JV Puleo
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Posts posted by JV Puleo
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I'll photograph them tomorrow and post them so you don't have to sift through the entire thread. It's so long I'm not sure I could find it. I had to make one for the 3/4" boring bar I made to do the cam shaft and I also fitted a new micrometer head to the adjusting tool that actually goes with the 1-1/4" bar the line boring machine is designed to use... the new micrometer head reads in tenths of a thousandth. What is the diameter of your boring bar?
jp
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My plan is to assemble the first Cadillac pump...then move on to the gear cutting. I'd like to get the parts of the Cadillac pump off the bench and put aside so this morning I shortened 4 of these stainless cheese head screws to hld down the cap I made Friday.
Then started the assembly. Rather than a paper gasket - which would be a devil to cut neatly, I'm using a thin, flat 0-ring that is only about .120 thick with some RTV silicone "form a gasket".
This part went smoothly...I also put in the Zerk fittings and the drain,
To seal the shaft, I'm using 2 layers of 3/16 square, graphite impregnated pump packing and a modern seal...I suspect the packing would do the job just fine so the seal is just added protection against leaks.
Here I ran into an unexpected snag. There is a brass ring that presses down on the packing. When I tried to insert it, the shaft is slightly out of line with the housing. I suspect this is related to the braze repair. I know the shaft is mechanically straight because I lapped the bushings together. It wasn't out much, probably only about .010 but enough so that I have to make a new insert sleeve. I'd just turn the old one down a bit but the ID is too worn for it to grip on the expanding arbor.
Little as I like surprises like this, it really didn't take much time... I may add another layer of graphite packing too as I think there is room if I shorten the insert a bit.
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Great photos Ed. This is just a guess but I think the vessel is the USS Mayflower, the Presidential yacht. The date is 1917.
It seems to have something to do with the visit of these two French officers, I presume War Heroes because both have the Croix de Guerre and the one on the right also has been decorated with the Legion of Honor. Neither are senior officers and they could be aviators. In WWI the French aviation service did not have a specific uniform. Members wore the uniform of the branch of service they came from and these were frequently somewhat different. As the war progressed, and men joined from civilian life, they had no "old uniform" to wear and, because there was no official uniform, they could wear whatever uniform they liked best.
This even will be recorded somewhere and some further digging will probably reveal who they were. Everyone in the background is in US uniform, including the drivers so we can be pretty sure they are in the US. One of the cars has a little two-flag device on the radiator cap with French and US flags.
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"Greasy" was the euphemism used at the time. A cobbled street with a generous coating of horse buns and urine. They stank and attracted flies...which is one reason why anyone who could afford to got out of the city in the supper. Chains were originally introduced to deal with mud in the countryside and greasy streets in the city. Practically no one drove in snow.
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52 minutes ago, Sloth said:
The only job left: completing the boring bar, drilling the two holes for the cutter (HSS tool steel), and come up with some form of fine adjustment for the cutter. I plan to drill the holes exactly at the center line and grind the cutter so that the top of the cutter is at the center line again. ( makes measuring and adjustment a lot easier than setting the cutter before or after center, but I am open for comment 😊)
47 RPM sounds about right. When I did this I was using a boring bar that was quite a bit smaller so this may not be pertinent but I drilled the hole for the bit off center by about .050. That allowed me to grind its point .050 thicker and still have it come out on the center line as well as giving me more thickness in the bar for the set screw that locks it in place. I also made the adjusting tool and if you go back through the Mitchell thread you should find it.
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Far too many to count.
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There is an excellent book titled America Adopts the Automobile. It's not a "car book" in the conventional sense and I suspect it was the author's Doctoral Thesis but I've found it extremely useful in assessing what was really going on in the industry in the early 20th century. Yes, around 1910, for a short time at least, the luxury car market was saturated. The middle level makers faced a huge problem in that the very rich has plenty to choose from so increasing quality was not an option, even if they could have done it. The only market open was, as you say, the hardware store owner and other small businessmen and building a reasonably "big" car for a price they could sell it for in that market was a challenge. Aside from the chassis itself (which is pretty light), I don't see much on the Mitchell that is as poorly made as the engine so I also suspect that they were well into the design and production of the 1910 cars when they realized that they couldn't meet the necessary price point and took the path of cutting corners on the engine. Interestingly, the advertising material must have been in preparation before the design was finalized because in several places it does not agree with the final product and in a few others details are left out.
Heldt makes it clear that the technology for making a better car was available and much of what we take as being the result of not knowing the best way to do things was, in reality, a matter of expense. They knew how to do it, but couldn't reconcile the cost with their goals. Also, cars were not expected to have a long life-span, at least not by modern standards so they could realistically ask themselves "will it last 5 years" because, if it did, it would be virtually worthless by then in any case. None of the great makers, Pierce, Peerless, Packard, Locomobile, RR and a few others thought this way but they dominated the "price is not an object" market. Ed's White is a great example...made by a company that was easily capable of making a fantastic car but logically assessing the market and realizing that they could do much better with trucks - which had to be durable because they were expected to work hard and last longer.
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On 10/8/2020 at 5:22 PM, edinmass said:
Driving a Model J on the wrong side of the road.....lots of fun. Cotswolds three years ago. Driving the car through London in rush hour traffic was interesting. 👍
I know that area well - probably better than any part of the US outside New England.
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Yes, that is precisely how I view the situation as well.
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I trimmed the other plug first thing this morning and then set up the small dividing head to drill jp;es for the attaching screws. Rather than measure it, I used the original water connection.
Then drilled the holes...
Because my cam is round, it partly covers the holes for the bolts that attach this to the pump so I set it up in the mill to cut a half-circle relief for the heads of the bolts.
I also painted the other casting. Now I have a few small things to do... I have one gasket to make but I'm going to try using o-rings for the other two connections. I suspect this will work just fine and I don't like the idea of "gluing" the pieces together with gasket cement. I like to be able to take things apart if I have to...
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I hadn't planned to come in today but the project for this morning took a lot less time than I'd anticipated so I decided to make the plugs for the top of the water pump. Unfortunately, in order to grip the piece and have room to work it has to be about twice as long as it will be finished...
Not surprisingly, I thought of a better way to do this after I'd bought the stock and started the job. Still, the aluminum bar is relatively inexpensive - its actually the time it takes that makes this a lot of work for a very simple piece. I turned it down to fit inside the top of the pump housing...
Then flipped it around and took the excesses off... It would have been easier if I'd put a hole in the center and turned it on a mandrel or arbor but I don't want to have to plug that hole.
So, one down and one to go. When this is done, I should be able to assemble the first pump and, of course, I now have the parts to fix the second one.
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I like it...and you are absolutely correct that vibration has to be completely eliminated. I think it will also help to take very small cuts and, based on my experience with the hand powered boring bar, I'd say the speed and feed should be about as slow as you can make it.
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And...as a general "heads up" for membership of this forum , the source is the Victor Machine Company. They are in Brooklyn, NY and carry an enormous line of taps and dies in obscure sizes. We found all but one that Ed needed in their on-line listing...and the odd one, 1/8-40, is available on Amazon. The first thing I bought from them (they were recommended by one of my antique machinery friends) was an odd tap to make a big knurled nut for a Brown & Sharpe milling machine built around 1900-1902. (This was before I learned to thread.) Victor does have a $25 minimum order but if you are doing this sort of work it's hard not to spend that much!
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I finally cut the slots in the end of the Cadillac pump shafts today which sets me up to cut gears next week.
First they were faced off and trimmed to the finished length. I'm not keen on cutting a face with so much of the work piece sticking out of the collet but the length was critical and I had to use a stop in the collet to make sure they came out identical.
I decided not to put in the flats for the set screws on the second shaft because until I take the other pump apart I don't know what I'll find...I may need to use different measurements.
Then 5/16 slots were milled in the ends... I went .025 deeper than the original shaft because I don't have the car here to check it against. slightly too deep makes no difference. Slightly too shallow would be a major headache.
You'll notice the new shafts are longer than the old one...this is because of the changes I made to the inside of the pump. They have more bearing surface now than they originally did.
I also drilled out the last remaining grease fitting hole and primed the other casting.
I'm away tomorrow so I wanted this done today so it could cure over the weekend. There is one piece left to make, a plug for the top of the pump to take the place of the water connection you see here.
These pumps had a connection that circulated hot water through the carburetor jacket. This was a compensation for the poor gas that was available in 1920 but it's not only not needed today, it is actually detrimental since, with the new ethanol-laced gasoline you certainly don't want to heat the gas. I'll make an aluminum plug that will look official ...
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Magneto points...
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I think he's already left...
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I gave some thought last night to lapping the two bushings in the pump. I'm pretty certain that the central piece of the larger casting was broken out - which explains the messy braze repair. Nevertheless, it went together albeit with too much drag on the shaft as the bushings weren't perfectly in line. I decided to make a long lap from another piece of the 3/4 ground stock...starting by facing off both ends.
Then turning a shallow taper on one end...this is to center it in the bushing as hold some grinding paste...
I also turned the other end down to fit in the small chuck on the drill...
Going very gently, this worked reasonably well.
But because the Morse taper in the spindle isn't intended to pull up, the chuck pulled out a couple of times. The fit, however, while tight, was readily turnable by hand so I finished the lapping by putting a lathe dog on the lapping arbor.
This was a big improvement but it was still a tiny bit tight in one place so I used a flex-hone on the bushings...and that did the trick.
Then I went on to the impeller. I'm adding bronze thrust washers, one on each side, to compensate for the obvious wear on the impeller.
The impeller itself was drilled and tapped for 1/4-28 set screws. I'm using the fine thread because the wall of the impeller is so thin.
Two flats were also milled on the shaft...they are wider than needed to allow for a little adjustment if necessary.
Last, I located and drilled the cross hole for grease to reach the inner bushing...
When all this was done I reassembled it. The shaft now turns easily without any measurable play. This is what you want...I suspect the severe galling on the original shaft was partly attributable to the bushings not being in line. The packing and seal will put some drag on the shaft so it is important to be certain it is turning freely before those go in.
Tomorrow my pal Mike West is visiting and Thursday we're going to collect a 1920s gas pump so I may not get much done before Friday...I still have the slots to mill in the ends of the shafts but decided it was wise to quit while I was ahead and do that when I'm rested.
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3 hours ago, edinmass said:
Thanks Gary.......the Peerless car tap set I have has 26 threads per inch.......and nowhere on the above chart has the 26 tip listed. Basically I think it’s all a crap shoot........now I need to locate an antique thread guage.....my modern snap on guage doesn’t have a 26 in it.......among others that seem to be no longer in use. I have found a handful of other USS taps and dies, but none of them are the correct thread per inch that the White uses. I think it’s a case where I got very lucky on finding the Peerless kit.......which has two broken taps......that can be ground and used again. I’m hoping to get away with what we now have on hand. Many of the bolts I need are for the firewall which has cast sections and I don’t want to retap them to something different.See if you can find one for "British Standard Cycle" - 26 tpi was used for most of the smaller sizes.
Also, if you need a special tap made I'd try Victor Machine — I think they are in Brooklyn.
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Yes, the patent was granted...that is the official document. He submitted it in 1904 and it was granted in 1906. the patent was assigned to the Thames Motor Co. of New London, Connecticut. This is from a period trade magazine...
That must be where the old fashioned term "scotched" - meaning stopped, comes from.
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Don't worry Ed...it will have no effect on the White job which is, to my mind, a more interesting challenge. It's very easy for contemporary collectors to overlook just how well made some of these things were. Half the effort on this pump is correcting bad, ham-fisted repairs. It will be interesting to see how the other one looks because I purposely started on what I thought was the worst of the two. In any case, I always deny being a machinist. I know some machinists and they are light years ahead of me. I think of myself as a "yankee mechanic"...which reminds me, I wonder if anyone here has ever seen a piston/connecting rod like this one...
The inventor was my great-grandfather.
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The material for the Cadillac water pump shafts came in at the end of the day, Friday but my weekend was tied up with other projects so I didn't start on them until this morning. I'm anxious to get this done because I'd like to get to the gear cutting but don't want to rearrange the mill until the slot in the end of these shafts is cut. First step was to cut two pieces 7" long.
The they were drilled a little under 1/4" to a depth of 3-3/4"
And the ends counterbored 1/2" about 5/8" deep
This shows how it works. The grease goes through the hollow shaft and comes out inside the bushing nearest the engine.
Both bushings were too tight so I lapped one...
The impeller...
And then the other casting.
The pump goes together but it's tight...which is not surprising given the two bushings have to be in perfect alignment. Given wear and some questionable repairs in the past, the fact that they went together at all was satisfactory. The solution for this is to line-lap the two bearings...I started with the barrel lap.
But I'm thinking a piece of 3/4" bar with lapping compound on it might work better...I'll try that tomorrow.
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I had Jet-Hot do the manifold I made for my Mitchell. Yes, it doesn't look like porcelain but it does look as if it will wear well and it's isn't "rust" which is what the original manifold would have been if I had one...
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Perhaps not surprisingly, I consider single-point threading to be about the most useful skill I've learned. I don't think it's a lost art so much as one that simply isn't needed very much any more so fewer people do it...but it isn't hard and with practice anyone with the proper lathe can do it. I probably can't make the tiny sizes...my lathe is simply too big but if one comes along I'd like to get a small tool-room lathe, something like a Rivett, to make small parts. The Rivett was built in Waltham, Massachusetts and it's the lathe that Henry Royce kept at home.
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Many years ago I was walking around an antique arms show with a close friend who was likely the premier authority on Federal era American swords. We stopped to look at one and my friend made an offer..."No...there's a big time collector from Rhode Island named (giving a garbled version of my friend's name) and he'll buy it." As we walked away my friend said "How about that, now I'm in competition with myself."
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My 1910 Mitchell "parts car" project
in Our Cars & Restoration Projects
Posted · Edited by JV Puleo (see edit history)
I finished the new retaining retaining ring for the pump packing and assembled the pump this morning. I then mounted it on an angle plate and filled it with water. This isn't a real test...but if a leak does show up it might as well be fixed now. To my surprise I did get a leak - a tiny one and not in any of the places you'd normally expect. It's weeping a tiny bit of water at the junction of the bronze piece and the main casting. This should be easy to fix as it just needs a better gasket.
I'm going to let that stand for a few days. Terry offered to make some gaskets so I'll get the measurements to him...
I then went on to the gear cutting by cleaning up a lot of the bits around the shop, putting things ways and taking a look at the foot stock.
I hadn't examined it closely before. It was gummed up with old, hardened oil so I took it partially apart and got it working again...not a "restoration" but functional.
And mounted the test gear blank on a mandrel in the dividing head...