Powerline 10/1 inspection

[Doug]

I never asked the lab guy for the actual hardness.
Everything was compared to a brake rotor, this is what he does drawn samples form the Ajax and pull rotors off the line. Some stuff goes into tiny brown paper bags and get sent out or stored in a room next to the MCC that feeds the arc furnaces.

Maybe I didn't ask the right questions, he was more interested in flaws and strength/toughness.
His job sucks, he does exactly the same thing over and over, reminds of sweat shop with all the intelectual stimulation of beings a ball sticher or the guy that paints dots on dice.

Doug

[rmchambers]

Sounds like you ought to be feeling a little better about Gus then.  That's good to hear.  It must be great to have all those friends with access to the proper testing toys!

Looking forward to seeing/hearing Gus back together and in action.

Robert

[Doug]

You meet a lot of people when you service electrical equipment.

One thing I have learned the humble doughnut is a currency of " favours ".

That and when Joe melt deck forman or Buddy service manager asks if you could wire his garage everything that goes around comes around. Never turn away the oppertunity to land a hand someday your gonna need one.

Yes I'm feeling better about Gus, and a bit foolish for stressing over things. I've probably also pissed of Anand a great deal by harping on the things that were wrong rather giving them credit for as much as they did right. Its hard to ballance and be objective when your so engrosed in something like this.

I find it funny that guys like Jack or Quin whom I suspect are as big prescion freak ( if not more ) can look at the Lister types and make judgement call on things based on gut feelings and be comfortable with it ( and right on all count so far ).The PS kit engines have offered challanges they more or less solved on their own. I had to know, and ask others, strip things that didn't need fixing, buff the hell out of parts ect ect....

I also asked a lot of Anand, perhaps held them to and expected a standard that a 700 dollar engine can't reach.

The learning curve is steep, but not so steep that I wouldn't consider a Gus2 or perhaps even a listeroid ( call this Bob ). I've had to aborted attempts to buy a KOEL KS6 ( listeroid 6/1 ) and now I'm talking to another group about a twin version of Gus2.

Maybe I need a Listeroid 12/2, a Petteroid 10-1 and a 20/1 GM90 and I can call them Harpo, Zeppo and Groucho ( add a twin Petter and I'll call it Karl )

Doug

[hotater]

WHEW!!

I thought we'd lost you there for a while.  One snort of lead-bearing green paint and you leaped right off into the deep end....with the rest of us.

Welcome to the world of   'Good enough for who it's for'.   

[Doug]

Learning curves are steep

Doug
 

[fattywagonman]

Wow Doug,
You did a lot of testing.... and thanks for sharing it...

Now you know the material is good enough let me tell ya a little story.... One day several years ago I needed to rebuild the 3-53 jimmy that ran the gen in one of my derrick barges... it was spittin' oil out the stack and making a real mess...  we were building a bridge and had a schedule to keep so out of service wasn't an option. We managed to get a sunday off and so we decided sunday was the day... I ordered a kit and we went to work... everything looked great except the valve stems had worn up into the rocker arms a good 1/4"... I've still never seen anything like it... new rockers weren't available so I took them down to the deck and filled the ends with 7018 and used a grinder to make a radius... Well those rockers lasted another 3 years most times 24-7 ...and then I sold the business... last I heard the gen was still in service with something like 20,000 hours on the rebuild... the moral of the story is that some things (like a rocker assembly) just don't need to be perfect to do their job... Remember the Indians use these things right out of the box... we just happen to have the luxury to re-build these engines

[Doug]

Today was the very last of the part inspections.....

Back to the machine shop to pick up the rebuilt head head. The factory head had an issues with the intake port being off center I didn't like and the spare had a less than inspiring job done on the seats as well as valve guides a little to large and not to be left out the valve keeper were not well made.

For 90 bucks I now have a head made from the best parts of the two and spares guides, valves and assorted parts.

It looks good and I'm happy!

I asked the machinist to double check the cranks I have, original VS the new one and check the fit of the bearings to the carriers. There's less the .0005 difference between the polished and new crank. There is a slight out of round and taper of .001 from my excessive polishing.

The carriers have no issues and I'll have about .003 to .004 clearence on the mains with the old crank. The old German looked over the old bearings and new ones in the carriers no comment from him. I work for a German years back and picked up a few phrases, I believe I heard this guy make a refernce to the back side of a barn animal about me  under his breath.

I thought I was doing something wrong using the vernier and micrometer I borrowed at work so I didn't bother checking things over like the bushing. Turns out I just lack the skill the to measure the difference between the new and used cranks.

Valve lifters aren't very nice but he says I'm wasting his time and my money having him resurface them.

Last comments from the machine shop:

You need to relax...  What do you expect from a 50 year old engine ? And these parts don't seem to be bad at all consider yourself lucky you could find them at all......

I thought I told him this was new ( maybe he forgot ) and not a rebuild of an old engine.

So my revised shortened list of issues with this engine:

Dirt, possibly from the grinding opperations.
Over tollerence vavle guides that lead to a poor job on the vavle seats in the spare head.
Crumy vavle keepers that had to be mix matched, filed and hand fit.
Off set casting intake port ( not realy Powerlines problem, but they should have not used this head )
Off set machining of the water inlet on both cylinder blocks that'll require a little extra causion to ensure there is no coolant leak.
Ugly flywheel surface voids I have to fill and cover up.

What I've learned:

I can't cast a block and flywheel in with a small charcoal fired furnace my drive way, but India they can and they do it they manage to produce resonable quality metal.

Machining is a matter of perspective there's a difference between what looks shiny and what's shiny enough.

Quality control over there still needs some work, some parts are perfect and absolutely flaw less others make you scratch your head.

I'm done here now, new thread for the assmebly

Again thank you guys for all your help and advice
Doug

[hotater]

Its been interesting following your angst, Doug. 

Would it be fair to say that in the final anaysis you found pretty much the same thing others have and the same level of quality and cleanliness between your engine and others?

[Doug]

Yes I think it would be fair to say that is correct Jack.

Where I excell was fretting over it....

Doug

[Stan]

Remember the phrase (attributed to a good friend)  "It's good enough for the girls I used to go out with"
Stan

[Doug]

Started making some some cooling system parts....

The housing for the thermostat is a # 16 JCI fitting, 1 1/4 niple, 1 1/4 union and this i a small jap thermostat and cooling fan switch. The watrer blank will cover the small oulet on the Petteroid head that was used for run threw cooling ( Ford tractor sending unit ). I'm going to use the injector side coolant port as an oultet for termo syphon.

http://www.putfile.com/pic.php?img=4584421

Doug

[Doug]

Gus had sand....

The paint seems to have prevented it from moving but, thats like betting a seat belt made of duct tape will save your life.

http://www.putfile.com/pic.php?img=4627756

Doug

[Doug]

The painting has begun:

Body filler was a dumb idea, now I've made more work or myself!

For those interested this is what a good coat of Glyptal looks like. When its thick enough the finnish changes from a semi gloss to near full gloss.

I was going to buy some more spot putty and bondo when something new caught my eye. A gray filler from Bondo that dries up hard instead of the softer easier to work body fillers. I'm going to try this and report back how well it works.

http://www.putfile.com/dougwp/images/31565

Doug

[twombo]

Doug

Gotta tell ya,  Gus is looking damn good to me! Keep up the good work and the QC guy will be running him when he is a "gray hair".

Mike

[Doug]

Found 3 pockets of sand semi covered in the cylender block today after a chemical strip....

About 1/8 tea spoon of sand in all at most hidden, this may be the source of the grit that ruined my bearings. Realy hard to say. The whole point of painting the insides was to prevent the movement of sand. Hard to judge what clumps were problems and what clumps were stable.

Pictures to follow shortly...

Doug

Wear your safety glasses when using chemicals and and tools that could throw material. I broke that rule today and had to wash my right eye for about a minut.

Safety first!

As promissed I uploaded the casting sand pictures today. I used my die grinder to liberate the sand, it looks like there's a lot more but rememeber there a mixture of paint steel wool in one photo and sand and iron filings in the other. As Always the casting has been sealed with Glyptal 1201A, now I know nothing will ever move and cause me trouble again.