Powerplus or Bust, Eh?

[BoschZEV]

Keep it coming Kevin, great stuff

+1 on that. However, with only a little over 5 months to go before the start of the Cannonball, we'd have to forgive Kevin if he has entered full panic mode with little time to spend posting information on his progress.

[Shaky Jake]

+1 on that. However, with only a little over 5 months to go before the start of the Cannonball, we'd have to forgive Kevin if he has entered full panic mode with little time to spend posting information on his progress.

Yes; panic mode is a good description. Thanks for understanding. In addition, this is a busy season in my business. I will catch up on the posts soon, but a quick summary is that the bottom end is assembled and in the frame. As soon as I get some time at home the pistons and cylinders will go on. Then the focus will be back to magnetos and exhaust pipes. I'm currently pursuing three options on mags, including the three Dixies I already have apart. If the offer to smoke test my windings still stands, I will be in touch soon. . I haven't figured anything out yet on pipes, I guess I'll just put take it to some custom header shops and see what they can do.

Details to follow.

Kevin #97

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[BoschZEV]

Yes; panic mode is a good description.

You're not the only one. I've been exchanging emails with another Cannonballer who contacted me yesterday because his restored Bosch ZEV isn't reliably firing one of the cylinders. I wouldn't be surprised if more such emails start arriving in the weeks ahead.

If the offer to smoke test my windings still stands, I will be in touch soon.

It does. I'll be restoring a Lucas magneto for a friend shortly so I'll have all the instruments off the shelves and on the bench.

[frichie68]

Smoke still available on epay . . . .
lucas.JPG

[Shaky Jake]

Checking final side play

I hope everyone is having a happy and blessed Easter holiday. I'm still stuck out of town, but I did get the day off so I thought I'd try to lay down some posts. In the last installment I had reinstalled the pinion side roller bearing housing after having it machined to correct the thrust clearance. Next I needed to check that the ID of the housing was still OK, then put the cases together and check the final thrust clearance. I put the rollers onto the pinion shaft, slipped the right side case on, flipped it over, slid the left side case on:
















Then I put some bolts in to clamp it, stood it up, mounted the dial indicator, and slide the crank back and forth to check the thrust clearance:










This time it came out right where I wanted it, so I took the cases off to prep them for final assembly. I'll talk about that next.






Kevin


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[Shaky Jake]

Bottom End Assembly

Now that that's done I can put the bottom end together. I gave the cases another good cleaning. I'm not using Glyptal or even bead blasting them. I slathered up the bearing and the bushing with assembly lube, slapped the cases around the crank, and bolted it up with the motor plates on.












I used the Loctite anaerobic stuff to seal the cases:








I checked the end play one more time after putting the timing gear on the pinion shaft:










Next post I'll put the automatic oiler together.


Kevin


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[Shaky Jake]

Automatic Oiler

These engines use a total loss oil system. They have a few ounces of oil in the bottom of the cases that get slung around to oil all of the moving parts. As oil is burned and leaks away, more oil needs to be added to replace it. Some very early engines relied on the rider/driver/mechanic to use a hand pump to replenish the engine oil. This engine still has a hand pump on the oil tank, but it also has a little innovation called an automatic oiler. The automatic oiler is a little reciprocating oil pump with an adjustable plunger. You adjust the plunger to provide the right amount of oil during regular riding, then if you are going faster than normal, or if you're carrying a passenger or sidecar, you use the hand pump to supplement the oil flow provided by the automatic oiler.

The automatic oiler is driven off of the timing gear on the pinion shaft. There's a little worm gear pressed onto it, which motivates the drive gear for the oiler. The little bearing in this picture was missing from my engine, but I was lucky enough to find one at Davenport last year:










This is the plunger for the automatic oiler:








The plunger screws into this crosshead, that also slips over the little bearing. There's a lock screw to lock the plunger threads after you adjust them:









After that all the timing gears and valve train components go in and the timing cover goes on. I only sealed the timing cover gasket to one side, so I can take it off to install the magneto:










So, there's an Indian PowerPlus bottom end.




Kevin

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[exeric]

Two questions Kevin; What is that assembly lube you are using, and what kind of camera are you using. Your photographic documentation has been excellent (and you write well too). I am currently doing a Henderson for a friend, and even though I can't post the pics (for his security), I am not pleased with all the augmentation I have to do to make the pictures sharp, and properly contrasted. Talk about sidetracking a post; here I am asking you about camera deets !

This has been a great build because you have held nothing back, and you show very useful details of your procedure. I know how difficult that is, and what a sacrifice that is to the smooth flow of your progress.

[Shaky Jake]

No problem Eric. I'm using Pro Circuit PC-04 assembly lube. It's available on Amazon. My camera is an iPhone 5s. I don't bother with any digital enhancements.


Kevin

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[exeric]

An iPhone ! . . . . That leaves me out. Just kidding Kevin, again, thanks for your conscientious build thread.

[Shaky Jake]

An iPhone ! . . . . That leaves me out. ...

But it's an old iPhone...


Kevin

[BoschZEV]

Note: We're only allowed to attach 5 images to a post so the next one contains the 6th. More will follow after I've had time to conduct additional tests. Also, it's been a while since I posted images and I can see I made these too small (but they enlarge when you click on them). I'll make future ones larger.

Last year I offered to help Kevin by giving him modern capacitors for his magneto(s) that I had extensively tested as described elsewhere:

http://www.britbike.com/forums/ubbth...734#Post467734
http://www.britbike.com/forums/ubbth...762#Post508762

I also offered to help him by testing his coil, which he took me up on. Two coils arrived on Friday and this is the first of at least two posts describing my tests of them. Conveniently, numbers 'D2' and 'D3' were written on them making it easy to document my measurements.

As the two views in the next photograph show, two screw terminals for the primary coil are at one end of the armature, and a flat brass contact for the output of the secondary coil is on the side.

Coil01.jpg

I'll have more to say about the visual appearance of the insulation in the next installment, once I've had a chance to inspect it under the microscope.

The first measurement was of the resistance of the primary coil. As shown in the next photograph one armature was 0.561 Ohms (the other was essentially the same, 0.532 Ohms).

Coil02.jpg

A milliohmmeter is required for accurately determining resistances this low. To eliminate the problem of the resistance of the leads themselves a "4-point-probe" measurement is required. A known current is supplied through two leads and the resultant voltage determined by the other two, and then R = V/I. The probes shown in this photograph conveniently combine each I & V pair in a clamp.

Measuring the resistance between the high tension output terminal and one of the primary terminals will give the secondary resistance, but between it and the other primary terminal will give the secondary plus the primary. However, since the resistance of the primary is only ~0.5 Ohms while the secondary is ~2500 Ohms ordinary ohmmeters cannot detect such a small difference. The next composite photograph shows measurements in both configurations using a 6-1/2 digit ohmmeter.

Coil03.jpg

Note that an ordinary ohmmeter would measure the resistance as the same either way, i.e. 2.686 kiloOhms. However, with the added resolution of this instrument it can be seen there is a difference of 0.56 Ohms, just as was found with the milliohmmeter. That is, when the probes are connected between the secondary terminal and one of the primary terminals the resistance is that of just the secondary (2685.16 Ohms), but while connected to the other primary terminal the resistance is that of the secondary plus the primary (2686.17 Ohms; i.e. 0.56 Ohms greater).

Next, moving one of the probes to the laminated steel armature itself allows a measurement of the insulation resistance. Ideally, it should be infinite. As can be seen from the next photograph the instrument shows an overload on the mega-ohm scale, which in this case means the resistance is greater than a giga-ohm.

Coil04.jpg

However, this instrument only applies a voltage of 5 volts across the insulation, whereas in operation it will experience a few hundred volts. So, next I did the same test with an "insulation" tester set to apply a 250 Volt potential across the insulation. As can be seen, the meter shows an overload which means, on this voltage scale, the resistance is greater than 500 mega-ohms.

Coil05.jpg

There's no need to apply a higher potential than this except to significantly stress it. However, given the age of the insulation I don't want to apply a higher potential. Anyway, what this measurement shows is the insulation is up to the task.

[to be continued]

[BoschZEV]

Finally (for this installment), I used my Merc-O-Tronic 98 tester to determine the minimum primary current that would result in a secondary voltage large enough to jump a 5 mm gap (6 kV). This gap is somewhat of an "industry standard" for testing coils because it's a typical voltage across a spark plug in an operating engine. The blue spark can be seen through the window on the right side of the unit, and the meter shows a current of just over 1.3 Amps.

Coil06.jpg

This coil began sparking intermittently at ~1.2 Amps and had a smooth, uniform spark by 1.3 A. The other coil required 0.05 Amps more. Both pass this important test.

[to be continued]

[Shaky Jake]

WooHoo! This is exciting.

Thanks Charles.


Kevin

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[BoschZEV]

Today I finished testing the coils.

The Merc-O-Tronic tester showed that the primary and secondary are functioning as they need to, but it doesn't test for possible internal shorts. If adjacent turns of wire are shorted together the output is reduced, which isn't good, but even worse those shorts serve as internal hot spots that can accelerate further degradation. To test for internal shorts I use a growler. Those of you who know what this device is may think of it as for testing generators, but for the same reason it also works for magneto armatures

Loops of wire that aren't connected anywhere won't respond to an AC magnetic field, but if there is any electrical conductivity between turns they will experience a force. A growler generates the necessary magnetic field. As the next photograph shows the armature fits in the 'V' pole pieces and a hacksaw blade serves as the probe.
1Growler.jpg
If there are any shorted turns the blade will experience a force that is easily felt. I rotated both coils through 360^o without detecting any problems no neither one has internal shorts.

OK, the coils work fine at room temperature, but what about when crossing Death Valley? The next photograph shows the setup I used for high temperature tests.
2Thermocouple.jpg
The Variac powers the heater tape to bring the armature up to 50^oC (122 ^oF) as monitored by the thermocouple. Once stabilized at that temperature for 30 min. to make sure the armature is fully up to temperature it is again tested with the Merc-O-Tronic. Both coils passed this elevated temperature test.

The final measurements were to determine the primary and secondary inductances, as shown in the next two photographs.
3Lprimary.jpg
4Lsecondary.jpg
The other armature (D3) had essentially the same primary inductance (2.46 mH) but a secondary inductance of 7.73 H. This lower inductance means it has fewer turns, which is consistent with the initial Merc-O-tronic measurement requiring slightly more current to generate a consistent spark as well as the 15% small resistance of its secondary (2.296 kOhm for D3 vs. 2.686 kOhm for D2).

I'll finish this in the next post to keep two photographs together as well as keep under the five-image limit