JV Puleo

As much as I admire PA's engineering I've never thought those "frog eye" headlights were attractive and would have been one of those buyers who wanted traditional separate lights. They wouldn't keep me from owning one (should I be so lucky) but if I had a choice I'd take the car with the separate lights. But, I don't like Cords either so chances are my tastes are not exactly "mainstream."

Today I tried again at the dummy spindle nose for the dividing head... The piece turned down to 1-3/4" And the relief the end of the thread milled. This 5TPI thread is so coarse that the depth of the cut is .130 and I have to use my largest threading tool. I'm not certain I've ever used it before but I'll need quite a bit of space at the end of the thread – too much to make the slot with the cut off tool. I forgot to take a picture of the threading operation. suffice it to say that with a thread this deep I had to take very small cuts because it's taking off a lot of surface with each cut. It was tedious but it came out just about perfect. Here it is with the spindle protector that came with the dividing head screwed on. I am very lucky to have this part because otherwise I'm not sure what I'd have used as a gauge to check the threads. I also dug out the original end of the crankshaft and starting handle. I've never cut the dog teeth because I simply couldn't think of a way to do it. I did find a drawing of the cutter that was used in the 1927 SAE handbook. I'm going to email that to the gentleman who re-cut the tapered end mills for me and have him make one. It turns out I'd been looking at it incorrectly and it isn't as much of a challenge as I'd thought - but you still need an odd end mill with a reverse taper.

This morning I picked this up. It's a tapered end mill reground to the taper of the Bosch magneto shaft (which is a very odd size). I'll use it I make the "snap starter" (to use the term the inventor coined). Making the odd tapered hole, putting in a key way and broaching the corresponding key way will be interesting. I will probably take two or three special tools and I still have to think about those. I also started on the backing plate for the dividing head. This is the 12L14 bar I was waiting for. This stuff machines very easily and threads beautifully. It is almost impossible to weld but very few things I make call for welding. I drilled and bored to 1" Then, because the setup is identical, did the same thing to the bushing that will press into the backing plate. I then set the first piece up on centers for turning and threading. I don't do much this way but it's essential if you want the hole in the center to be absolutely concentric with the threads. It also has the added advantage of allowing you to take the piece out of the lathe, try it, and put it back. As long as the dog goes into the same slot it will have no effect. This is particularly useful if you are threading something that has to screw into a part that cannot be checked with the piece in the machine.

All done. It took much of the day because they had to be done one at the time but it was worth the effort. It's starting to look like an engine. Oh, and the material for the dividing head project finally arrived so tomorrow I'll be back on that. I'm actually grateful it took so long because otherwise I wouldn't have gotten to the priming cups.

Wow... you are getting very good very fast! It is really pretty astonishing how fast problems vanish when you get accustomed to just making what you need. jp

I ran the pump for two hours today with no leaks so I think I've probably solved that set of problems. UPS is still dithering with my piece of 12L14 - so I decided to tackle another job I had waiting in the wings. The priming cups. This engine uses right angle primers which are a lot less common than the straight ones and in as much as I've seen, frightfully expensive. I bought a set about three years ago - sight unseen on ebay while I was in England. When I got home I realized they were the wrong thread so I've been fishing about for a way to use them. I started to make little adapters...then realized that I could use the ones I already had if I counterbored them to 1/2". The first step was to make a tool to hold them. Its just a piece of 1" bar with a 1/8 NPT threaded hole but it allows me to hold the piece in a 1" collet. Then I counterbored them with a 1/2" end mill to a depth of 1/2". That was easy. The next step was trickier. I made a similar tool with a 1/4 NPT thread, stripped the lever and spring from the primer and screwed it in. I had to grind a tool to get into the space between the hex and the flare of the cup and set a stop on the lathe so I wouldn't move it back too far and hit the cup. Then turned the hex and the threaded part of the primer down to 1/2". When I had the diameter correct, I cut it off at 1/2" Much to my satisfaction it slipped right into the counterbore so I soldered it in place. Then reassembled the primer and tried it in the engine. I think this is about as neat a job as I've ever done. Now I just have to do three more.

Al... I have an adjustable spare bracket but I think it might be for the side of the body. I'll find it and take a photo. jp

The piece of metal I've been waiting for is now overdue...odd because another piece I ordered at the same time from the same supplier arrived Monday. In the meantime I've been fiddling with the pump. I started by putting a notch in the pump shaft for the set screw. I had intended to use a Woodruff key as well but in thinking about it, I can't see that the stresses are great enough to warrant it. When I tightened the cap screws on the circumference it tightened the pump just enough to make it hard to turn so I relieved the impeller about .005 on the OD and about .015 in thickness. I reassembled the pump and ran it for 15 minutes. It's actually running in the picture but the shutter speed of the point & shoot camera is so fast it stops the action. As far as I can see, there are no leaks in the pump although the connections to the vinyl tubing leave something to be desired. It's still a bit tighter than I'd like but I'm thinking I'll let it run for a couple of hours and see if it loosens up a little.

There's no reason to think they bought the car new. By about 1930 or 32 a 25 or 26 Studebaker of any model would have been just about worthless.

Those look really good! I think you are progressing a lot faster than I did.

The aluminum Devcon smoothed out. Since the impeller doesn't touch this I left a little extra on the surface. This is the dividing head in the vertical position. I've never used it this way because you have to use a chuck that screws on to the spindle - which is why I'm making one now.

While I'm waiting for the 12L14 to come in I went on with the lathe repairs. I opened the hole in the 44 tooth gear up .002 with a barrel lap. Then drilled and tapped two holes for 3/8-16 cap screws. This way if it gets stuck it will be easy to pull off with a steering wheel puller. I also took the water pump apart and gouged out the areas where I think the leak is coming from. Though I forgot to take a picture, I filled these with Devcon aluminum putty - similar to JB weld but the industrial strength stuff. It takes the best part of 24 hours to set so I can smooth it out until tomorrow.

I think the engine is easily the most challenging part of the job, especially as I suspect it is associated with the chassis (although it is the right engine) and was both incomplete and much of what was there in poor condition. For that, I still need to finish the pistons, make the connecting rods, make bearing shells and do the Babbitt work. I'm sure there must be a dozen more items to be addressed but those are the big ones. I think that, after the engine is back together, the chassis itself will not be as big a challenge but we'll see. Of course I'd like it to be driveable but I have no fixed time frame in mind. It would be pointless because I am hopeless at estimating how much time something will take. I will have to build a body too so I'm guessing I have at least 6 or 8 more years work here. But, I've nowhere to go in any case. I have little interest in the local car shows and don't own a trailer or anything to pull one with. Anywhere it goes will have to be under it's own power. I'm really more interested in doing a good job than I am in the finished product. Here's the chassis and rear axle... I'll have to make a radiator as the one I have is in poor shape and I'm still looking for a decent pair of seats although I've found most of the parts I started looking for 6 years ago.

I'm sure you are right on that. The contemporary engineering manual I'm using specifically mentions that the pumps are designed to give relatively low circulation. Since I intend to incorporate a thermostat I'm not too worried about having too much circulation. I think the original water capacity was about 3 to 3-1/2 gallons so 4 gal. per minute is probably too much. My water passages go from 1" to 3/4" (from pump to blocks) and from 3/4 to 1" (blocks to radiator) That comes from copying the original fittings. I never had the tubes but a couple of the fittings were still on the blocks and I do have the original radiator although it is in poor condition. I am planning to make a cartridge core radiator which will have a larger capacity than the original so I may be able to hold as much as 4 gallons.

The finished hole in the backing plate. It's only about .001 oversize so I'm pleased with how it came out. I won't have the material to go on with this until late Monday so I'm fixing a problem with the lathe. Notice the flaw in the casting that showed up when I was boring. Fortunately, it isn't important and when the bushing is pressed in will be gone forever. In order to cut the 5TPI thread I have to replace a 22 tooth gear with a 44 tooth gear. (You set the gearbox to 10 TPI and use the bigger gear which halves the rotation of the lead screw.) I've taken this gear off before but it is a real bear. I'd pulled the entire drive unit out of the lathe and knocked the center pin out with a plastic hammer. I don't like doing things that way so I made this an aluminum sleeve that can be squeezed on to the gear so I can get a gear puller on it. The gear fits flush against another gear so It is impossible to get the gear puller behind it. It wouldn't work with a bigger gear and I doubt it would work if the gear was really tight but it did suffice in this case. I measured the hole in the gear and find it's about .004 over 1". I'd reamed the hole in the 44 tooth gear so it's really too tight to slip on. Tomorrow I'll lap it to smooth out the ID and get it just a bit bigger. I may put some threaded holes in it to so I can get it off with a three-leg puller. This gear was missing when I got the lathe. Probably it was never used and misplaced long ago. I found this one on ebay. I had to bore it out and put the key way in but that's a lot easier than cutting the gear from scratch.

I took Mike's suggestion and calculated the flow rate. I get 4 gal per minute at 862 RPM - about 25MPH if my figures are accurate. How that converts to cooling capacity I don't know, especially as I haven't made a radiator yet but I'm guessing it is right in the ball park. One formula I saw in the link Mike M provided was to divide the HP by 3 to get the rate of flow in liters. I used 50HP - which I'm certain is much more than it originally generated and came up with 16 liters. Four gallons is slightly more than 15 liters. But, everything I've seen on the internet is aimed at modern cars which run much hotter than brass cars so, if that is a valid formula, I probably have excess capacity.

To make a backing plate for a chuck you need something to gauge the threads with. When you are doing it for a lathe with a threaded spindle you obviously can't use the actual spindle because it's on the lathe and the part you are threading is attached to it. Making one for the dividing head is much the same so yesterday I started on the dummy spindle. I didn't have the material I wanted to use (12L14) so I took a chance and use a piece of mystery metal I had. Most of the time that works out but this time it didn't. I got to this point... and discovered that it threaded very poorly. To match the dividing head I have to cut a 1-3/4-5 thread - an unusual size to say the least. My lathe can do it but it requires changing one of the drive gears and cutting a thread this course turns up a lot of burrs. In this case, the threading tool actually stuck in one of the threads, it turned slightly on the mandrel and screwed up (pun intended) the result. So, I broke down and ordered the right stuff - it should be here by the end of the week or maybe Monday. In the meantime I found a chuck backing plate I think I can use in my box of miscellaneous machine parts I've saved over the years. It's too large in every dimension, including the hole in the center so to fix that I will press in a big steel bushing to bore and thread. Luv2wrench will like this because it is exactly the same technique I used to fix the bull gear on his lathe - which is also why I know it works. I'm boring it out to 2.125 which will allow plenty of room for the smaller thread I have to cut. I did get a good finish on the inside but you bore cast iron in back gears meaning that the lathe is running extremely slowly. It actually takes 20 minutes to make a single pass although you can take deeper cuts than you would with any other material. I've one more pass to make and I can put it aside.

That is a good idea and I'm feeling clunky for not thinking of it. I'll need to find a stopwatch. It would also be useful to find some period flow figures... all of those in the link naturally presume modern engines and are predicated on horsepower figures that aren't easily converted to 1910 specifications. But, it's worth following up. At the very least I'll find out what the flow rate is. jp

I took my time and finished setting up the test stand this morning. The only glitch was that I can't find the flat rubber O rings that seal the output coupling. I used a little pile of fiber washers instead - it's not perfect but it worked. I got a tiny drip but I'm certain with the correct seal in place it will be fine. That was really important because I've never been able to test these before and I used them on the engine as well. The output was somewhat gentler than it was the last time. Not having a flow meter, or knowing what the flow should be, this is a matter of guessing but I think that as long as the water is moving I should be OK. The vinyl tubing has a larger diameter than the copper tubing the water will be flowing through so in use the pressure slightly higher. I only had one leak that is cause for concern - at the lower edge of the output tube. I had anticipated this but it was impossible to tell, from the inside of the pump, if it would leak. I have an idea of how to fix it but I thought I'd wait until I'd tested it first - there was no point of fixing it if it wasn't a problem. The problem is the relief I cut for the threads on this piece. Had I come up with the technique of doing a stopped thread at the time I made this, I wouldn't have this problem but once assembled it isn't practical to take it apart. I could have it welded like the last one but I like the look of it without the weld bead so I'll try my other fix first. The pump ran very quietly and smoothly There was no noise except the motor and none of the seals leaked at the ends or around the edges so I'm convinced the basic design is sound. The original pump was both smaller and purposely designed to decrease the flow ... keeping it down so that the water had time to cool when going through the radiator.

I put an 8" sheave on that shaft to get some leverage. It isn't binding, actually it's turning very smoothly without any rubbing sounds. It's just a bit tight, probably from the seals rubbing.

I reassembled the pump today to get a measurement for the height of the impeller. Then faced the end off to match, Then I pressed the bushing into the input side. I had to turn the bushing on the output side down a bit to make room for the seal. Then I assembled it. I had hoped to test it today but this is fiddly work. The pump is tight and I'm not sure what is binding it up. It is probably just that the busnings on either end of the pump shaft are not in perfect alignment although they cant be out more and a few thousandths because everything went together. I think that is pretty much to be expected so tomorrow I'll keep at it and hopefully have it ready to test by the end of the day.

There isn't much room for oversize holes. If the holes are 1/4", twenty of them equals 5 inches of circumference. If I drill them on a 2-5/16 circle, I have .113 between the holes. The OD of the piece is 2.8" which allows just enough for the heads of the bolts and nuts if there is room for them. I'm undecided as to whether to use through bolts or thread one of the plates. I may do both so there are lock nuts. My first dividing head project came out surprisingly well. It's a gear on the inside of the apron of the lathe that has now been in everyday use for something like 8 years. That said, it is very easy to make a mistake.

I am usually in the UK in February so I was thinking of buying some and shipping it to myself.

I'm very curious to see how this comes out. A lot of people seem to forget - or maybe not know - that spray painting wasn't invented until about the 1920s. All brass cars were painted with a brush originally. The only real problem is that the paints aren't readily available any more although they sell "coach paint" in the UK and it's still done there. I don't have a place where I could spray paint either which is why I'm curious about your materials and the result.

You do get better the more you do it but I'm not sure the anxiety goes away. It certainly doesn't for me but perhaps that is because once we start doing stuff like this you're always pushing the envelope and trying something a bit harder. I doubt either of us will live long enough to be completely comfortable with every job. Its 4:30 here and I'm a nervous wreck from the milling job I just finished. I'm happy with the way it turned out but all the time I'm doing it I'm wondering what will go wrong. I know men who have done this all their lives and are VERY good at it and they still get tense when it's down to the last few cuts and any error will ruin the part.