Open Wheeler Toy

[Dingo745]

Roy I mentioned it the other day to you but it was just a process that I thought might work to build up the crank journals of the crank that you have, but not too sure who does this in Adelaide , if at all ?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAeBpF84Q9M

[Komdotkom]

I reckon Crankshaft Rebuilders in Melbourne do that.

[Roy928tt]

Yeah, nah. I doesn't cut the mustard, as one would expect there are all sorts of inclusions, it's not nearly hard enough, and breaks up and flakes off far to easily.

[Gammaboy]

RAD hard chroming in Brisbane will take a light grind, hard chrome the journal and grind it back to diameter, works well on plain bearings and lightly loaded needle bearings, has a propensity to break up with point loading from balls or heavily loaded roller or needles.
sell shit you don't need, buy the two 0/0 cranks, and make sure you regularly inspect to catch any damage early

[Roy928tt]

As of this minute, the hope is to wait till we can procure +.014" tunnel bearings, machine block and new caps to fit and polish crank to suit. Should the oil clearance be excessive by the time the crank is acceptable, junk the crank and buy a better one.

Alternately I have to tunnel bore the block to +.021" the final oversize and go through the whole crank size procedure . . .

I'm reluctant to go straight to the maximum tunnel bore straight up, I'd like to have one oversize up my sleeve. Of course Modatek don't currently have +.014" bearings, only +.021" . . .

Apparently patience is a virtue.

[stb]

Hang in there Roy, the reward when you've got it running will be there. And in the meantime I'm learning a bunch about an age of F1 and Indy I had no idea about - old enough to be interested in watching but too young to understand the technical goings on.

[Roy928tt]

I did a thing !

I stripped the dummy engine, and checked whether I could use 8 Massey Ferguson liners to convert the block back to 85 mm bores, and it appears it should work.

If I can do that, then I can purchase a set of +.021" oversize tunnel bearings, have the block machined to suit then go through the process of seeing if the crank will fit.

Of course, first I'll need to get the nasty holes in the sump plugged up and the carnage on the underside of the block cleaned up a bit etc. etc.

I popped past Adrian's today and picked up the liners he had made, they look lovely.

I'm feeling pleased to have come up with what I think is a way forward, that I'm happy with. BP18T commented some time ago that the project should be termed a B.O.A.T. Bring On Another Thousand$ No doubt about it, it is fairly chewing through the funds. I'd wholeheartedly recommend NOT doing as I have done, stick with a production engine, it is sooooo much easier and infinitely cheaper.

[PXL265]

But Roy, is the production engine option as fun, as educational or as satisfying as doing something completely different and what most would conclude is an expensive and potentially heartbreaking folly????

I'm sure most if us here get almost as much out of this journey as you do. Please keep going. I, for one, want to see you put this turboed Cosworth in the back if your hill climb chassis and year up the local hills, and hopefully make an appearance at a national championship one year.

[Roy928tt]

I'm concluding it's an expensive and potentially heartbreaking Folly !

As I said to the nopics this morning " at least nobody is going hungry because I spent all the money on Cosworth" but it is a little daunting that the view ahead is simply of spending more and more money, when there have already been considerable funds already spent. I reckon I'm already in $16K and honestly think there is at least another $10K to go . . . It's all a bit ridiculous for something that does such little running.

It has been mentioned that if nothing else, a running Cosworth is worth more than a pile of pieces.

[Dingo745]

[QUOTE=Roy928tt;n7217538]I'm concluding it's an expensive and potentially heartbreaking Folly !

I reckon I'm already in $16K and honestly think there is at least another $10K to go . . . It's all a bit ridiculous for something that does such little running.

Gezz Roy you could have already bought a front running BEC Formula Libre car for the same money, but no they don't have the same appeal, but still ?

My total build cost is expected to be about half of that $16K figure

[Roy928tt]

Oh look, there is no logical, sensible way of looking at what I've done or where I'm going.

The Foster brothers offered me their car when I was still building the little green car, at that point I was buying things in chunks of $300 at a time and the $23k ask was out of my realm altogether.

Things kinda escalated, $1200 for a set of wheels and tyres, borrow $5K to buy an F1 back end, start buying bits and pieces in chunks of $2500 till 188 is complete for a cost of very close to that $23k. A pair of tyres $1800, now things are really getting ridiculous, what the? borrow more money , buy a pile of race engine bits $13k delivered. Now I'm thinking, coulda just bought a Formula Holden.

Financially smart, nah, no one ever said I was. Having said that, it's all paid for.

My recollection is that the little green car was around $6k all up, so $8k is near the mark.

[Roy928tt]

Chris was back at work today, so I swung past to bring him up to date with developments . . . uh, it seems now I've decided to move forward with both blocks in parallel.

Chris will continue with the No. 1 block, standard tunnel bore and the double bearing concept, while Rhemac will be supplied with a set of +.021" / std. bearings and move forward with No. 2 block, and we will see where we get to.

Poor, I'd suggest.

I visited my local aluminium welders today to get their opinion on welding up the holes in the 'sump' of block No. 2. They were not confident, they thought it would take too much heat and the whole gubbins would distort and be useless post welding. So I bought some JB weld and started patching it with bits of aluminium and that, no stress, it's only got to hold oil and vacuum.

I furnished the guys at Rhemac with a description of the rings I need and they will get on to a supplier in the US My preference is for rings destined for a +.75mm 4G63 Mitsubishi engine that will have a bore of 85.75 vs 85.674 for a DFX, less than 4 thou difference but I'm guessing infinitely more common. I don't anticipate any bed in issues in the grey cast iron Massey Ferguson liner that they will be fitted to.

Adrian mentioned that he had checked the hardness of the liners, the genuine ones were 56 and the Massey ones 36, for some trips up Collingrove, no fucks given.

On the upside, there were 4 sheared of 8-32 bolts in the bottom of block No.2, I managed to extract 3 of them this afternoon, a nice little win.

[Roy928tt]

With the aid of a Sandvik Hard Cut drill in 3 mm I managed to remove the last broken bolt from the bottom of block No. 2 and with a nice new 8-32 tap cleaned up the hole. When I get block No.1 back from Adrian I'll have to use the new drill bit to remove the old broken tap from the sump and retap a nice new hole in it!

Those Sandvik Hard Cut drill bits are the dogs bollocks, I remember the first time I used them years ago drilling out broken studs on a Cat./Elphinstone underground truck and being amazed. More recently I tried using one on stainless steel, thus reaffirming my view that stainless steel is the work of the devil, the poor little drill bit was glowing but wouldn't remove the stainless steel. I think the stainless wouldn't chip, it was too hard for a normal drill bit but not brittle enough for the Hard Cut to work.

Tomorrow I'm off to attempt to remove the liners from Block No. 2, here's hoping that goes well. If that goes well, I'll have to organise another 8 Massey Ferguson liners for Adrian to machine to suit, fit them and source some bearings for Rhemac to forge ahead with that block.

[Roy928tt]

I'd decided to use a friends hotwash machine to heat the block to remove the liners, it took forever to get to any temperature, eventually at around 70 degrees I ran out of patience and had a go at removing liners. It worked fine for the first 5, till the block started to cool again, I put it back in and set it going again whilst I went and picked up a tractor block from the machinists, Rhemac, and on my return pulled out the three remaining liners, the last 2 were too tight, I should have reheated it again. Anyway they are all out, and I'll need to refine the procedure for refitting them.

The block can be carried in one hand now the liners are removed, not something one can usually do with a V8.

I need to run around the inside of the block and try to tidy up the carnage from the blowup and just tickle up a few rough patches, I'm thinking I might get the whole thing soda blasted to clean it up.

[Roy928tt]

The white car is ER188 chassis 3, it has just undergone a restoration in England, the current owner and I were comparing notes on it's possible life since 1988. Which had me going back through this thread to remind myself when I bought the rear end. Interestingly he believes #3 raced in Adelaide, whereas my information has Chassis 1 and 2 doing the last 2 flyaway races in the different yellow and white livery and no spare chassis listed.

I noticed, back then (2017)I was still intent on developing the Mazda KL, not buying a carbon Indy car chassis and stating that an F1 rear end was the racing piece I needed to buy because it was the one thing that couldn't be replaced with a substitute. How wise I WAS back then.