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- Aug 3, 2017
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Day 9: 10 A BIG Steps backwards...
So, today started where yesterday ended, needing to put the frame on its side to drill the bearing and camshaft holes! So first, I pulled my vise and stoned it. This is the first time stoning it, so I was pretty surprised to see how much this old table has for nicks
The mail also came with the die for 1/4-28, so I threaded the end of the crankshaft on both ends. Quick and easy
It took a bit to dial in and indicate (plus setting it up backwards once!) but I was able to get it flat and straight, then flat and straight again!
I realized it was backwards, and flipped it and reindicated Not much needed to be moved:
I indicated off the bolts to find the 'center', and then calculated the offset from for the center of the bearings. I also used the indicator to find the 'flat' to get my Y zero.
It is at this point that I noticed something 'off'. The bearing caps are on the wrong way. The short leg is supposed to go to the back! At the point, I probably could have reversed them back and been alright (and just shortened the rod to make up for it) however the rear 'overhang' was all wrong. I decided that I didn't like the look of it, and figured I could just shorten the rod a bunch more and be fine. SO, I continued on. First, I center drilled the top.
Then I drilled up to 1/2" through and center-drilled the bottom:
After that, the boring part! I started working on it with about 300 thou to take out, which was going to take a while. I slowly increased the cut by ~20 thou at a time and just kept going. However, here is where I noticed the problem (and you barely can as well!). That spot on the far face at the joint between the bearing cap and the casting is the threaded hole for the camshaft retaining screw. I had based the camshaft location off of the cylinder-side bolt rather than off the center line, so it is too close! Additionally, with this flipped around it just so happens that the setscrew hole would be 1/2 overlapped with the bearing cap bolt.
At the point, I decided enough was enough. I kind of hated everything about this frame casting. It has been a monster to try to find straight sides on any part of it, and it is bowed in a couple of places. My list of 'things to live with' was already pretty high because of this part, so I opted to just start over. Fortunately, I have this giant brick of aluminum that I found at a scrap bin somewhere a few years ago. Dimensions wise, it is a little more than an inch too large in each axis, which seemed perfect. I even was able to saw off about an inch in 1 dimension to use for the bearing caps:
Today, I went to town and attacked it with the fly cutter to get it square in all dimensions. I also finished the 'length'. My next step will be to make the cube the correct dimensions in the other two directions.
So, today started where yesterday ended, needing to put the frame on its side to drill the bearing and camshaft holes! So first, I pulled my vise and stoned it. This is the first time stoning it, so I was pretty surprised to see how much this old table has for nicks
The mail also came with the die for 1/4-28, so I threaded the end of the crankshaft on both ends. Quick and easy
It took a bit to dial in and indicate (plus setting it up backwards once!) but I was able to get it flat and straight, then flat and straight again!
I realized it was backwards, and flipped it and reindicated Not much needed to be moved:
I indicated off the bolts to find the 'center', and then calculated the offset from for the center of the bearings. I also used the indicator to find the 'flat' to get my Y zero.
It is at this point that I noticed something 'off'. The bearing caps are on the wrong way. The short leg is supposed to go to the back! At the point, I probably could have reversed them back and been alright (and just shortened the rod to make up for it) however the rear 'overhang' was all wrong. I decided that I didn't like the look of it, and figured I could just shorten the rod a bunch more and be fine. SO, I continued on. First, I center drilled the top.
Then I drilled up to 1/2" through and center-drilled the bottom:
After that, the boring part! I started working on it with about 300 thou to take out, which was going to take a while. I slowly increased the cut by ~20 thou at a time and just kept going. However, here is where I noticed the problem (and you barely can as well!). That spot on the far face at the joint between the bearing cap and the casting is the threaded hole for the camshaft retaining screw. I had based the camshaft location off of the cylinder-side bolt rather than off the center line, so it is too close! Additionally, with this flipped around it just so happens that the setscrew hole would be 1/2 overlapped with the bearing cap bolt.
At the point, I decided enough was enough. I kind of hated everything about this frame casting. It has been a monster to try to find straight sides on any part of it, and it is bowed in a couple of places. My list of 'things to live with' was already pretty high because of this part, so I opted to just start over. Fortunately, I have this giant brick of aluminum that I found at a scrap bin somewhere a few years ago. Dimensions wise, it is a little more than an inch too large in each axis, which seemed perfect. I even was able to saw off about an inch in 1 dimension to use for the bearing caps:
Today, I went to town and attacked it with the fly cutter to get it square in all dimensions. I also finished the 'length'. My next step will be to make the cube the correct dimensions in the other two directions.