JV Puleo

I'd like to try it. From turning the bar by hand today it is obvious it requires very little HP jp

Today was the moment of truth...finding out if all this will work, The first thing I discovered was that the hole in the bottom of the micrometer device was too small because I'd forgotten to take the offset into consideration so I enlarged it. I set it to take cuts of .025 with the "rough" finish feed rate. This is how it works... the depth is set then it is clamped on to the bar and the tool pushed forward until the tip touches the anvil. This is a bit imprecise. The big boring bar has blind holes with springs in them so that the tip of the bit presses against the anvil but there simply isn't room for that here. It cut quite smoothly. For this job I would have been satisfied with the rough finish. I went with .025 until I got to what would be the last cut. Then I went .015 with the finish speed, followed by .010. This is the final cut. And the result. You can see the anchor holes for the original Babbitt in the bottom half. A quick measurement shoes the hole to be about .002 undersize. I can live with that...oversize would be worse as I am not going to make a bronze bushing to fit this hole and I want it to "pinch" when the cap is screwed down. I'll make the bushing and then bore the hole for the water pump using that as the anchor for the front end of the boring bar. That way they have to be in perfect alingment.

There are a host of reasons why that would be unlikely to work, not the least of which is that the rollers and the crank have to be of nearly identical hardness or one will gouge the other. I am going to make bronze shells so that the thrust ends will be bronze and not Babbitt. Mitchell poured the Babbit very thick into the aluminum crankcase and, because it doesn't stick, put holes in the seats to keep the Babbitt in place. I don't think they line bored the case prior to pouring the Babbitt - it's so thick that even casting irregularities wouldn't have mattered. This was a poorly made engine. The design is conventional so there is nothing basically wrong with that but in workmanship they took every available shortcut. Still, the car is 109 years old and the bearings are still intact so it served their purposes. Another consideration is that these brass car cranks are a lot more flexible than modern cranks. If those 9-main-bearing Pierce cranks that ed works on flex, this one must be a rubber band. It does have generous main bearing journals (2" diameter). I have thought about using inserts on the rods...the length is so short that I don't think flex is a problem but they are splash lubricated and I suspect Babbitt is better for that. Since I'm going to make the rods, that decision is still a long way out.

Maybe... I'm certainly tempted to and probably will...I've only just recently thought of a way to do it uniformly. I regretted not making the hole in the center larger but I made the pattern almost 8 years ago. The patterns for these two pieces were literally the very first things I made - never dreaming it would take this long to get to the point of installing them. At the time I made them there was no way I could have done the job. I'd only just got the lathe back together and working after sitting outside for 15 years.

Type 57 Bugatti with 1951 Massachusetts plates.

That sounds good to me. I have no idea what the HP should be but a hand-held electric drill will turn it, albeit to fast. I'll be taking light cuts in any case so I suspect 1/4 HP (or maybe even less...the slow speed would greatly increase the torque) would do it. Thanks! jp

Thanks, I'll look into that. I "made" the boring bar today. Most of the bars I'm familiar with use round cutting bits with a flat on one side but I have been unable to find any small enough for this bar - it being only 3/4" thick. so, I decided to use square lathe bits but to do that I need to put a square hole in the bar. I set it up in the mill, .050 off center. This is because the point of the bit must be on the center line of the hole. If I used a 1/4" tool bit, I'd have to grind .125 off one side. By offsetting it, I add .050 to the thickness of the bit at the cutting edge. If I used the 3/8 diameter bits from the original bar I wouldn't have had enough thickness to fit the set screw. First, I milled a flat on the bar to get a flat surface to drill. Then drilled and reamed to 7/16" Here's the hole finished. Then I cut a piece of this square hole sleeve to fit without protruding on either end. The sleeve in the hole with a 1/4" lathe bit in place. I put it back in the mill to locate a hole for the set screw...in the center this time rather than offset. Then took it over to the drill press to drill and tap. The set screw just fits below the surface on the "fat" side of the tool bit. With that done, I reattached everything to the engine. I pressed the remainder of the square hole sleeve into a piece of 3/4 square stock to make a fixture for holding the tool bit when grinding. This also gets a set screw at one end. Then I ground a tool bit but neglected to take pictures of it... It's the end of the day and I know myself well enough to realize I'll make an error if I push too hard. Tomorrow I ought to find out if all this works.

DC motors seem to be more available but if possible I'd rather use AC 115 volt since I could just plug it in. I also have a couple of 240 volt plugs so that isn't impossible either although it would involve a long extension. This is one of those problem I'll be thinking about while I do the first two holes...just maybe I'll have come up with a possible solution by the time I'm ready to do it. The motorized boring bar is probably only needed for the final boring of main bearings and I won't be able to do that until I've made shells and Babbitted them so I'm some months from that. There is probably a simple solution, it just takes time to find it.

Since we are on Packards... about 1950

In answer to Mike's question, I had to make this piece for the boring bar to pull against. With that done, I assembled the parts. It seems to work. I'm not thrilled about the weight on the end of that long bar but the only deflection I need to be concerned with would be between the pillow block and the piece I'm boring and I doubt it is deflecting at all. I will probably turn it by hand, I tested the electric drill and, to my mind, it turns much too fast. I don't need a mirror surface these parts...a very small amount of roughness might actually be good. But, for the main bearings I would like to motorize the bar like edinmass did and for that I'll pose a question since I'm guessing there is someone out there who knows a lot more about electric motors than I do. I need to turn the bar at about 60RPM. The thought came to me to use a gear motor but finding the right one is a challenge. I've no idea how big it would have to be since it will have to develop enough torque to turn the cutting tool against the aluminum casting and the iron bearing caps. Any ideas?

When I was in High School my friend John Zangari heard about a Franklin touring car in our neighborhood...supposedly in a barn very close to where I lived. We went to the house and sure enough, there was a car. It had belonged to a well known local man, Dr. Marshall. His daughter still lived in the house. She took us out to the barn to look at it. This was not a barn as in "barn find"... the doors and windows were tight, the room was swept clean. There was no evidence of rodent damage etc. As a storage area it had been carefully prepared and maintained. In the center was a Franklin tourer up on blocks... light brown in color with, I think dark brown or black fenders. It looked as if it had just been parked. There was a duster draped over the seat and a color brochure from the Franklin dealership, with the car circled, was in the driver's side door compartment. This was about 1970 and the car had been there since the beginning of WWII. It wasn't for sale...in a few weeks it was being shipped to her brother. I've oven wondered what happened to it and hope it hasn't been "restorated".

1915 Crane Simplex taken in 1951

That's all coming Mike. I'll show it when I make the fittings to attach it. It doesn't make a lot of sense as loose pieces but when it's all assembled it should. j

Another LHD PII, taken in New York City outside Inskip's in 1951.

The crankcase bolted to my "boring bench", the bed of a lathe that was beyond repairing (and missing its legs) Since I have to make the boring bar, I needed to figure out just how far the tool has to be from the end to allow it to be withdrawn so I can re-set it. I also fnally figured out how the gearbox advances the boring bar so I'll have to make something for the rack that moves the box to attach to. All these details are incorporated in the machine but I'm only using the gearbox so I've some hard thinking to do to come up with a way to attach everything.

1910 Pope Hartford - picture taken in 1910. Although its a black & white photo, the car is a deep maroon color and was completely unrestored. I only know this because I've seen it - it belonged to a gentleman in RI back in the 70s and it was at the first antique car show I attended (with Arthur Mellor in the Packard Waterhouse shown earlier).

The 1890's had a strong nostalgic attraction to the generation that survived WWI.

And a '14 Silver Ghost taken around 1950.

Another Pierce Arrow...

I thought today would likely be a total loss as I'm waiting for an end mill and some brass rod. I'd planned to make some inserts but the only thing that came in was the end mill. So... I set to work opening up and threading the holes that originally held the oiler in place. Two of these had screws broken off in them and one of those was drastically off center. For the third hole I had to take the extension plates off and set the crankcase on the table. I also had to work from the back as it was the only way to get the hole under the spindle. But, it worked ok... The last step was to put the extension plates back on, turn the crankcase around and to the two holes that are used to attach the exhaust pipe bracket. For this, I moved the center of the holes slightly. I'll still have to make a new bracket but now it will fit better.

I've seen an Ascot with those fenders but who is to tell if they had been changed at some point. I only remember this because my boss at the time owned it and had fiberglass reproductions made of the fenders. One was crunched (on purpose) making the Robert Redford Great Gatsby movie...obviously he wasn't going to let them do that to the original fender. But I remember him putting the fake fenders on an Avon. Shortly after that I quit - I decided that I liked him too much to work for him. EDIT: The Ascot I remember was not the original body on that chassis so anything was possible.

Here's another. The note on the back of the picture says it's a Ghost. If it is, it must be a very late LHD car that was given the factory "updating" treatment. Or, I guess it could be one of the rebodied "used" cars they did in order to sell traded in limos and old fashioned looking closed cars. I think the picture was taken at MIT.

My error... I never did have much to do with open cars.

A PI Ascot. It looks as if it has drum headlights so early 29 or earlier.

A Bugatti and a DuPont. The tall man standing if front of the DuPont is Mr. Dupont. Picture was taken by a gentleman named Chapin Wardor c. 1948.