at putting it back - a particularly dirty job. I have a better one but it is apart and I haven't gotten to it yet. That said, I'm pleased with the finish.

 

 

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I now have to counterbore the hole in the center for the plug that will go there - a brass oil galley plug. This setup is another of my inventions. One shortcoming with this lathe is that there is no scale on the quill so you can't tell how deep a hole is. I made this up to help doing just that. It isn't accurate to the thousandth but it is much better than guessing.

 

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Edited by JV Puleo (see edit history)
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Unrelated to the Mitchell - but not too old cars I ran across this tonight while looking through one of my bookcases...

 

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It's a 75-page booklet published as advertising by the Thomas Company just after the race. I knew I had it but it's been years since I've seen it... I have something like 2,000 books (I've never even tried to count them) so individual ones often go missing for a long time.

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I've been busy with house related projects for the last two days but, in the meantime, I managed to get a relatively inexpensive lapping plate. I'd never used one of these so I wasn't sure what to expect. It's made of high carbon steel. The grooves are cut and then it is hardened and precision ground. You put lapping compound on the piece and rub it in a circular motion. The color of the ground surface, which is grey, tells you how far out of truly flat you are. It probably took an hour to lap both sides but I'm pleased with the outcome. This is probably "gilding the lily" as my grandmother would have said but I have no idea what tolerance would be acceptable so I'm forced to work to as close a tolerance as I can. The idea is to get it so flat that the very thin gasket will seal the pump. Since the pump is external to the crankcase and will be unreachable when the engine is assembled, this is particularly important so I'm not taking chances.

 

I couldn't surface grind this part because the non-ferrous metals will not stick to the magnetic chuck. It was quite revealing how far out of flat it was despite being invisible to the naked eye.

 

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Edited by JV Puleo (see edit history)
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As this project progresses, I get more and more concerned about my ability to work to the tolerances I'd like. Having surface ground the inside of the pump cap, I decided to turn it so that it would not be 1/2" thick on the edges - necessary because the screws aren't long enough to hold it in place. This went well, even though I had to grind a tool to do it, tool grinding being of those things that I'm not terribly good at. The cap is 1/2" thick in the middle only leaving room for a counterbore to hold an oil galley plug and a narrow bushing for the end of the camshaft.

 

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I then pressed out the bushing I'd put in for the counterbore pilot and assembled the pieces on the piece of 1-1/2 ground stock to make certain everything was in line. Much to my relief, it is.

 

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Then I put the bushing back in. The counterbore I was intending to use wasn't cutting. I'm not sure why as it looks fine but it may have been intended for plastics or some other material. I've ordered another which should arrive tomorrow and I'll have to make a pilot for it before I can progress on this.

 

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With the pump body assembled I will counterbore the end and set it up in the drill press to drill and ream the holes for the locating dowel pins.

Edited by JV Puleo (see edit history)
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My new 1-1/2 counterbore arrived this morning so I was able to go back and set up that job. I designed this "fixture" to allow me to drill or bore a hole to a specific depth, something the tailstock isn't calibrated for. It's actually intended to be used on the pistons so even though I made it a long time ago this is the first time I've tried using it. The trick is to lock the tailstock down and advance the tool until it just touched the workpiece.

 

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Then the depth is set by either measuring or, in this case, inserting a .125 thickness gage.

 

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With the gage removed, I then counterbored the hole, all of which took less time than it does to describe it. I am really pleased by how it came out. When I checked the depth it was within .001 of spec.

 

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I also tried one of the oil galley plugs in the hole and it fit perfectly.

 

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Tomorrow I'll set up and drill the holes for the locating dowel pins.

Edited by JV Puleo (see edit history)
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That's the plan. Actually, I'm going to rig it up to run at the maximum engine RPM. First I'll see if it pumps. If it does (and I can't imagine why it wouldn't) I'll set it up to replicate pumping into the bearings. I need to do that to regulate the pressure relief valve I designed...

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10 hours ago, Mike Macartney said:

I appreciate all the work you have put into this pump, and the other machining work you do. I've learnt a lot from your posts and you have given me the courage to be a bit more ambitious with my machining work. Keep up the excellent work, text and photos. 

 

x2

 

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Today I drilled and reamed the holes for the dowel pins. I had to set it up in the drill press in order to get enough vertical travel.

 

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After I set it up I rotated it to the positions I'd calculated and one of them just didn't look right. I've too much work in this to take a chance so I opted to go home to look at the original of the drawing. Sure enough, I'd misplaced one of the holes about 3 degrees...Also, I had one of those immensely frustrating errands to run to see our local internet provider who charged me $200 for a "free" modem. Once back in the shop, I drilled and reamed the holes.

 

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I've no idea why but one turned out perfect and the other is very slightly oversize. It isn't enough to make an operational difference but it is frustrating. I want the dowel pins to be tight in the aluminum piece and a slip fit in the steel pieces because I'm concerned that one could come loose and jiggle out. There are two possible fixes for this... oversize dowel pins or I could use some Loctite "press fit" glue. I'll probably go for the oversize pins but, in any case, it has no effect on continuing the job. I don't plan to put the pins in permanently until nearly everything else is done.

 

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Since I was working on the cap, I cut down a bushing to go in, replacing the very long bushing that served as a guide for the counterbore pilot.

 

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I got this pretty close but the nature of this pump requires that it be absolutely flush with the inside of the cap so it was back to the lapping plate to finish it. This is tedious but it does do a very good job.

 

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If anything, a lapped surface is slightly flatter than a ground surface. Theoretically, if I lapped all the surfaces perfectly I could assemble it without gaskets. This is a good example of a very old-fashioned technique that works well but is time-consuming. Aside from gage making, I doubt it is done at all any more but or the sort of one-off "I'll never have to do that again" projects with old cars, it is easy and accurate. It occurred to me that, having no exposure to professional metalworking, about 90% of what I try is gleaned from books, virtually all of which are as old as the car. I'm probably about the last 19-century machinist. This is certainly suitable for my machines... most of which are at least 70 years old and some are quite a bit older. I have, however, succumbed to one heresy and own a vertical mill (not as yet running) built in the 1960s.

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I've accomplished quite a bit more since my last installment...

First, I counterbored the cap for lock washers. I don't have a really good way to do this... my non-running vertical mill would be perfect but for now, I have to make do with this antique (and worn out) little drill press.

 

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In order to get a uniform depth, I set the part up so that the pilot is in the hole and the teeth of the counterbore touch the surface. Then I use a set screw collar as a stop on the top of the spindle with a spacer (in this case a .125 gage block) to set the gap. It's a vertical version of my method on the lathe and gets you within a few thousandths of the desired depth.

 

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The cap came out good... the lock washers will be invisible when everything is tightened up.

 

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Then I went on to the part I'd been avoiding. I want the pump outlet to be vertical on the back of the engine. I'd already calculated the offset for the attaching holes but felt I should double check them. The first step was to put the original piece in...

 

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Then I cobbled up a disc with a line scribed down the center mounted on a piece of aluminum rod that fit the bushing.

 

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I used a square to get the line as vertical as I could see and then transferred the center line to the original piece.

This went in the fixture I'd made to drill the holes in the perimeter. I used this to check the location of the attaching holes. Sure enough, true to the Mitchell-Lewis companies lack of interest in precision, the holes were not 120 degrees apart but I was pleased to find that I had calculated the location of the first hole perfectly. I decided to use these measurements rather than take a chance that the crankcase was perfect and the part was off... this was probably a mistake but I knew that this piece fit, although not perfectly.

 

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The next step was to drill center holes. I can't drill the actual hole because there isn't enough vertical travel with the rotary table and chuck in the mill.

I drilled the holes on the drill press using the center holes to locate them by aligning them with a center I made some time ago.

 

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Before proceeding with the holes, I counterbored the pump base for a flanged bushing.

 

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Then pressed out the guide bushing and pressed the new bushing in. The base then went back on the lathe to trim the bushing to size.

 

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All of this went smoothly... here's the pump base with its bushing in place.

I was going to surface grind this but no sooner did I start the grinder and the belt parted again. So, since the tool I ground last weekend is giving me a near mirror finish, I faced off the bushing and went back to the lapping plate. An hour later... I counterbored the holes for the attaching screws and here I nearly messed things up. Despite working from the original piece, it didn't fit perfectly. I enlarged the holes to almost the size of the original and enlarged the counterbores slightly. One of the three screws still refused to go in all the way. It was then that I finally noticed that the difficult screw did not go through the back of the crankcase. It screws into the wall of the crankcase and the cap screws I'm using were just slightly too long. I feel like a bit of an idiot but no harm was done.

Here's the base finally attached to the crankcase.

 

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Then, just because I could, I roughly assembled the pump to see if everything looked as if it fit. Thankfully, it does.

 

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Edited by JV Puleo (see edit history)
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Look great Joe!  When I was younger and something didn't want to go all the way in I used my muscle power to make it fit... only to find out later that there was some reason it didn't fit and my muscle power had just created a new and much bigger problem.  That's the real definition of "idiot".  :)

 

 

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There will be a paper gasket between the pump body and the crankcase. The pump itself will be self-contained with thin paper gaskets between the three sections. It is because that joint is so critical that I've been lapping the surfaces but whether it works is anyone's guess. I'll only know when I test it. Under no circumstances will the pressure be very high so I have a good chance it will be tight. I'm making no effort to seal the inside of the pump off from the crankcase thinking that the small amount of oil that will move along the camshaft will only lubricate the bushings. I had planned to groove the bushings (and still could) but I'm wondering if that is necessary. Some material I've read recently suggests that, with modern oils,  grooved bushings are not as important as they were in the past.

 

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