1966 Shovel engine rebuild

[Steve Little]

Hi Ryan.
Thanks for the comment on the structured part of my workshop. But there is another 300 degrees of view that don't look so purdy and spacious.
I've decided that I like the spacious feel more than side stepping through lines of machinery.
I hope to let a couple more machines go later this year. eek! More therapy!!
An Arboga gear head, radial arm drill (Swedish quality) and a 4 axis Fadal cnc milling machine (USA) will go. They are both lovely machines but don't get used anymore.

On your other question "What is wrong with your lathe?)
New in 1968, it has developed the wrinkles and slight paunch we all get in our late fourties. The gibs, ways, screws, and nuts will get some luv'n from a professional machine rebuilder. I spent a couple of days cleaning up what I could, but knew when I was out of my league. I booked him a week after I pulled the cross slide off, but he is booked solid until August. I....sob...sniffle...miss my lathe.

[ryan]

Steve,
The pros are very talented people, I cannot believe the tolerances they can hold while hand scraping the ways. They always did our carriages, compounds and tailstocks as well. I never really had time to watch them though, he may get a hold of you soon to have you get the items mentioned plated depending on how your lathe is made. We usually only had to get the tailstock plated. Anyhow, I am sure he will do you a great job.
I always wanted to learn engine machining. I am really thinking about taking a class at our local college UNOH. I am able to machine and rebuild up to two V8s in the class for less than the cost of just having one engine machined at a local machine shop. I know they are not Harleys, but what the heck.
Back to the flywheels, I have watched people "true" them up on lathes using a turned center, sticking out a mile, being held with a 3 jaw chuck and using the tailstock sticking out at its limits. Now you know this setup is not true to begin with. They should at least used a dead center in the headstock and lined the tailstock up to that, but the one guy claimed to be the best.
Now what I have been told buy a fine engine builder was to use original Harley bearing cages and OEM style bearings and to stay away from S&S bearings and cages. He said the S&S bearing cages are junk, the bearings are too short and the cages only use 7 bearings while Harley cages hold 9. If my numbers are off, in any case you lose two bearings while using S&S cages.

Thanks,
Ryan

[Steve Little]

The time limit on this quiz is up.
Fixture is for the oil tank brackets on all Knuckle, U model, Pan head, and most Shovel frames.
The bracket was cast as a double. We bored the 1-1/2" hole in the center of the casting and then they went into this fixture.
A four tooth slab cutter zipped across the top followed by a center drill, tap drill, and 5/16 unf tap.
From memory, the program time was 20 minutes long. Tapping being the slowest part of the program, which is not too bad for 20 oil tank brackets.
We had another fixture to hold them when we cut them in half on the drop saw.

[painterdale]

I was going to say that!
Dale

[ryan]

Boy, I had no idea on that fixture. I have a few questions if you do not mind? Did your Fadal have a Fanuc control? What cam program were you using? Did you give each piece it's own work coordinates and sub routine the main program? Now we are in my world, but I do not have the knowledge to machine a motor. Well I machined a couple of 1\4 scale hit and miss motors, but they were not Harleys. Hell, I would volunteer my time to learn how to machine and rebuild an American v-twin.

I am very excited to learn what you will do next on your engine. I would like to see how you figure out the weight needed to balance your flywheels.
I apologize for all the questions, you are nice enough to share what you are sharing now without a ton of questions from me. I will stop and keep observing.

Thanks,
Ryan

[Steve Little]

Hi Ryan.
I will answer what I can, but keep in mind that my level of IQ, thought I was gettin brownie points for calling the jigs "Fixtures"

A little side story for you all, before the questions and answers.
The Tooly's I employed didn't want to know about the cnc. They had both lost jobs to the new fangled, high speed contraptions and wouldn't have a bar of it. They drew a red line around it, burned a couple of sprigs of sage and muttered wards of protection.

For those of you that don't know.....Tool room machinists are not production machinists.
My observations of the 2 guys I had...was that they were employed for their very specific expertise. Slow, methodical, analytical process of making fixtures, and machining die sets for the press. They wouldn't be rushed into anything.

Because of this, I bought the cnc machine to speed up machining production and guarantee repeatability.
With my limited knowledge of speeds and feeds, I jumped in the deep end and wrote a couple of programs. The program worked great (in my mind) and achieved the same excellent result every time.
I needed more and more tooling and cutting tips so I kept ringing Sandvic. The salesman decided to drop in one day. He was a good bloke, with a dry sense of humor. He watched my program run over some castings and said " I can see what your trying to achieve. I am also a programmer. Do you mind if I make some changes to your program.
I left him to it, and toddled off to made some cups of tea for us. He was muttering and making disapproving sounds and finally said OK!!
We tightened some new castings in the fixture, closed the doors, and he turned to me and said, Ready? I replied You bet ya! With that, he hit the start button.
I was excited that someone was taking an interest in my new machine, so I had my nose up against the plexiglass to watch.
My methodical, consistent, and comforting machine turned into a screaming banshee. The spindle wound up through Mark 3 then jerked down to the job and howled back and forth across the metal with maddening speed. I nearly fell over backwards trying to get away from the lunacy.
By the time I got my nerve back and edged toward the machine, it was all over.
My program that took minutes had been turned into seconds.
I ended up employing a young guy to handle the cnc while I concentrated on assembling the frames.

Questions and answers:
Did your Fadal have a Fanuc control?
Yes.

What cam program were you using?
Rhino/cam.

Did you give each piece it's own work coordinates and sub routine the main program? In the confused mutterings of Elmer Fudd....Ibitty, Ibitty, uhh uhh, uhh, what?


Hope you enjoyed the ramblings.
Steve

[T. Cotten]

...For those of you that don't know.....Tool room machinists are not production machinists...

Agreed, Steve!

Salvage machinists rule.

...Cotten

[ryan]

Steve,
Thanks for answering my questions, but the thing is, one should really be a machinist before he learns how to program the CNC machines. I guess it boils down to what you are machining and how critical the work needs to be.
Assigning each workpiece or part it's own M code(machine code) work coordinates allows the machine operator to bring in or make adjustments to part location without editing the part machining tape file or G code(Geometry code). He can even erase or jump over a work coordinate if the fixture gets damaged to keep production moving.

A Gump analogy would be a stencil being the sub program and the work coordinates would be where you decide to use the stencil from place to place.

[Peter Cooke]

but the thing is, one should really be a machinist before he learns how to program the CNC machines.

Or a less condescending reply might have been - "Good on you for having a go Steve. There's always something new to learn". Or words to that effect.

Just saying...

[painterdale]

Hi Ryan.
I will answer what I can, but keep in mind that my level of IQ, thought I was gettin brownie points for calling the jigs "Fixtures"

A little side story for you all, before the questions and answers.
The Tooly's I employed didn't want to know about the cnc. They had both lost jobs to the new fangled, high speed contraptions and wouldn't have a bar of it. They drew a red line around it, burned a couple of sprigs of sage and muttered wards of protection.

For those of you that don't know.....Tool room machinists are not production machinists.
My observations of the 2 guys I had...was that they were employed for their very specific expertise. Slow, methodical, analytical process of making fixtures, and machining die sets for the press. They wouldn't be rushed into anything.

Because of this, I bought the cnc machine to speed up machining production and guarantee repeatability.
With my limited knowledge of speeds and feeds, I jumped in the deep end and wrote a couple of programs. The program worked great (in my mind) and achieved the same excellent result every time.
I needed more and more tooling and cutting tips so I kept ringing Sandvic. The salesman decided to drop in one day. He was a good bloke, with a dry sense of humor. He watched my program run over some castings and said " I can see what your trying to achieve. I am also a programmer. Do you mind if I make some changes to your program.
I left him to it, and toddled off to made some cups of tea for us. He was muttering and making disapproving sounds and finally said OK!!
We tightened some new castings in the fixture, closed the doors, and he turned to me and said, Ready? I replied You bet ya! With that, he hit the start button.
I was excited that someone was taking an interest in my new machine, so I had my nose up against the plexiglass to watch.
My methodical, consistent, and comforting machine turned into a screaming banshee. The spindle wound up through Mark 3 then jerked down to the job and howled back and forth across the metal with maddening speed. I nearly fell over backwards trying to get away from the lunacy.
By the time I got my nerve back and edged toward the machine, it was all over.
My program that took minutes had been turned into seconds.
I ended up employing a young guy to handle the cnc while I concentrated on assembling the frames.

Questions and answers:
Did your Fadal have a Fanuc control?
Yes.

What cam program were you using?
Rhino/cam.

Did you give each piece it's own work coordinates and sub routine the main program? In the confused mutterings of Elmer Fudd....Ibitty, Ibitty, uhh uhh, uhh, what?


Hope you enjoyed the ramblings.
Steve

Steve, I see your talents aren't reserved for just the machine room. You tell a very entertaining story as well!
Dale

[ryan]

Or a less condescending reply might have been - "Good on you for having a go Steve. There's always something new to learn". Or words to that effect.

Just saying...

Whoa, whoa you are very correct Peter on pointing that out, I wasn't by any means even thinking nor implying anything about Steve while making that statement. Now Steve was able to program the machine because he is a machinist, not the other way around. Steve did a great, no outstanding, job starting from scratch. A very lot of time went into learning and doing what he did.
I should have been more clear on meaning one just cannot learn how to program a CNC overnight like they show on YouTube. Just meant a person should know machining processes if one is to program a CNC machine.
Again, Steve did an awful lot to make the machine produce working parts. I would have to create a very long flowchart on what he achieved to do so.
Sorry Steve for not making myself clearer on my previous reply.

[Steve Little]

Howdy guys.
Glad you enjoyed the story.
I don't remember writing any more programs after employing the young bloke.
He had a mini cnc at home, so I knew he had a basic knowledge of how to write programs. He was a naturally talented bloke and excelled at a lot of stuff. We got on well and constantly bounced ideas off each other.

Ryan.
When he started writing the program's he didn't have those parameters you asked about. But after a few months of writing programs and making fixtures he came into work one day and said the programs we have written, are not quite right and he rewrote or added that stuff to the start of each program.
He was always researching and had joined machinist forums to pick up more knowledge and found that the correct way to write a program was what you said. I think he also added codes for peck drilling and that type of info into the start of the program.

I did contribute one idea that was incorporated into every program. I was watching him change a bunch of castings on a fixture. It took a while to remove all the machined castings, sweep the swarf away, and fit new castings, so he was leaning into the machine for a long time.
I suggested that at the end of the machine cycle, he should program the table to automatically come to the center, and close to the opening.

I knew there was a reason I was boss.
Hope you all have a marvelous weekend.
Steve

[Peter Cooke]

Whoa, whoa you are very correct Peter on pointing that out, I wasn't by any means even thinking nor implying anything about Steve while making that statement. Now Steve was able to program the machine because he is a machinist, not the other way around. Steve did a great, no outstanding, job starting from scratch. A very lot of time went into learning and doing what he did.
I should have been more clear on meaning one just cannot learn how to program a CNC overnight like they show on YouTube. Just meant a person should know machining processes if one is to program a CNC machine.
Again, Steve did an awful lot to make the machine produce working parts. I would have to create a very long flowchart on what he achieved to do so.
Sorry Steve for not making myself clearer on my previous reply.

No problem Ryan.
Steve had mentioned earlier that he’s not a qualified machinist so I thought you were suggesting he should leave the CNC stuff to those that are qualified.
That got up my nose a bit as I’m a firm believer in “You don’t know if you don’t try”.
Anyway, all good, no harm no foul, back to our scheduled viewing which I believe will be crankcases or flywheels.

[Steve Little]

After a torrid voting session, Ryan has the majority vote. Flywheels it is.
Removed the top end, lifter blocks and cam cover screws, and then it was time to remove the cam cover. Using the rubber coated handle of my hammer, I tapped through the generator hole on the inside of the cam cover. Once the gasket starts to separate slightly I use a small alloy wedge against the oil pump body and the pry point at the back of the cam cover. (If the oil pump is removed I use a small alloy dowel to tap on the pry point)
When the cam cover was removed, I emptied the cam chest and put a dial indicator against the end of the pinion shaft. The pinion shaft was running out 017”. Heck
Removed all the case bolts and slid the right case off the pinion shaft. Here's some pics of the mischief on the rods and flywheels.

Pictures for your entertainment.






Stillsons used to straighten a rod.





On this last picture, the builder has used lead to get the balance factor he wanted on the flywheels.
I use lead as well, but I drill a 3/16" hole at 45 degrees toward the bottom of the hole. The lead flows into the hole and holds the lead in place. I also use a dowel and hammer on the lead when it cools. This makes it snug in the hole.
My reason for describing this...These were loose in the holes and moved in and out 1/16".

[DaveAus]

Nice work Steve, I'm loving the tread and the details