A flathead V-8 engine

What a beautiful piece of work. Thank you for posting.
 
I don't have the skill, patience, or time to attempt something like this, but I do love watching your work! :)
 
I have just finished hours of burring, filing and sanding on the last two remaining pieces, the bellhousing and the timing cover. I was told by a friend of mine that it would be a shame to remove all the tool marks from the bellhousing for the fact that it showed all the machining steps to finish it but although he had a point it just wouldn't fit the rest of the engine. The hardest part was finishing the inside. I probably should have made the steps about half the increments that they were. Nevertheless we a lot of filing I got it smooth.
I wasn't until I viewed the pictures that I saw the layout bluing in a couple of the mounting hole counterbores.
gbritnell

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The timing cover was quite a bit easier for the fact that it just wasn't as large as the bellhousing but it did have much smaller corners to get into.
gbritnell

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Excellent workmanship gbritnell, you have a skillset that is rapidly going away in this country. I'll be another one on this forum watch your progess and admiring your talent.
Regards
Patrick
 
As always, beautiful workmanship George.


Darrell
 
It's been so long since I posted and I have completed so many more parts that I really don't know where to start. I apologize for not doing regular updates but as you all know there is only so much time.
We last finished off with the hand work on some of the major components, so I'll try to pick up from there.
The internal parts, rods, pistons, valves and lifter were made and fitted. The rods are made from steel with bronze split inserts. The pistons are aluminum and will have 3 rings, 2 compression and 1 oil control.

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To make the bearing inserts I took a different approach than in my previous engines. For them I made up 2 pieces of stock and soft soldered them together. This was then mounted in a 4 jaw chuck and each insert was bored and turned. The inserts were then melted apart.
For this engine I turned the bearings in one piece and split them with a .010 slitting saw. This will leave a slight gap but not enough to affect the performance of the engine. The only other way would be to make a die and form some type of soft material.
For splitting the inserts I made up a fixture that was turned to a little less than the bore on the bushing. The fixture has a small clamp that holds the bearing in place for splitting. To put the oil and pin locating holes into the inserts I rotated the fixture and clamped an extra piece of bearing insert to it. This was indicated flat. The usable inserts were then held tightly against the shoulder on the fixture and against the other bearing surface for drilling.

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The valves are made from stainless steel. The lifters are made from drill rod and hardened. On a flathead engine the lifters and springs are down in the cavity in the center of the block. The lifters have an adjusting screw that is locked in place with a set screw. Once assembled the set screw can't be accesses to each mating valve and liter was adjusted to the proper clearance before assembly. Each assembly would need to be compressed so that the tiny E clips could be snapped onto the tips of the valves so a valve spring compressing tool needed to be made.

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