Speedster Builds.............

[Gary_Ash]

A man, a plan,...   I'm wondering how you can set up on the center of the nominal hole after you get the spring leveled and clamped up exceedingly tight.  [I hate parts that come loose in the mill!]  Your photo shows the eye squished where it closes up but not too bad opposite that.  How about a short, round bar about the size of the bushing o.d. to go in the mill.  Mill off about half the round to the depth of the spring thickness, and try bringing the half-round into the hole against the good part.  Then pull out the bar and put in the cutter.  We'll wait for the photos.  Good luck.     

[JV Puleo]

Turn a center drilled plug for the hole. You'd have to carefully measure the hole to find the smallest dimension and might have to make more than one depending on how bad the eyes are. Then use a center in the mill to find the center in the eye - it will be centered on the smallest dimension. I'd go through the eye with an end mill to make it round then ream it to size if necessary. If bolted down as Al suggests, it probably will not require reaming. Expansion reamers do not work well in irregular holes.

 

I made a center finder by reaming a 1/2" hole in a piece of 1" ground stock and then a center from a piece of 1/2" ground stock to slide in it. I put the 1" piece in a tool holder and then can raise and lower the center to locate it exactly. In fact, I plan on doing my own springs that way because, like Al's, the holes in the eyes are out of round. The original shackle bolts were worn about half-way through. The spring will be bolted down to the table with clearance under it.

[AHa]

Again, have you totally ruled out just taking the main leafs to a blacksmith to have the eyes reformed? This is your best and easiest choice. Even in your small town there should be an accomplished black smith.

[Gary_Ash]

Actually, I like the idea of going back to a blacksmith/spring shop. They can heat the eye, drive a nice round fid or spike through the hole and round it out the way it ought to be.  There must be a truck spring shop near you that can do this.  

[alsfarms]

Hello Gary and Al, 

I do live in an area that 100 years ago we did have black smiths, but no more.  Next, Our area is very rural.  The closest spring shop that actually may build springs is 170 miles away.  The are a few shops that sell premade springs but that is a ZERO in doing me any good.  Several years ago, I took my main leaf springs the 170 miles to the best spring shop available and they simply would not run the risk, with heating, forming and re tempering the leafs after an eye rework.  That is when I gave up on the reforming option.  I am sure with some care, a good sharp 4 flute end mill the proper size, I can end up with a much "rounder" eye hole for new decent bushings.

Al

[AHa]

Al, You would need to find somebody to confirm, but I believe you could get someone to heat the spring eye with a rose bud while you drive a 1/2" rod through. By allowing the eye to cool back down naturally, it shouldn't effect the tempering. I still believe your best option is reforming.

[alsfarms]

Hello Al,

Thanks for your referral to your Blacksmith buddy.  He has dropped me a post or two and suggests that unless we re-temper the whole spring, probably not a good idea to just heat up the eye ends.  The quandary continues.

Al

[AHa]

Al, I'm glad he reached out to you. Turns out my advice was wrong and I'm glad to be set straight in this public setting. I guess another option would be to send your main leafs to Witmer coach to have your springs eyes reformed. You could also contact Woodlyn Coach in Millersburg Ohio, 330-674-9124. Their spring guy may have been the guy that originally made your springs.I still think reforming the eye is your best option.

[JV Puleo]

Though I have never examined one closely, I find it hard to imagine that Locomobile did not bush their spring eyes, probably with bronze. That was what Napier and several other very high-quality cars makers did and Locomobile was certainly in that class. Given that a bushing is called for, the hole will have to be reamed and/or bored in any case. No simple reforming - either hot or cold will be precise enough.

 

[JV Puleo]

Al, You got me thinking about my car. Here is the front spring perch - they didn't put any bushing in it at all and, as you can see, it's worn to an exaggerated egg shape. This will have to come off the car to be bored and bushed.

 

 

That is a lot of wear for a car that otherwise doesn't show much evidence of having traveled many miles. (That is the original chassis paint, by the way.)

[alsfarms]

Hello Joe,

Yup, wear in an area that should have been fed a little grease from time to time.  I suppose that as our cars aged, they turned into near junk while still being driven.  That would be evidenced by the wear you see and the damaged springs on my project.  Do you have a total of 5 rivets to remove per spring perch?  What wear are you seeing in the front frame horns?

Al

Edited March 29, 2019 by alsfarms
clarity (see edit history)

[JV Puleo]

Yes... 5 rivets. The frame horns aren't as bad but I will probably have to take them out and bush them as well.

[AHa]

O.K. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think this is what happens when the bolt is harder than the spring perch. You see, the thing is, the shackle bolt was supposed to wear, not the spring perch, so even if the shackle bolt is not lubricated, the bolt is sacrificed. In this case, the shackle bolt was harder than the spring perch and it wore out the spring perch. That's my two cents.

[alsfarms]

Hello Al,  Your point is well taken.  I suggest that the wrong hardness fasteners could be an issue, I also think that metallurgy was only slightly in need of modern help.  For instance, old aluminum against modern aluminum, there is a terrific difference.  It could be that steels and irons may not have had the quality control that we generally have grown to trust now days.  Most of the older hardware4 I have removed from early cars have generally been inferior to what you would find at a modern hardware store.  Some of the castings would not have had much engineering either.  Maybe some of the castings were simply gray iron and others cast steel.  You theory is a fact.

Al

[JV Puleo]

You're right Al...

 

Actually, the bolts aren't hard at all. I doubt they are any better than the current variety of cheap carriage bolts and in several cases, they were worn halfway through. The perch is a forging - probably ductile Iron so it isn't particularly hard but without doing a Rockwell test on them I don't know which was harder. I don't think they would have used cast iron - it is simply too brittle and that would have been well understood at the time. I don't think ductile iron casting had been perfected at the time and I know that steel casting was well in the future. We see lots of references to "cast steel" in the 19th century but that is a reference to the raw material. Today we'd call it "crucible steel." I think the wear is attributable to poor original fit and lack of lubrication. The car was almost certainly driven on dirt roads for its entire working life and if the fit between the hole in the perch and the bolt was loose it was an invitation for grit to get in. Since neither was particularly hard, they both wore badly.

 

I'll put a bronze bushing in that hole after I've bored it out. I'm thinking of making the shackle bolts out of something that I can surface harden and fitting the two parts so that they can reasonably be lubricated with heavy oil rather than grease.

[AHa]

What I have learned, right or wrong, is that the engineering of that age is lost to time. They engineered things based on the knowledge they had at the time and the materials they had to work with. My theory is the original shackle bolt of the Mitchel was softer than the perch. The engineers knew what they had to work with. Things were changing rapidly back then though and it is likely the shackle bolt broke at some point along the way. When a new bolt was installed, they used a bolt that was harder than the perch, probably because the bolt failed and the thought was to use a bolt that wouldn't fail. The idea that the bolt was designed to fail was lost to time. It is very difficult to lubricate these type fittings. The weight of the car continually presses out the grease from the very area that needs lubrication and you don't want to wear out the spring, which is a much more expensive part than the bolt..

 

On modern cars, springs have brass or nylon bushings that are designed to wear out before the perch, shackle, or bolt. In this principal, the bushing is sacrificed. With cars going faster and more traffic, the bushing was the most sensible to allow to wear.

[AHa]

One more thing, the perch is worn on the bottom. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but don't the weight of the car rest on the top? And accordingly, shouldn't the wear be at the top of the perch. And another thing, the only way to lubricate this joint is to drill a hole down the center of the shackle bolt with an outlet for the grease to come out inside the spring eye. What lubricates the perch? So many questions!

 

To your question Al, metallurgy is light years ahead of where it was in the early years. It still amazes me that they used aluminum for crankcases but by and large, they didn't know how to cast complex shapes in steel or cast iron. This is why most early cars had single cylinders or cast in pairs. Aluminum would flow but it had lots of impurities in it, which made it brittle. The engineers knew what they had to work with and compensated accordingly. 

[alsfarms]

Good comments.....

I am not sure what type of longevity engineering went into the early automobile, they probably had not idea how long they were destined to last in the first place.   I am sure  that the engineers, early on, had not yet considered "planned obsolescence".  The fun part we have to deal with is simply trying our best to deal with what we have in our hands, and make the piece maybe last into the next generation.....maybe!  Al if you look close at the worn front spring shackle posted by Joe, above, you will notice that the wear is in fact on the top of the perch,  The bottom appears nice and symmetrical suggesting the wear is at the top.  Joe's fix will certainly be a solid repair.  And you know what, the admission of some grease once in a while will make the perch and shackle bolts last a very long time!

Al

[JV Puleo]

While it is true that metallurgy has made huge advances it would be a mistake to assume they didn't know exactly what they were doing or, to be more accurate, they might have known but not cared all that much. These early cars had a very short life expectancy so, to some extent, building things to last was no more a characteristic of the early 20th century than it is today. That said, very expensive cars like the Locomobile were built to last. I recommend PM Heldt's "Gasoline Automobile"  as a first-rate engineering text from the period. I've been using the first edition which came out in 1910/1912 (two volumes published in different years). Held was a fine engineer and the editor of Horseless Age Magazine. One thing I have learned from reading it is that a great deal of engineering data was available but simply wasn't used on inexpensive cars where the price was critical.

[alsfarms]

Hello Joe and Al,  I have my eyes open to locate a Gasoline Automobile book you refer to.  On top of this discussion, I have a deep feeling that even with a good degree of engineering, routine care and servicing are key to longevity.  In our area some fellows are known to be very good with equipment, none of us would ever be concerned about buying used equipment from them!  However, there is also a group of locals who are notorious for never having time to service equipment,  (always in a hurry) and to run that same equipment hard and eventually into the ground.  To say it lightly, you do not buy used equipment from the second group mentioned.  Our modern cars and also our antiques either suffer or are blessed by the care they receive.  Hows that for my 2 cents on the subject of longevity..

Al

[JV Puleo]

I am certain you are right about that. We tend to forget that the things we're enthusiastic about were often just appliances to the people who bought them. As someone who has always been interested in old cars, of course, I'd maintain them but my late father - who learned to drive in a 1924 Gray – could not have cared less about them. They were an appliance pure and simple. When it broke, he replaced it. His idea of maintenance was getting someone else to change the oil and I'm not sure he did that often. I do remember one rather funny thing though... after the invention of the automatic transmission, he thought anyone who bought a standard was just plain stupid. That is until the automatic in his car failed and he had to spend several hundred dollars to get it replaced. Then it happened again a few years later. After that, he never willingly bought another automatic and complained that it was getting harder to find cars with standard transmissions.

[Spinneyhill]

Re Joe's spring perch. Does the spring fit on this side of it with a one sided mounting? If so, the bolt would be pushed upwards but the bottom of it would push downwards on the perch. I can't actually see how it was attached.... The spring would have a tendency to twist if this were the case. Help!

 

Another thing is that castings back then and perhaps bolts, often had impurities in them, some harder than the iron or aluminium. So wear might occur in unexpected places if one of these hard bits was in the wrong place.

[alsfarms]

Joe, I am assuming that your frame spring bracket shown above uses a "typical" spring shackle?  Could you post a picture of one of your original shackles for Spinneyhill?

Al

[JV Puleo]

Here is the rear spring perch. The shackle is attached to this end.

 

 

The shackles attached to the springs. They did have grease cups but who knows how often they were greased.

 

 

And the dumb iron. These holes show only a small amount of wear although a 1/2" bolt is loose in them. When I tested them with a piece of 1/2" ground stock they were tighter. I'm a long way from working on these but I may ream them to 9/16". I will almost certainly make the pins out of high tensile strength steel that can be surface hardened.

 

 

The shackles are also quite worn. I may re-make those out of solid blocks of steel with thin-wall high strength bushings in them.... though that may be overkill.

Edited April 1, 2019 by JV Puleo (see edit history)

[alsfarms]

Hello Joe,

I actually like the shackles you have.  They are robust and stable.  I agree with you, ream everything to a common or typical oversize and build suitable pins to match that size.  (Of course with grease ports/oilers provisions).  It is too bad that you don't have access to a Mag-based drill or Rota-broach.   I would put your frame on its side and lock it in a good position find a straight and perpendicular position and run a rotatbroach down through your worn spring perch holes.  That would give you a real nice ID, of a size that you could then simple freeze to shrink the bronze bushing to be inserted, lightly heat the perch and push in a nice new bushing.  You wouldn't need to dig out and mess with the rivets in that case.  You didn't ask my thinking on your impending repair but I thought I would suggest a second way to skin that cat!

Regards,

Al 

[Spinneyhill]

Now I understand. Thanks very much.

[JV Puleo]

Unfortunately - or maybe, fortunately, I'm going to take the chassis apart and put it back together. Another mistake they seem to have made is that it is too light. They "solved" this by inserting reinforcements in the middle of the frame rails - sort of like double thickness rails. But, they did nothing to seal them so they are actively rusting and there is no way to address that except to take them apart. Mike West did it with his Mitchell S chassis so I know what it involves. Since I have that ahead of me, taking off the brackets to bore them is minor. Actually, the rear brackets which also hold the brake equalizing shaft have to come off. I don't think they are even perpendicular to the chassis which would make getting the brakes properly adjusted almost impossible. All of them have Babbit bearings in them. Babbit is great stuff but it was never intended for shafts that only make half a turn - it was intended for rotating shafts. This was well known in the early 20th century but Mitchell still took the cheap & nasty way out.

[AHa]

sounds like functional obsolescence, it confirms what JV has been saying, they never expected this car to last more than a few years

Edited April 3, 2019 by AHa (see edit history)

[alsfarms]

Actually that frame in a frame practice was also used by Dodge Bros. to strengthen the frame on their passenger cars yet keep the weight down in other areas that did not need the strength.

Al

[Karsten - Seagrave]

On 10/26/2017 at 7:18 AM, marc1122 said:

Al,

yes, I would like 27" wheels on the seagrave speedster. I found a set that need respoked but I am concerned they would not be heavy enough for the big engine. I need to get the seagrave engine to a set of scales and see where I am at weight wise first. The carb has a 2 1/2" throat. It's not a direct fit but very close. I have machined an aluminum adapter plate for it. For the seagrave engine I have 3 zenith carbs. Each will feed a pair of cylinders. I am building the manifolds now. Maybe making a lot of headaches for myself carbureting the engine this way, but it will look great.

marc

Hello Marc, doyou have some actual pics? You should have some improvements after 1,5 years Id love to see.

 

karsten

[alsfarms]

I have been off line for a few days as I had a need to drive to Central California and attend the Spring Bakersfield Swap Meet.  The weather was clear with the occasional clouds and temps. in the low 70's.  Coming from Utah, the weather felt great but most local folks were all wearing jackets or coats.  I did see a big concentration of Ford "T" stuff and several nice Brass era projects for sell, including an Abbott Detroit touring car.  Does anyone know if that car sold?  When I get some time later today, I will post a few pictures of a nice, well done one man Race Car that was mostly done.

Al

[alsfarms]

I thought I would share three photos of a race car located at the Bakersfield Swap meet.  Does anyone know more of the history on this one, or if it sold.  I like the nice clean aluminum body and not over cooked!

Al

[alsfarms]

Picture two

[alsfarms]

Picture three

[Bob Scafani]

I have seen this car there for a number of years. It seems to be a work in progress and is constantly changing. It isn't for sale to my knowledge.

[alsfarms]

Whoever is doing this project has a very good eye for sport and sleek while being a simple design.  I am impressed!

Al

[alsfarms]

Has anyone used a Harbor Freight English wheel to form Aluminum skin like what is shown on the race car above?

Al

[JV Puleo]

I haven't but I've heard nothing too good about them - although they are about the only machine available for anything like a non-professional price. I think if you go back through Gary's thread he illustrates a kit made by his sheet metal mentor for upgrading the HF English Wheel. If memory serves me, it costs as much as the machine but you end up with a really useful tool. I know I've seen that somewhere on this site. I find the search function almost useless though.

Edited April 30, 2019 by JV Puleo (see edit history)

[nick8086]

Maybe Peter could do a 123 log in?

 

He could remote it to you system.. Just an Idea.. 

 

 

[Spinneyhill]

6 hours ago, JV Puleo said:

upgrading the HF English Wheel.

P. 9 of Gary's topic, posting of Nov 7.

 

7 hours ago, alsfarms said:

Harbor Freight English wheel

See above.