Powerplus or Bust, Eh?

[Shaky Jake]

Pistons and Cylinders

The valves went into the cylinders without incident. George and Mike over at Central Cylinder Service had already put the new guides in and cut the seats for me:








When I went to hang the pistons I found that the bushings were too long. I'd had a local machinist make them for me, and somehow they got made to the proper length for the old pistons, not the new ones. I probably spec'd the wrong length. A minor setback. I made this puller, pulled them out, shortened them on the lathe, and re-fitted them. I found that an original valve spring retainer fit into the end of the perfectly to pull it out:








After that, the pistons went on and the cylinders followed:










Kevin


.

[Shaky Jake]

Playing catch up.

Boy; there's been a lot going on. I lost my little sister in December, and we buried Mom last week. The wife wants a new kitchen, so we tore the old out out, down to the sub-floor. Mother nature wants to knock down trees in the yard. The boss wants me to do some work. I haven't been sleeping much and everybody is mad at me for being grouchy and just generally in a bad mood. Going down to my little shop in the basement is my escape. My fortress of solitude. A cup of coffee, some blues on the stereo, my tools, and the little Indian. Somehow some progress has been made. I have less than 90 days left to build this thing. I should be riding it by now. I'll try to get caught up on this thread, I want it to be a complete record of the project. I appreciate the help and in-put I've gotten from all y'all.

Last time I was talking about getting the bottom end together. Putting it into the frame was a big day for me. I decided to put it in the frame before I mounted the pistons and cylinders, partly because it is much lighter to handle, and partly because I wanted to practice mounting cylinders in place, in case I had to do it during the Cannonball. here are some pictures:














You may recall that I worked with Nick Arias III to develop pistons for the Powerplus engine. The piston rings they sourced are for an 80 mm (3.150 inch) bore, so the end gaps needed to be adjusted for my 3.145 inch cylinders. When I set ring gaps, I like to slide the ring into the cylinder and use the top of the piston to square it up down in the cylinder:











Then I use a feeler gauge to check the gap, grind a little off with one of these little diamond wheel do-hickies, check it again, and on and on until I have to desired gap. You want to take a little at a time and sneak up on it, because once it's gone you can't put it back. I used .015 to .017 as my final end gap for the rings:











After my gaps are set, I like to use a little stone to lightly knock any burrs off that the diamond wheel may have left. Use a light touch, you don't want to chamfer it, just clean it up:









Then the rings can go onto the pistons. There are various contraptions available for spreading the rings out so you can slip them over the pistons. I always use my fingers. It's a bit of a nervous operation because you can very easily snap them in half. You also want to try to avoid scratching the pistons with the sharp edges of the rings. Some rings have a taper on the inside, which generally faces up. There is almost always a mark on the top side of the ring to tell you which side is the top, in this case it is just a little punch mark, which is common.










I decided to not use the oil rigs. This engine originally designed not to have oil rings, and I think it is important for a total loss engine to consume some oil so that it can be replaced with fresh. We'll see what happens, I can always take it apart and install the oil rings if need be.






More to come.






Kevin


.

[gww]

go go go. look n forward to seeing her going over wolf creek pass in colo.. best on ya..

[TechNoir]

Re: PowerPlus or Bust

Kevin, its great to see your latest update.

I had assumed that you had your head down and was just getting it done. Is the tranny the last bit that need to be finished?

It is still only in May so you should have time to get some miles under your belt before the Cannonball.

John

[BoschZEV]

Great to hear you are still on track, Kevin!

I'm sure when he started on this ~18 months ago he had visions of it being completed by now and him putting on miles well ahead of the start to get all the bugs worked out so he could fix them at his leisure in his garage, instead of at midnight in a motel parking lot after a long day's ride. With the deadline now looming, it's totally understandable why his frequency of posts has dropped off.