A flathead V-8 engine

The water pumps, one on each side of the block, are castings on the full sized engine. They take water in from the bottom and it passes through the body of the pump up to the impeller and into the block. To make the pumps for this engine I had to make them in two pieces, much like the heads. This was to get the water passage inside. The pump bodies are aluminum and a bronze impeller is pressed onto a stainless shaft which rides on 2 sealed ball bearings. At the water side of the shaft is a small O ring which will seal the shaft from leakage.

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The carburetors are made to somewhat resemble a Stromberg 97. They will be of the air bleed type but outwardly will have the proper appearance. When I sat at the drawing board (computer) and drew up the engine I didn't have many hard dimensions to go by so a lot of the parts and pieces were scaled by eye and drawn accordingly. Such was the case with the carbs. The original carbs looked good on paper but when I set them on top of the engine they just looked a little too small so I revised the drawings and whittled out another pair. Although these look a tad too big they are closer than the first set. To top off the carbs I had the option of several different types of air inlets or air cleaners. I opted for the polished helmet style found on many hot rods. Along with the new carb dimensions I had to modify the flange on the intake manifold to accept the new size. To accomplish this I made an adapter plate that went over the one machined onto the manifold. This is held in place by some 2-56 screws.

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Although strictly cosmetic the generator, starter and fuel pump are modeled and added to give the appearance of a complete engine.

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That is a beautiful machine. Amazing talent! Thanks again for sharing.
Dave
 
The fan was was made from sheet aluminum. I cut a pattern from the drawing as a rough guide for sawing and then cleaned up the edges of the blades by milling and filing. A fixture was made to press the stiffening rib into the center. The fixture is a male and female with a groove cut in one side to accept a piece of drill rod. The other side had a larger groove milled with a ball mill to give clearance for the drill rod plus the thickness of the material. Once the beading was pressed into the blades then were twisted to the proper angle. The pulley is machined for ball bearings and rides on the end of the fan bracket seen in a previous picture of the generator.

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The exhaust manifolds are made from .375 O.D. stainless tubing. It is grade 316L and has a wall thickness of .035. I had made a specific tubing bender when I was building the V-twin so I used this as a base for the flathead. I needed a tighter bend, from 1.3 radius to .90. A new forming die and follower shoe had to be made. I bought a 3 feet long piece figuring that would be enough for practice and completion. I had some other .375 stainless tubing but with a .050 wall. I tried the bender out on this first and to my surprise it formed quite nicely. With the experiments out of the way I started making the mounting flanges. A piece of 303 was squared up and 8 flanges were cut off. A stop was put on the vise so the holes would all repeat on each piece.
With these finished it was time to bend the first pipe. I left a little extra on both ends for safety sake. It came out well. I then clamped it in the vise between 2 small V-blocks, rotated it to the proper angle and then using a slitting saw cut the angle that meets the flange. Three other short pipes were also cut.
To assemble the tubes I needed a holding and locating fixture. I started with a bar of CRS and tapped 4 holes representing the port spacing. Into these threaded holes I screwed 4 studs with a large flange on the tops. The whole fixture was then put in the mill and everything was skimmed off flush. The mounting holes corresponding to the top of the block were then drilled and tapped.
I then mounted a flange on each post and tightened them with 2-56 socket head screws. The main runner was clamped into the locating fixture and twisted and slid until it was lined up with the number 1 flange. Everything was tightened down. The other 3 curved pipes were then hand fitted to the runner and flanges. This would require a half round on one end to fit the main runner and an angle on the other end to match up to the flange. Once I had them all fitted I drew a line around them with a fine permanent marker. Each pipe was removed and another line was drawn inside the first. This would be the guide for cutting the port hole in the main runner. Once finished all the pipes and flanges were assembled and fluxed in preparation for silver soldering. Using my oxy-cetylene torch with a small tip and 56% silver solder I brazed the whole thing together. When I disassembled it I found that it had warped just the smallest amount so on the second pipe I did the main runner first and when it cooled I added the other three. That seemed to work much better.
gbritnell

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The final shots of the exhaust manifold build show the silver solder, flux and my 'Little Torch' which I used for touching up a few places I missed with the big torch.
And finally the pipe cleaned up, polished and mounted to the block.

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I am still in total awe of this project. Huge thanks for sharing.
 
I now have both exhaust manifolds finished. Along with them I finished the replica fuel pump along with a glass sediment bowl cut from the bottom of a test tube. As much as I like chopping away at metal I just couldn't force myself to replicate the fuel pump from one piece so it's all made from individual pieces and screwed together.
gbritnell

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Here are some final overall shots of the engine to date. Not very many parts left to make but they'll still take time. I'm looking at running around the first of November.

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