I finally got around to picking up some of the developed pictures from the Skillerns drug store a while back. The sales clerk told me about some expired color film that was discounted 50%. At first I didnt think it was worth purchasing at that price. This is before he mentioned the price was 50% off what I was paying for the black and white rolls of film.
He told me the pictures should still come out fine, just might not be so colorful. That is of course if I didnt wait too long before using the expired rolls. Otherwise they should be fine for my intended purpose. I took the chance and picked up a few of them to try out.
I now realize which pictures were taken with the expired rolls of film. There are a few of the pictures showing some color, well sort of color. The intake manifold was the first picture that caught my attention. It was almost the right shade of red. But the other ones did not highlight much color at all. But they are pictures taken of things that are not so colorful anyway. Mostly lesser shades of grey.
The last time I tried color film, only a few of them really came out decent. There were some good pictures of my grandfathers David Bradley chainsaw. But most of the others had no color at all. The rest of them just turned out bad. But that roll of film was way past expiration date and the store was throwing them away.
The store clerk at that time slipped a few of them in my bag. He said dont expect too much. But sometimes the pictures come out fairly good. Even tho they might not have any color. I do remember those last few decent pictures were at the end of the film roll.
So today I was attempting to make these spacers for the intake manifold. Mr Sadeskey walked me thru the shop, then just walked out, leaving me here all alone. I still dont know why I am so jumpy every time when there is a noise. In the shop class, all of the plumbing, electrical and gas piping is hanging exposed overhead.
There are creaks, groans, hisses and pops. Even spooky scraping sounds. Some noises might even be from the spirits of students past. Who really knows? I do know right now, I sure dont like being here in the metal shop all by myself. Dont know when I have been so nervous.
Just one more stop before chucking up the part on the lathe. I needed to center drill each piece. Since there was already a center punched mark for using the divider, I hit that spot with a center drill on the drill press. Just needed to drill deep enough for the live center to seat down in there to hold the part.
Talking about being nervous right now. I am in a strange shop full of all kinds of tools and machines I have no idea how to operate. But it would be so wicked to have a shop like this at home. I might never leave the garage. Maybe even move a cot out there and take up permanent residence.
To machine these aluminum pieces round, all I have to do is close the chuck jaws down tight. Then hold the small multi sided aluminum plate against those jaws. Then run up the tail stock up tight with live center to hold the plate. This keeps my part pressed against the chuck so it cant move. It should also be perfectly centered. Well that is if I dont get crazy with making heavy cuts. My only problem is figuring out how to turn this lathe on.
The lathes they have here in the shop are Clausing models. This one makes my tiny little lathe look like a childs toy from a Cracker Jacks box. After some trial and error, I figured it out. What threw me off at first is the power switch did nothing when I flipped it on. It is just a simple drum switch that has three positions.
When my grandfather helped me rebuild the little Craftsman lathe a few years ago, he went over how everything worked in detail. Then elaborated past even that. He went into depth on how the wiring was run. Then explaining how the switch works.
At the time, most of what he was explaining to me was nothing more than like words written on paper without a dictionary. I didnt understand everything. Actually not much of it at all. But after spending so much time with hands on operating the lathe and working with other equipment, some of that information started making more sense.
Originally the little lathe only had a simple toggle switch. But my grandfather had replaced that thing with a smaller drum switch similar to what is used on the schools lathe here. I was not completely lost figuring this lathe out. Just not taking any chance on screwing things up.
Off is the center position and right or left for forward and reverse. Since nothing made any difference, I looked over and down where the power comes in. There was a small fuse box with the disconnect lever pointing down. After lifting it up, the lathe was running. Maybe I should not have left the switch on before flipping up the power lever on this fuse box.
OK, I am feeling a little bit weak in the knees and need to sit down for a moment. Something I did that was totally stupid on my part. I know better and should have stopped when my gut told me something is not right. I cant believe this happened. Sure glad nobody was around to see me do that.
There is something I figured out about myself some time back. Well not really so long ago. Its when something happens, like what just did now and scares me. Or sometimes when I get caught totally off guard. Instead of panicking, I do a complete shut down. Even my heart stops beating or just slows down. Well maybe it does not change for a moment.
OK more clarification. Yes, my heart rate is getting ready to spike hard. But not until my brain does a complete assessment of what just happened. Like I have heard people sometimes talking about everything going in slow motion for that split second.
If by myself, I can usually figure out what went wrong, like right now. My eyes are moving all around taking everything in, but I am standing here stiff like a statue. No sooner when I realize what went wrong, my heart goes to pounding in my chest. I can feel the burn all over, then become a nervous wreck. All the normal shakes and jitters to follow shortly.
So while fiddling with the lathe trying to figure out how to turn it on, I rechecked the part. Stupid, stupid stupid. My heart is now racing and I cant get calmed back down. It will be a while before I will be able to get any control over myself.
While thinking things over in my head, I grabbed the chuck key just to make sure the jaws were tightly closed. If they are not, the jaws can start to open up while lathe is running. Stupid me left the chuck key in the chuck. This is the stupidest thing anybody can do.
You never leave the chuck key in the chuck. NEVER EVER! I had already figured out the lathe was not getting power. Then rechecked everything, so there would not be another problem when I found out how to turn the lathe on.
But dont ever leave the chuck key in the chuck. For any reason. There is never a reason to take your hands off the chuck key until after you set it down on the work bench or hang it on a tool rack.
When I looked down to the disconnect box, my hand just let go of the chuck key. STUPID STUPID STUPID!!!!!!! Without even thinking, I reached down and pulled the switch up. Then WHAM!!!!
The switch was flipped back off immediately. Out of instinct I quickly ducked down. Then froze there, not even breathing trying to figure out exactly what just happened. What the heck just did I just do? When I looked over at the wall where the noise had come from, there it was. There was the chuck key. It was stuck in the cinder block wall.
Holy crap, what the heck did I just do? The chuck key is stuck in the freaking wall! I forgot to take the chuck key out. Did I mention how stupid that was? I looked all over in the shop and fortunately nobody else was around. WOW, I just screwed up big time.
It took a while when my nerves finally calmed down, even tho my heart was still racing in my throat. I finally collected myself and walked over to the wall. Sure enough that is the chuck key I left in the chuck. It is embedded in the wall. I reached out trying to work it loose, then the chuck key finally gave way and broke free.
What I was really shocked about next is seeing another half dozen or so holes there in the wall exactly where this chuck key had taken flight and embedded itself. There are chunks missing in the wall along with matching holes like the one I just caused.
OK, I am obviously not the first person in metal shop to do this. But this is not something I would usually let slip by. I am good about figuring things out and learning just from watching other people making mistakes. Today I found out first hand by myself why you dont leave the chuck key in the chuck.
My grandfather harped on this every time he came over when we were putting my little lathe back together. It was totally ingrained in my head a long time ago. But today, it is like the first time he told me. I now realize why he kept repeating this over and over.
I really got tired of hearing him go on and on about never leaving the chuck key in the chuck. I thought maybe he was just getting old and forgetting he already told me two hundred and fifty-seven times before.
So my body is still shaking like crazy, almost like a have a high fever. My heart wont stop racing, and I have a bad case of the shakes. After walking around the shop in circles a few times, I headed for the horse trough. That is what the sink in the shop here is called. I splashed some water on my face trying to calm down and get my hands to stop shaking so much.
So I calmed down enough to get back on track. Holy crap again. That chuck key got some serious launch to break thru the cinder block like the way it did. What would of happened it someone was standing in its way? Could it go thru their skull? Crap I am still shaking.
OK, get it together man. Calm down. You learned an important lessen. Fortunately you didnt kill anyone and nobody was around to get hurt this time. Wow, just thinking about being a shop teacher and dealing with this stuff every day? How do teachers handle that much pressure?
I finally get my head screwed back on and now trying to pick up where I left off. The damage to the wall is not noticeable since there is already an obvious pattern there. The chuck key is all beat up anyway, so nothing really looks damaged any more than it was.
Well the lathe is now running, and I have some chips starting to peel off the part. My hands still have the shakes, but getting past my nearly fatal experience. What if Steve were here today helping me work on these spacers? He could be wearing a chuck key right now. I can see us walking down the hall headed to the nurses office to get a chuck key removed from one of our skulls. Holy crap again.
I decided to stick with manually operating the carriage on this lathe. I dont know exactly how to set up and engage the automatic feed. So not chancing that just yet. All I need to do next is ram the tool into the spinning chuck. Well, looking at the chuck I can see I would not be the first person to do that either.
Now I am finally making some progress. In just a few minutes the first one of these aluminum blocks was almost cut out round. About this time is when I heard the school bell ring. I just about jumped out of my skin.
Fortunately my first period class is right across the hall. So there is about 15 minutes before I have to be there. That should be enough time to finish this other part before the last bell sounds off. But now here are the first period students piling in while I am running this lathe.
Crap, just what I need is some of the guys watching me run a machine I have never operated before. I think everything is set up right. But Mr Sadeskey didnt give me any instruction of how to run this lathe yet. He left about 30 minutes ago and had not returned back.
The second bell already rang, as I am just finishing the other part. Mr Sadeskey walked back in and he noticed I was operating the lathe.
I wasnt expecting you to be ready to machine those on the lathe so soon. I figured you would get them cut out on the band saw. But not yet running the lathe this morning. So did you figure out everything? Did you run into any problems? How did they turn out?
They turned out great. Yea, uh, no sir, no major problems. My grandfather tried teaching me to be careful operating machines. One of the things he always reminded me is to never leave the chuck key in the chuck. After I said this, Mr Sadeskey immediately turned his head towards the cinder block wall full of holes. He did this almost instinctively.
Here are the parts, sir. I got his attention back and handed him the two round pieces of aluminum. Mr Sadeskey, I need to clean up the lathe really quick then get to class. I dont want a tardy when I am just across the hall.
Just brush it off and go to class. I will take care of the rest.
Thank you sir. I will be back tomorrow morning to finish these up if that is alright. I just need to figure out the taper that will get cut thru the center.
No problem Rick, I will be here at 7:00 am sharp. It looks like you did a good job on these. I am curious about how they end up looking like when finished.
All this time the other students were trying to get an up and close look of what I was making on the lathe. This was only getting me more nervous and that usually ends with mistakes being made. I sure dont need to repeat what already happened with an audience this time.
First period is for the Power Mechanics class. So all of the other guys coming in to class are ninth graders too. Well right now I am just about ready to bail out of here. A quick wash of my hands, then grabbing my books, I headed out across the hall. As I walked out of the metal shop, my eyes looked over to the cinder block wall that now has my personal touch added to it.
I walked in just as the last bell was finishing up ringing. I gave the teacher a big grin while running down the isle to my drafting desk. Fourth desk down on the right side wall. Why am I still shaking so much?
OK class, today you need to finish up drawing three dimensional rectangular boxes at both 30 and 45 degree angles. When done with that, move to the same on cylinders. I dont want to hear a bunch of talking. I will be right across the hall in the teachers lounge, so I can hear any noise coming out of here.
Wow, this wont take very long. Maybe if there is some time left over I can start sketching these adapter plates when finished. I have been practicing three dimensional figures already, so this will be quick and easy.
About thirty minutes later, I was done with the required work. The teacher was still doing whatever teachers do in the lounge. Likely drinking a bunch of coffee and reading the newspaper.
Since my work for today is finished, I decided to go ahead and sketch out my carburetor spacer. Mainly to look professional with the finished part. I can also calculate the right taper that will be cut thru the center of the round spacer.
Drawing this spacer is simple enough. I have been working on it for about 15 minutes. A simple sketch showing top, side, and bottom. Nothing complicated to draw this time. The dimensions are all here except for the angle of taper. I can include the angle on the blueprint or make sure enough of the information is included for the taper to be accurately calculated. I believe both of these are acceptable for a correctly drawn blueprint. Well it is a draft, not a blueprint. I would have to take this and run it thru the machine to print out copies in blue.
During the time I have been drawing up these spacers, my teacher had walked back in and now looking over my shoulder. That doesnt look like todays assignment. Maybe you would like some homework tonight or do you just want to fail this class?
No sir, I already finished up todays assignment. I handed him my work and thought about getting a little bit cocky. When the teacher usually takes a break, most of the guys screw off and dont bother doing the assignment. Then wait until nearly the end of class before scribbling out something just to get by on.
Well if you put as much effort in your school work as you do personal projects, then might get a decent grade. How about finishing these up, unless you want an incomplete for todays assignment.
Yes sir. Sorry about that. I looked over the drawings and noticed I had not filled in the legend. The scale and date were still blank. At first I had been writing freehand. But picked up a stencil for lettering. It sure makes for nicer work. I also noticed, well when not getting in a hurry, my free hand lettering has been much improving too. But todays attempts at freehand were not so good.
07-07-2022, 03:53 PM (This post was last modified: 08-11-2022, 11:37 PM by Terry Bentley.)
Chapter 111
Another day done finished and behind me now. After school, Steve hung around instead of heading home like he would normally do during the school week. Hey man, how are things going on the kart stuff? I was hoping we might get that practice in sometime before the next stone age or ice age.
Well that depends if the Russians bomb us with the nukes. We could get bombed back to the stone age. Or if enough of the nuclear bombs go off and change the weather, then that could start the next ice age. So Steve which would you prefer?
After Steve mentioned this I thought he was referring to the Twilight Zone episode that just aired. "The Shelter". It was about friends celebrating a birthday party with a neighbor that was a doctor. Then getting interrupted by a warning of an impending nuclear attack.
While toasting drinks they commented about the good doctor wasting his time building a bomb shelter. Even complaining jokingly of course about all that noise during the evenings and inconvenience from concrete trucks blocking the street.
So the residents go scrambling around trying to prepare themselves. But then they all turn against the doctor and his family with the only bomb shelter. Naturally it ends up being a false alarm, but sure makes you think. I wonder how people might act if something like that really happened. Who could you trust?
Right now at school we practice emergency drills drills just in case of a nuclear attack from the Russians. I have doubts covering my head and back of the neck will keep me safe if a bomb goes off anywhere in the north Texas area. Once again call me skeptical. My dads parents still own the old house he grew up in . It is just across the street from moms parents. There is a storm shelter in the back yard. But seriously doubt it would be of any use as a bomb shelter. Right now i think it would be perfect as a club house.
Steve then interrupted my thoughts. How about quit being a smartace and get some engines running so we can make that practice day before either one of those things can happen.
Yea sounds like a good idea Steve. I plan to get serious this weekend and finish the engines. So far I got started on the spacers to convert over those stock manifolds and use the Go-Power 6 petal reed cages you picked up cheap a while back.
You might actually get to try them out? I was about to give up on those completely. I got a good deal on them when I bought the new rod. But since then thinking that six bucks they cost could have been better spent.
Heck no Steve, after I ran the engine with the Palmini manifold and big carburetor, it worked too good not to try them out. Just had to get some things done before I figured out how we could use them without spending any more money.
I decided to make these spacers and use the old stock manifolds. Since hogging them out and using bigger reeds helped so much, I thought we could open up the passage and use one of your Go-Power pyramid reeds this time. I dont know if it was the bored out carburetor or a combination of that and the Palmini manifold that made my engine run so well.
After running the big carburetor, I changed back to a completely stock manifold. You remember when my engine turned into a turd. It was the last thing I did on that one practice day. So I know the stock manifold is useless the way it is.
Your engine still had the manifold we opened up and put larger reeds on. But I never tried the modified carburetor on that one. So dont know for sure if it works anything like the Palmini manifold. I would like to swap some parts around the next time we are at the track just to find out exactly what works the best.
But modifying this stock intake manifold to use the pyramid reed should get us very close to how it ran with the Palmini manifold. Well at least I hope it does. I really need a practice day to do nothing but swap parts around without doing anything else.
I will have these finished, or nearly finished tomorrow before school. Then by the weekend, I will know for sure if they fit right. When we hit the track next time, then find out how well the engines run using these in place of the Palmini manifold. Steve then called it quits for the afternoon when he had to go home.
The next morning I got to school early as possible. Steve has band practice so I hitched a ride with him. His dad usually takes him to school early when there is practice. So today, I had plenty of time to spend on the spacers.
Mr Sadeskey was no where to be found. The shop was open with the lights on, but only the one side of shop where the lathe is. I didnt want to just walk in and help myself. Another ten minutes went by and still no teacher. Since he knew I was going to be here today, I decided to go ahead and start back on the spacers.
I figured out how to turn the lathe on, so that was the only hold up yesterday. But I later realized Mr Sadeskey had not intended on me using the lathe just yet. Not until he gave me the low down on operating it. Just having that little Craftsman lathe at home doesnt mean I have a clue how to operate this big monster sized Clausing Colchester lathe here at school.
I got my wits about me today. Then looked over my shoulder and checked out the pocked out places on the cinder block wall. Since there was no new chunks on the floor yesterday morning, my little accident could have been filling in an existing disaster.
It would be smart of me to wait and let Mr Sadeskey give me the whole spew on operating this lathe. I would like to know for sure about some things I already sort of figured out. But standing here I could be waiting until the bell rings. He did not return yesterday until after the first bell had already sounded off.
So this morning I need to use my smarts. Thats them things Frank always talks about. But have no idea what he means. His reference is usually about the book learning kind of smarts. I prefer the common sense type smarts when working with machinery.
I opened up the chuck and set the round part in, then made sure it was secure. A quick check to confirm it was running flat by cranking out the tail stock spindle face against my part. Then time to start drilling out that center hole. I found some drill bits in the tool crib, then made my first pass. After smaller ones I stepped up to a 3/4 inch drill bit. Next thing is set up a small boring bar to finish it out to size.
I wonder how a professional machinist would make these parts? Should I bore out the hole first then cut the taper. Or maybe go ahead and set it up then machine the taper out to size? Yesterday all of the ninth graders piled in here getting really nosy about what I was doing. But now thinking they are in Power mechanics, not machine shop. Maybe I am just too insecure about someone watching me working on a machine i dont really know how to operate. Its not like I have ever taken shop class before.
I estimated the taper by calculating the correct angle last night at home. Basic geometry to get that angle figured out. It was fairly straight forward in the Machinery Handbook. Even realizing how to use the trig tables calculating the angle was no big deal.
Just lots of numbers that made no sense without some useful purpose. The calculated numbers worked out to be just under 7 degrees. Like 6 degrees and 57 minutes. Since I dont trust myself doing mathematical calculations, time to confirm using common sense.
Rotating the top slide or compound, as it is also called, around was not that accurate, since I could only guess between whole degrees. But if I held the base of pyramid reed cage up against the face of chuck, then rotate top slide around until it lays flat against the side of cage....Well there it is. I checked the degrees of rotation on the scale. It shows right at 7 degrees. Close enough.
With a small boring bar in place of the usual turning or face cutting tool, I made a few passes in the existing 3/4 diameter hole. After a whole bunch more passes, then the taper was cut out close to size on the first spacer. This is easy enough to do. I can get used to this kind of work.
Using the shops vernier caliper, I checked the size of large end. It measured more than close enough. Then I can confirm this by dropping in the 6 petal pyramid reed assembly. If it still needs to open it up some more, then use a hand held grinder at home. For now I wanted to be able to bolt this to the manifold, then blend and make a good fit thru the intake passage. Clean it up with just enough clearance for the pyramid reed to fit snugly in place.
What the heck? The taper is not even close. I still have problems with the small screws that hold the reeds on too. They dont clear the opening at all. OK, I can tell the angle is way off. It needs to be more. So first i will try getting this right. Then figure out what to do about getting the screws to clear.
I kept increasing the angle all the way up to 12 degrees. This last cut I now see is too much. I backed off less than 1/2 degree and a few more passes seems close enough to more forward. To clear the screw heads, all I did was a straight bore deep enough for them to fit. Wow that wasnt so difficult. I got this covered.
My grandfather had given dad his old Dremel Moto grinder. It has all kinds of attachments that should work great to do the finish work on these spacers. Everything can get blended nice and smooth. Almost look like a fancy porting job when finished.
It was almost time for me to bail out of here before I saw Mr Sadeskey. I apologized for going ahead and starting with out confirming everything. But he reassured me it was fine. He had left the shop open for me to get working in case he was not back any time soon. There was some attendance sheets that he had to turn in to the office.
I thanked him again for the help and would bring the parts by so he could see what I was doing in a few days. I had more work that needed to be done at home before they were finished. I made it across the hall to Drafting class with plenty of time to spare today. It was boring to do even more 3-D drawings again. How many times drawing the same type of shapes before we move on to something else?
Well today we did elliptical instead of three dimensional round shapes. This was a lot more difficult than I first thought. We were not allowed to use any templates this time. At the odd angles we were drawing, would not have helped anyway. I had to calculate the arcs and radius before any stick pictures could be drawn. This took up half the time in class. I wonder if Algebra could help out in any way to calculate? Probably no such luck. But being able to use any Algebra would at least help me figure what to do with it.
Algebra class sucked as usual. I still have no clue what this stuff was good for. But for English, I got an assignment to write a short story. Hum....I wonder? No particular subject. Just different styles of writing. OK maybe I can pull this off.
Out of the different choices I have to pick from, there is one that might fly. I take a story, and write a condensed version, like in Readers Digest. How hard could it be to condense the notes I have been keeping on all of our karting escapades and turn it into a short story? I turned it in last year as a completed story. But since then added a lot to what happened since then.
So what if the teacher thinks it is boring to her. That wasnt the assignment to make it exciting. Just a condensed story. I can use the one I wrote last year in Language Arts. It needs some serious cleaning up. I had no clue about first, second or third person writing at the time.
But after proof reading my story about ten thousand times before turning it in, I better figured some of that stuff out. It is still difficult to make easy to understand sometimes. Especially if I am jumping from one character to the other. It seemed to me the story didnt flow so smoothly or as believable if I kept including "I said" or "he said" delivering a conversation between the characters.
Another choice is mocking up an advertisement like in a newspaper or magazine. I had to include some type of sales hype and presentation. Included would be a short but detailed description of the product for the ad. Hmm, I wonder, could something like a kart or part advert work for this? All of the aftermarket engine parts claiming massive power increases sure seems to get readers attention.
From all of the questions in Jim Butlers Karting Corner, there are a lot of people relying on the product testing and inquiring about those hotrod parts for nearly every engine running at the tracks.
Well that assignment is not due for a while, so it goes on the back burner for now. If something new doesnt slap me hard in the face, I will resort to rewriting last years story.
Back home Steve showed up again, which was unexpected. We usually ride the bus together, and he bails out headed straight for home. He usually has homework even when he doesnt have homework. His mom makes sure there is nothing he is lagging on in any of his classes. If he has finished todays work, then go ahead and start tomorrows homework. Even if he doesnt know what the assignment is yet. He can still study up on what is in the next chapter or subject.
Hey man, I decided to help you out getting everything ready to go practice again. What can I do to hurry things up?
You dont even need to ask, as I handed him the spacers and explained what size and where to drill the holes. The first two bolt holes will fit the studs sticking out of the intake manifold. If everything fits and clears, then nothing else needs to be done but grind and blend.
After he drilled out where I had left the center punch marks, we did a trail fit. It looked like the problem was still there. The carburetor might not be sticking out far enough yet so the low speed needle could be easily adjusted. If I flipped the carburetor over, then the linkage would not clear.
The older HL-15 carburetors we have been running this whole time, use different style needles. They didnt really stick out like these other ones do. It was simple enough to braze a small tab sticking off to one side of needle. This made it easy to slightly adjust the low speed needle out there on the track. The one down side here is it had to be perfectly indexed so the tab was accessible enough to make adjustments on the track. In the pits was not so much a problem.
So at first, I had to get the carburetor adjusted about right for most driving conditions. Basically the low speed needle had to be open enough not needing much more adjusting out on the track. For this to work on the Palmini manifold, I needed to braze a small tab sticking straight up.
Now when driving on the track I didnt need to look where the needle was. I could find the small tab sticking straight up. A slight movement forward or back to richen or lean it down. Before this, my fingers could not get into the small space to adjust. It is really that simple.
The high speed just cleared the side cover enough, so all was needed is braze a washer in the slot. Otherwise we would have to come in to the pits and use a screwdriver to make any adjustments. Actually Mr Cates had already done this on the first carburetor.
When trying out the Palmini manifold that one practice day, I realized this was a bigger problem. Using the newer carburetor, the needles had even less clearance up against the side cover. It was still almost impossible to adjust the low speed needle while on the track. That day I had adjusted it in the pits, then tweaked the high speed needle out there running laps to make sure I was in a safe area. No real fine tuning after I was comfortable the engine was on the rich side of safe.
This stock manifold locates the carburetor slightly different, so with the spacer and reed cage, plus the thickness of three gaskets, there might be enough room to possibly make adjustments while out there driving on the track. I thought about this after remembering about how hard it was to adjust when trying out the Palmini manifold.
I had an idea, if this ended up being a major problem. It might work by just rotating the carburetor. Well that would be index it so many degrees so the needles would clear the side cover of engine. Since a Tillotson can run in any position, I didnt see this as a problem. Plus with the carburetor rotated slightly, would make it look super trick.
The one down side, like there is always a down side, is I need to counter bore those two holes and screw the spacer down to the manifold. Then drill another set of holes, thread, and use long enough studs for the pyramid reed and carburetor.
This might be a good thing. Oh wait that is one of Franks personal lines. I am not allowed to use it for myself. That would be plagiarism. Or something like that. I have intentionally not jotted it down here in my journal considering the many times he has over used it.
On this carburetor adapter, I could use epoxy on gasket surface before screwing down in place. So it becomes more or less a permanent part of the manifold.
The cool factor is just seeing the carburetor rotated about ten to fifteen degrees from how it would normally bolt on. A real simple fix here is just turning the carburetor a full 90 degrees, like it would be mounted on a vertical shaft engine turned horizontal. But to me that doesnt have real cool factor going on to it. So it is down to cool or practical. And the cool factor always wins. Well most of the time.
Steve, to me it looks like we need to make some changes. A couple more holes will have to be drilled and then tapped out to 1/4-20. Those holes in the spacer now need to be counter bored. The only thing I have that might do the job is a reamer.
I will go dig one of out of the bucket over by the lathe. Go ahead and set the depth of a slightly undersized drill bit first, then follow behind that with a reamer. This should leave a flat bottom for the Allen screw to seat down on. Any questions?
Yea man, but dont you mean socket head cap screw? So where is my coke?
Hey Steve, you remember last time I bought the drinks. It was your turn to pick them up. You even told me it was no problem, right before scarfing down the last of my M&M's.
Oh yea, well I aint really thirsty right now anyway. Maybe later make a run up to the 7-11 and do that. Nah, I am good.
OK, anyway I am way ahead of you man. I figured out what you were doing after you said the low speed needle was too close to the side cover.
OH CRAP! HOLD ON STEVE! Forget everything we just talked about. What the heck was I thinking? That adapter is supposed to space out the pyramid reed. I dont think it will work like I thought. If just using it as a spacer for the carburetor would be perfect. But I didnt think all of this thru well enough.
So let me rehash this one more time. Dang it! It is right. I was picturing the Westbend Vee reed in my head for some reason. Even a four petal pyramid reed wont work either. These wont rotate like the six petal reed will. So we are good. Well I think we are good. Go ahead and drill them out Steve. Drill the first one out and we double check to make sure this all works. I wont do anything to the second one until everything fits like pictured in my head right now. Then it should work out after figuring for what I didnt think out well enough on this one. You got it Steve?
About 20 minutes later Steve was satisfied he had done a fantastic job counterboring the holes using a reamer. The bolts sat just below flush on the face of spacer. I bolted it on the stock manifold and could now envision the completed assembly like it would be on the engine. Basically a quick check using some of the spare parts on the work bench. By rotating the carburetor just enough to clear those counterbored holes, needles could be adjusted a lot easier now.
The diameter had already been scribed for what size to make the center line of carburetor mounting holes which worked out to be 1.800". I went ahead and marked a radius that is perpendicular to the bolt diameter. Can you actually do that on a radius? These lines were scribed using the sharp edge of my vernier caliper far enough from each of the counterbored holes so they could be drilled and tapped without interference.
First a center punch mark, then using a number 7 drill bit, following up with a 1/4-20 tap. These are the steps Steve used to finish the other two holes. One small issue is drilling the pulse hole. It is going to be at a funky angle, but should not be too difficult.
With the carburetor gasket a mark was made where the pulse hole goes. I first left a dimple using the drill press with 3/32" drill bit. Then with a hand held drill, the angle was eyeballed and penetrated about half the way thu spacer.
From the bottom side I did the same trying to intersect that first hole. So long as the two small holes sort of lined up and drilled slightly past each other, there should not be any problem. Since it is only drilled 5/16 inch deep from both sides, not much chance of complete failure.
I probably dont need to bother so much with a pulse hole, since we are still gravity feeding the fuel with stock gas tank mounted on top of the engine. But I was curious and wanted to find out how much trouble it would be to drill this out. Sometimes the pulse hole is just drilled past the reed cage into the manifold. I was trying to carry it back to the original location on stock manifold. This way it is fed directly from the crankcase instead of being less effective if only drilled thru only the reed cage flange.
Originally Steve had fabricated, for lack of a better word more specifically describing his efforts, a small bracket from sheetmetal. It bolts to the manifold and sticks out under the carburetor. The throttle shaft arm lines up with that bracket. So this is how we set up the linkage. I had to slightly alter this bracket when trying out the one modified carburetor and Palmini intake manifold for our second practice day.
With the carburetor now angled, rotated, or indexed so many degrees, Steve went ahead and made another bracket. Actually ending up just by cutting off some material, then rotating the old one so it now lines up with the offset carburetor. Drilling another hole and he can bolt back on the manifold like it had been.
So when all the parts are bolted on the engine, the carburetor is slightly rotated off being square to the engine. Now we can easily tweak the needles out on the track without any problem. Well that is the plan.
I remember back when I first drove the kart when still belonging to Mr Cates. He made sure I could make adjustments to the carburetor while driving out there on the track. He gave a quick explanation in the pits, then when I was making laps, he gave me a hand signal after listening to how the engine was running.
I acknowledged this, nearly screwing up letting go of the steering wheel with one hand coming out of a turn. Then made an attempt to adjust the high speed needle while driving one handed on the carburetor. At that time, I never realized the low speed needle was not adjustable since being so close to the engine side cover. Tonight I have taken care of that problem. Now it should be easy enough adjusting both needles while running on the track.
I always adjusted the engine, usually when still cold in the pits first. Getting the low speed needle opened up enough for it to sound slightly rich. A deep throaty, not a hollow gasping sound when hitting the throttle quickly. I made sure the idle screw was nearly backed off all the way too.
But this causes the engine to load up and die fairly quickly when off the throttle for only a few seconds. Most of the other karts I have watched are running and just idling sitting on the grid waiting to be released out onto the track. To me this is not set up for racing. It is fine for a lawnmower or even a minibike.
But you need a good rich mix of fuel when the kart is set up going thru a hard turn on the track. I found this out by a quick choke with my hand sometimes out here practicing. After the engine warms up it can get lean for a split second when under a lot of load exiting any of the tighter turns. This also helps keep the engine from running too hot after a lot of consecutive laps.
I set my engine up this way and Steves was left alone. His engine was adjusted more like the other karts I had checked out at the track that first night we got a chance to see the races. After we both ran a bunch of hard fast laps, my kart would always have a slightly better run out of the turns. Even with the smaller axle gear. When back in the pits, you could feel a temperature difference by holding your hand close to each engine.
This got me to thinking about something else too. Is there an optimum engine temperature that could be monitored out on the track? I wonder what type of gauge we could come up with to do this? Right now I richen up the high speed needle until it just starts to four cycle, then screw it back in until the engine clears out.
So far this has been a good way to properly adjust the carburetor. But the low speed needle has to have some affect on the whole range of rpm. If it is too rich, then I might end up with the high speed needle pinched down just a little too much that could make the engine run hot and slow down slightly.
What if the low speed needle was too lean and I had the high speed opened up more to compensate for that? It might end up running hotter, but still could be too rich on the top. Wow this gets complicated really fast.
Getting a grip on adjusting the carburetor is one of the things I had managed to figure out from the two times we did go to the track for practice. Even with all of the distractions, like Frank to be more specific, and his magic super duper special Dart prototype A-Bone wannabe chassis. So the practice days were not completely useless for testing some ideas that have proven to work when we made it out for our first race.
08-09-2022, 01:19 AM (This post was last modified: 08-17-2022, 11:51 PM by Terry Bentley.)
Chapter 113
Steve left not too much later than the usual time this evening. It was bail out and make it home before his mom was finished setting the dinner table, or he would be begging me to stick around to mooch a free dinner here. But if that happened, he would be facing the wrath of his mom when later returning home. He usually chose to get home before he had to get home.
The one thing Steve did not want to deal with is listen to his mom go off on him ranting about her slaving all afternoon making dinner for everyone and him deciding not to show up. There was always plenty of other starving children out there that would be more than willing to get home in time to eat. He should show some consideration and be appreciative for what he has.
Shortly after I finished dinner, Chris called me on the telephone. I only spoke with him once since he left with his kart last Sunday. Just to thank him for that new set of tires. It is weird. He was like almost an everyday occurrence after we first talked about doing all that work on his kart. We talked to each other on the telephone nearly every day and he was also here both weekends.
Then later Sunday afternoon, the work we did on his kart was finished and he was gone. Everything came to a hard screeching halt. I took a breather and then got back focused on what needed to be done on the engines getting us closer to our next practice day at the track. Then I decided to make that trip over to Franks house Sunday evening which was a complete bust. A total waste of time from the way I saw it.
That last time we talked Chris never stopped mentioning how much he learned building his kart and how awesome it turned out after all of that work was done. He said his debt to me would never be completely paid off. He owed me a lot. That was way too much work for anyone to be doing as a favor or just helping a person out.
Me and Chris picked right up where we had left off. He seemed more than pumped about going back to the track soon as everything else was finished. Covered mostly what I have done to get the engines ready. I gave him the condensed version of what I had been working on. Mainly focusing on the intake manifold adapters and assembly of the engines. Modifyiing them so we could run the bigger carburetor. Then Chris went into warp drive about carburetors. He was back to talking about everything relevant after discovering something totally by accident earlier this year. Well at least relevant to his carburetor and the problems he had encountered.
That very first time we talked, it was almost nonstop in a one way conversation. Well it was a one way conversation. He told me about buying a used Tillotson carburetor from someone at the track and installing it on his engine. Then some minor problems he had. But now he filled me in on the complete novel that led up to him replacing the stock float bowl carburetor with the used Tillotson.
Chris got the kart as a Christmas present from his dad. But it was after he parents had divorced. Chris thought it was his dads way of trying to make up for things. But he had no way to get his kart to the local Fabens track. So he rode it around the neighborhood in the alleys and occasionally in the parking lots on Sundays when the stores were closed. There were other karts that usually showed up in the parking lots.
It took no time at all before he had destroyed the chain and wearing out the engine gear. This is when he changed over to a Mercury clutch. After seeing an ad in a kart magazine, it was ordered and he waited very impatiently for it to arrive so he could get his kart up and going again.
About this time, Paul Fisher, who was his next door neighbor at the apartments he lived in, had seen Chris riding it around. Paul talked to him about racing at the local kart track and invited him to go. That is how he first got to start racing. Shortly after that, he was racing almost every weekend. But no luck at all being competitive just yet.
Chris said he did not know anything about changing gears, tire pressure, how the kart should handle or even working on the engine. He had been keeping the engine together when bolts would fall off. That was his self taught limited ability to working on the kart. We first met up at the hardware store that one Saturday afternoon so he could buy some bolts that had been lost on his engine.
It was one day at the track when a small screw came out that held the air filter on. He was still running the stock float bowl carburetor. The engine slowed down a bunch and started chugging a lot more than normal. He tried adjusting the big needle on bottom of carburetor and it helped a lot, but engine was still slower than it should be.
He had turned the high speed needle in. At the time all he knew was the needle was screwed in farther, but not understanding what it actually did. It was not until much later that he understood it to restrict the amount of fuel going in the engine. After pulling off the track he examined the engine to see what had changed. Then realized the air filter had moved. The filter was no longer centered to the carburetor. It was now rotated down to one side. After removing the outer cover, he saw one of the screws was missing.
Chris looked all over over the ground then finally gave up trying to find the screw. Looking closer at how the air filter was made, he freaked out at what he saw. There was a small piece of screen wire that covered the carburetor opening. Then a bracket that was held on with the two mounting screws. Except one of them was missing.
The filter element was sandwiched between the inner and outer cover with a single bolt run thru and screwed in to the bracket. What caught his attention is the small piece of screen wire was partially sucked into the carburetor. If it got sucked in, he thought it could have have destroyed his engine.
It was still early and he wanted to get some more practice in, so wondered what would happen if he just took the air filter off. Since most guys running in the faster classes dont run any air filters, he didnt think it should cause a problem. But didnt know if this was a bad idea since he was running a bushing engine.
He went around asking other drivers what they thought. He kept getting mixed answers. Some guys said it might cause the engine to over rev from getting too much air and could blow up. Others told him it would slow down because the air flow was increased too much for the motor to handle.
Chris told me that most of the guys in the junior bushing class were running Clintons. But almost nobody had done anything to their engines. The ones he had payed any attention to still had the stock air filter box. Some had a round filter and others had a square one.
This was back when he had just started racing. Then he noticed the two brothers that had been running in his class. They were fairly new but did run faster than a lot of the other drivers at the time, except were not very consistent. Too many times they would break down or run off the track and not finish for the night. Not to mention crashing into each other all the time.
But he did notice the engines they were running had Tillotsons but no air filters. He wanted to ask questions, but the grandfather would not offer any insight about what they did on their engines. The brothers always stayed to themselves and rarely ever talked to the other drivers.
Chris still doesnt know much about them. For the amount of time he has been racing, has gotten to know most of the racers, just not the two brothers. While Chris was talking to me, he just realized the flagman was not the dad but their grandfather.
Paul Fisher had told Chris the brothers were twins, Bill and Phil. Chris got a good laugh when Paul told him this before realizing he was being serious. Past knowing their names, even he didnt know much about them.
During this time that Chris had been racing, these two brothers had been in to a lot of altercations that usually ended up in their favor. It has also run off a lot of the faster racers. Then Chris mentioned about when David Watkins ran with me the first time I came out to the track.
I had to interrupt Chris right then to ask if he had read about David in the May issue of Karting World? I was not sure at first since I had only met him that one night at the Fabens track. But after reading the magazine and saw his picture I was sure it was him.
May 1961 Karting World David Watkins
David was super fast, but kept getting involved with the brothers just like me and Steve had done at our first race. So David was one more driver that left to go race at another track. Just like Mr Thompson and his son Ryan had done. Chris introduced them to me at the South 77 Strip when we visited last week.
Chris then got back to telling me his story. Since the two brothers were running without an air filter, Chris thought it must be OK. So he took off the other screw, removing the whole assembly. Chris then asked me why would the air filter housing have a smaller hole than the opening on carburetor?
I thought about it and didnt really know, since not picturing in my head exactly what he was talking about. But most of our engines were incomplete we got from Gasset. So didnt really pay attention to the stock air filters. He asked about my modified carburetor and said it looked a whole lot bigger than the one on his engine.
He finally got back on subject again about the first time running without the stock air filter. After removing it from his engine, it idled up way too high then layed over and died when giving it any gas.
Then he tried to adjust the needle, but not until backing off the idle screw. That first time the engine fired up, his kart had launched forward then immediately died. After adjusting the big needle on bottom of carburetor, the engine was now running better. He kept backing out the big needle until the engine was loading up. Then turned it back in slightly.
After getting back on the track, his engine ran a lot faster on the straight away, but kept nosing over in the turns. He had to feather the gas pedal or push it down very slowly before it would start running right. Something else he noticed is when turning the steering wheel the engine would also fall down on power.
Back in the pits, he asked some of the faster guys why his engine was acting like running out of gas exiting the turns after removing the air filter. Only one other racer he had gotten to know offered some help. Chris explained everything he had done, then the guy asked him about adjusting the low speed needle.
The guy showed him where it was on the float bowl carburetor and helped Chris to tune it better. This was the same guy Chris ended up buying the Tillotson from. He had upgraded to the new model HL-115A that had just recently come out.
Chris paid $5 for the stock Tillotson from a Power Products. He didnt remember the model number or what the numbers that were stamped on the flange even meant. The guy helped Chris change out the carburetor that night at the track. With some creative rigging they even got the linkage working good enough not to worry about.
Chris was totally impressed how much faster his engine was now running. Just from ditching that stock air cleaner then right after that changing out the carburetor. The guy managed to tune the Tillotson fairly close, since Chris has not done any adjusting since that night.
After changing the carburetor, Chris has been running faster than most of the other guys in the junior bushing class. But the really fast guys still ran away with it. He could not keep up with any of them. Unfortunately most of these guys didnt stick around very long before leaving and never coming back.
Chris went into some detail, even tho not understanding what had changed so much about his kart. It is now a lot harder to drive or handle like it used to do. He was having to fight it in the turns. He also has to be very careful in the tightest turn at the track. Now the driven tire goes to spinning like crazy exiting that turn.
With it spinning so much now, did not take very long before that tire blew out. The tire was wearing down a lot faster. He has changed it out a couple of times already.
I had to cut our phone call short, since my little sister was standing there staring up at me with her arms crossed. She wanted to use the phone. With the face she was giving me I had no choice but to cave in. But my mind was thinking about what Chris had told me about everything.
I wonder if improving his engine that little bit with a bigger carburetor did actually change the way his kart handles? I have no idea how a dead axle kart would drive like on a track. So my brain is going to stay busy for a while until I figure this one out.
Back in the garage, I dug out one of our extra, extras. We have several Clintons that I have not torn apart yet. These are not complete engines. One even has a big hole is side of the block. But this particular engine does have the air filter base still bolted on.
After a quick inventory, I found another carburetor with the filter assembly. In a box of parts was a round filter that looked complete. On that one smaller Clinton, the A-200 also had the filter base still intact. The first thing I noticed is a missing screw. Wonder if it is the same side that Chris discovered missing on his carburetor?
Clinton A200 closeup carb
All of these filters were different. The round filter material is made of what looks like aluminum shavings from the lathe all pressed together. One of the square filter elements I thought might actually be horse hair.
Clinton square filter
One of the housings still bolted to the carburetor had a rib going across the opening. Then I found the filter like Chris was talking about. He was right. The opening is a lot smaller than air horn of carburetor. There is a piece of screen wire covering the opening. That has to be very restrictive.
Clinton round filter
With such a small venturi in carburetor and all of the restrictions like the opening and screen wire is probably why the engines are so low on horsepower. But being low, they can run for years and years without any failures.
I am starting to see how someone can make claim to doubling the power on one of these engines. possibly doing so without too much in the way of modifications to the intake and exhaust ports. My brain is starting to put a plan together with all of this new found information.
08-18-2022, 01:52 AM (This post was last modified: 08-24-2022, 06:34 PM by Terry Bentley.)
Chapter 114
Why do I keep doing this? I get so caught up in everything we are working on then completely screw it up. My mind has been going non-stop working out all of the little details in my head. But I dont stop and confirm what I figured out is actually going to work or not.
Its like when I figured out the taper on the six pedal pyramid reed cage. I crunched all of the numbers and came up with what I assumed would be the correct angle. Except I was almost 5 degrees off. Argh! This gets so frustrating sometimes. No, all the time.
After Steve drilled out and counterbored the holes in carburetor adapter, I thought it was perfect. It looked to me exactly like I had pictured in my head. So this adapter should fit and every problem has been worked out and taken care of. WRONG!
Tillotson on stock manifold
Here is the stock manifold with The Tillotson carburetor we have been running. That would be the model HL-15A. This is why I decided to go the way I did. To space out the carburetor far enough for the needles to clear. Specifically the low speed needle. Well the main reason to space it out is to use the Go-Power six petal pyramid reed assembly.
Tillotson on Palmiini manifold
Looking at the Palmini manifold actually mocked up on an engine this time, I see how much interference there is with the low speed needle. Originally this was not such a problem. With the older model carburetor, those shorter needles would have extensions brazed on. An offset tab for the low speed to clear the shroud. Then making it easier to adjust while on the track.
But now I am realizing how critical carburetor tuning is, we really need to have both needles more accessible on the track. I doubt if either of us really will be attempting to make adjustments while racing. But on the pace laps making sure the carburetor is at least close enough.
With this first spacer almost ready to try out, I found out after we committed, OK I committed to it, that was not necessary to rotate the carburetor now. If I would have just checked it for fit before telling Steve to counterbore the two holes..... Well doesnt matter so much either way.
I had assumed since the stock manifold mounts the carburetor closer to engine block, it had to be spaced out more than it really needed after all. I wanted to keep the reed block stuck in there deep as possible, but with the spacing to get needles to clear the side cover of engine.
OK maybe I will just leave this first spacer as is. Go ahead and mount one carburetor at the funky angle. It should not make any difference. Maybe if this one engine is extra fast, then everybody will have their carburetors mounted this way next time out at the track. Not really, hardly any of the other racers have done modifications to their engines.
When I finally sat down and did a trial fit, realizing everything I had assumed was not exactly correct. The adapter will work as I had first planned. But now realize it didnt have to be made so complicated as it turned out from making alterations without first confirming was needed.
After the test fit on the stock manifold that was hogged out to match the adapter, I now see we didnt have to rotate the carburetor at all. Yes it is close to the side cover, but enough clearance we can work with. You can see the adapter fits fairly well on stock manifold.
Adapter on stock manifold with Tillotson
Right now, if I use my Palmini manifold, Steve uses this modified stock manifold and Chris will use his new Go-Power manifold, we can see which ones work out the best. I did notice the carburetor just sticks straight out on the Go-Power manifold. It comes with an angled spacer that also gives clearance for the needles. Well, that is what would make sure there is enough clearance. In the ad it says is used for the stock float bowl carburetor.
Go-power intake manifold ad
This ad makes some impressive claims. A 15% improvement still using the stock carburetor. Imagine swapping a real one on there. I hope it is more than just bench racing hype.
I can get lazy with these parts we made then go forward on assembling the engines. Since the Cates original engine is fully modified, well the intake and exhaust ports are squared and opened up a lot, then fit it with the stock manifold that we opened up with bigger chainsaw reeds.
The three of us will have nearly identical engines, with exception to the different intake manifolds. This will make it ideal to test between them and confirm which setup is faster. We can even swap engines between karts to verify it. Wow, so much to test out before knowing for sure what works.
This leaves the Cates original engine as a back-up for us, just in case. That is just in case we blow one up. Or worst case, one of us is close to those two brothers running Westbends and needs a little bit more to make the difference.
I dont want it to be this way. I dont want to rely on that engine to get one of us closer. My plans are to work our engines over without so much in the way of radical porting. Mostly stock, but with a lot of testing and setup to make best use of the power we are getting out of the engines.
If one of us does loose an engine, and has to swap out, would need all of the advantage possible for the last heat race. At least running Fabens where the last heat race is for the win. Who ever is relying on that engine will start a lot farther in the back without the points from that lost heat race. I am going to try and hold off changing out to this engine unless one of ours is actually broken. Not just to get a little bit more power.
But now I am thinking about other modifications that can be done on this one engine to make it even faster than already is. When me and Steve got our two karts together and running, I had built both of the engines nearly identical. Everything was mostly stock between them. Our first race the two engines were running basically the same lap times. Even with Steve weighing slightly heavier than me.
On the second practice day, I had swapped over some parts to try out. It did make my engine run a whole lot faster. Especially when I changed over to the modified carburetor. So I know what parts will help the most. I want to keep the three engines close to the same which should make them almost equal on the track.
I want to try some other things out with the modified engine on our next practice. Then if engine holds up, start improving our engines little bit at a time. I think this is a good plan so we dont go overboard. Well I dont get crazy and end up having three broken down engines at the track.
Here is what I had to do to the stock manifold. You can see how much had to be ground out for the pyramid reed cage to fit. The spacer bolts over the opening ended up being 5/8 inch thick. There is just enough surface for the gasket to seal without any problems.
Stock and modified manifolds
Another thing I almost did was to epoxy the adapter permanently to the manifold. I am now glad that did not happen. There is not enough clearance to get the manifold bolt in place to screw into the block. Man that sure would have been a waste. I guess it can be possible to use some short studs in place of the bolts. But just one more thing to complicate it all. That sure would have made it hard to access the nuts if using the studs after epoxying the adapter on to manifold.
Palmini and stock manifold with adapter
Another thing I tried was to keep the intake opening small as possible. I noticed how big the opening was on the Palmini using the four petal reed assembly. Since the six petal reed does not need as large of an opening, I only ground out just enough metal for reed to fit. The holes have not yet been drilled where the studs will go for the carburetor to mount.
Rotated carb on adapter
This is how the carburetor is going to look like when rotated around like I had first planned. Doing this was just to have clearance with the low speed needle. But I didnt bother to take the time and check everything over first before getting Steve to counterbore the mounting holes. Just assumed I had it all figured out in my head.
I am now glad we only finished out one of these adapters so far. But that was the reason for only doing this one first. To test fit and make sure of everything. But I keep getting ahead of myself working on too many things at the same time. While kicking myself in the butt, not literally, thinking about other things I could try out on the engines. Just stop it already. Stick to the basics or we will never get back to the track and race again.
After re-reading some of my notes here in the journal, there is a lot of repetition. But there is a reason for this. First it is because I have added to it as I find things out. Another reason is to make sure I dont keep repeating the same mistakes or getting too far ahead of myself and making more mistakes.
08-24-2022, 06:21 PM (This post was last modified: 08-29-2022, 06:47 PM by Terry Bentley.)
Chapter 115
For rest of this week Steve had band practice. That gave me an idea and seriously hoping it would pan out. Since I really needed to get a few more of the carburetors modified, was thinking about asking Mr Sadeskey of possibly using metal shop for the next couple of mornings.
When I first showed him those intake parts, he was more focused on my modified carburetor. He held on to it and passed the carburetor back and forth between his hands a few times before finally setting it back down on the desk. If I could work on these at school, that would help out a bunch getting us closer to having everything finished.
So this morning I did come prepared just in case the shop teacher would allow me to work on them. I brought with me the three carburetor bodies already stripped down to the bare casting. In a small box were the necessary reamers I had used to bore that first one out.
This worked out great. Mr Sadeskey was thrilled about helping me out today. Not only did he stick around most of the morning, I finally got the instructions from him on operating the lathe. Now I know for sure how to use the automatic feed. No more guessing what the controls and all those levers actually do. He also explained to me how to cut threads. How cool is it to do that? I thought it was so awesome.
Another thing I was instructed on is some good insight about setting up to modify the carburetor bodies several different ways. One way is by swapping the tooling until each body is finished. Or setting up each tool and swap out the bodies one at a time until they are all finished. There was still another way he tried to explain was without even using the tail stock for every tool change.
These larger drill bits and reamers I brought from home have a number 3 Morse taper that fits into a much larger tailstock than what works in my tiny little lathe. The only way I could use these is by supporting the end with a dead center in tail stock then keeping it in place by pushing against the carburetor body. I had to use a Cresent wrench on the Morse taper tab to keep it from rotating.
Mr Sadeskey showed me a tool holder that these tapered end reamers would fit into and make it easy to use on the top slide. Also known as a compound slide. This could allow me to set up each reamer and do the same to every carburetor before changing out to the next tool. Even set up another tool in the talistock ready to use in the next step. More like semi mass production. Well sort of something like that.
Today was spent mostly learning several different ways to achieve the same results. It sure opened up my eyes on how to do things in the future. With the little bit of insight Mr Sadeskey showed me, I can apply it to so much more than just when operating the lathe.
So this morning passed by really fast. But still impressed with what I have learned. Even tho I didnt really get any work done. I wonder if it is possible that tomorrow all three of these carburetors could be finished enough to take home? The only other thing needing to get done is cleaning up the machining marks with Emory cloth. I might also taper out the air horn more and do a better job blending it into the venturi.
One important thing Mr Sadeskey suggested is that I first focus on building a simple fixture before getting too involved with each of these carburetor bodies separately. This way I can cut way back on setup time. Since I didnt really have a good way to hold the carburetor body in place, this made perfect sense. Also manage to hold much more precise tolerances so all of these carburetors will be nearly identical to the finished one. My one prototype HL-66A.
Later when I get these bored out and back home, then drill out the fuel circuits to match the HL-93A carburetor I have used as a pattern to copy. If I can make a late afternoon trip to Gasset then maybe grab diaphragm kits and the newer style needles and seats. Then these carburetors should be good as new. If I modified them right, they will be better than new.
Before the first bell rang, Mr Sadeskey called it quits for the morning. I cleaned up the lathe and put all of the tools back in the crib. He motioned for me to follow as he walked over to his office. A few rough sketches were drawn up by him for a simple fixture.
His sketches left a lot to be desired. His hands were shakey and didnt help for me to decipher his rough ideas for a fixture to build first. He suggested taking some measurements after I get home to make sure the fixture would also work on my lathe. This is something I never would have thought about.
He then told me to hit the tool crib and dig thru a pile of scrap and drops of aluminum. Just to see if I might find something that could be used to make the fixture. He had sketched some general ideas, but it was my turn to make the idea into something real. I grabbed a piece of round stock and a few small pieces of aluminum plate. Looked to be about 5/16 inch thick.
I sort of had a vague idea of something in my head, but not anything yet really jumped out at me in the pile of aluminum scrap. I kept thinking about a flanged piece that could be chucked up in my little lathe. But still large enough to be strong. My mind was trying to figure out a simple way for the carburetor body to run true each time it was mounted to the fixture.
The two 1/4 inch studs would hold the carburetor down just fine, but no way with the hole size in flange would it be exact each time a carb body was changed out. I kept thinking but nothing came to mind. One problem I was having is bolting the body down and still have enough clearance not to interfere with the mounting screws. On the large flange is not the problem. But to enlarge the throttle bore, the carburetor has to be mounted on the air horn side. That has a very small bolt pattern.
That one long tapered reamer I am using for the finish size of throttle bore will go all the way thru the carburetor. So this fixture has to be open for the tapered reamer to clear. Maybe I can keep an open mind and stumble on something during drafting class. Or during the day. Then try to make some headway tonight at home. The one thing that kept coming back to haunt me is knowing the bolt pattern on flange is not exactly centered to the throttle bore. I mean it is close, but not perfect. I guess it doesnt really have to be.
Improvising on that first carburetor, I made amends and kept working on setup with the realization nothing was exact. So the carburetor was mostly centered to the throttle bore or air horn. The first carburetor that was in a previous life, one HL-66A, has an offset venturi. Who ever Frank paid "serious coin" to as he put it, managed to drill it out way off center. But that is all they did to his carburetor. Just roughed it out with a drill bit.
On these next carburetors, I would like them all to match. But if that is not possible, then they might end up being offset too. In the dark reaches of my brain, I am picturing a flat plate with two bolt patterns drilled. One that fits the mounting flange, and the other bolts up to the air horn. Next I just have to figure out a simple way to attach this mounting plate to something chucked up in the lathe. So far sounds easy enough. But not so simple to get a good clear picture of it in my head just yet.
I had a small pile of scraps by the time the first bell rang. Still there was plenty of time before having to get across the hall, so not too worried. Mr Sadeskey almost scared the life out of me right as the first bell was ringing. I had my back turned to him as he walked in the very narrow tool crib. Without even realizing what he had done was already asking if I planned to be here tomorrow morning. Then he told me he could be here earlier than 7:00 am if it might help me out.
Thinking about being up here at school any earlier sounded so strange right then. I was barely awake at 6:30 when Steves dad would drive over to pick me up and take us to school. But if I could manage to get here that early to use the shop would be so awesome.
I told the teacher that 7:00 was just about early as I could make it, since relying on someone else to get here. But thanked him for the offer just the same. He scanned over the pile of craps I had gathered, then smiled. Yes I think you might have a good idea there. Cant wait to see how your fixture turns out when finished.
Well that is a surprise. I dont yet have a clue about what the fixture will look like. Just going from his vague rough sketch. Something which I still dont have a full grasp on just yet. The second bell was now ringing so I needed to boot on out of here. Sure would like to know what Mr Sadeskey has in mind, so I am not as much in the dark on this fixture.
09-05-2022, 03:56 AM (This post was last modified: 09-05-2022, 02:01 PM by Terry Bentley.)
Chapter 116
After school I was informed it was time once again to mow my grandmothers yard. That meant it was also time to mow Mrs Tallys yard too. Considering Mrs Tally has to be pushing 1oo years old, if not older, I should take advantage of the work while she is still living. Mrs Tally is such a nice lady. I really enjoy the time spent with her after mowing the yard. Except I have too many things going on to put aside the time when I should.
Since it looks like Saturday is already tied up with work, I see no reason not to spend whatever time necessary with my grandmother and then Mrs Tally on the way back home to mow her yard. My grandmothers yard is like 3 acres. A lot of trees to mow around. The back yard wont take so much time, since it is mostly rider friendly. The front yard, I have to use a smaller push mower around the trees and other things for most of the area.
Tonight I still wanted to make some headway. So after dinner I spent the rest of this evening out in the garage. One more decision I committed to is swapping out the sidecovers like the ones used on the E-65 engines. These do not have that feed ramp like the bushing engine side covers do around the crank. According to all of the articles I have read, that ramp does not help. Especially since we are now running reverse rotation engines.
Stock side cover
You can see the feed ramp on this stock A-400 cover. It really does not help the performance of engine. Plus the tract is not as open like the E-65 either.
For these E-65 sidecovers to work, I needed to replace the needle bearing with some type of bushing material. After talking to Mr Grimes at the Gasset Small Engine Repair shop a while back, he informed me the stock A-490 crankshafts are made of cast iron or some soft steel. But the E-65 style engine with a needle bearing rod has a hardened steel crankshaft.
This meant I could not use the needle bearing on the softer metal crankshaft. Or if I chose to do so, it would not likely last very long before wearing out. An easy fix, but time consuming, is making a bushing the same dimension to replace that needle bearing. Unfortunately there are three of these having to be made. This ended up taking a lot more time than I had expected.
So Friday night was all taken up with making these bushings. I worked late into the evening focused just on getting the bushings machined on the Craftsman lathe. Before jumping into making them, I called my grandfather with a few concerning questions. The main concern I had was how precision these bushings really needed to be made.
In my tool stash there is a vernier caliper and a couple of micrometers. But no real accurate or reliable way to measure the inside diameter of the new bushing. My grandfather told me to use a snap gauge. It should be more than accurate to get the exact measurement of the bushing inside diameter. He said my dad already had his old set of snap gauges. After some basic explanation from him, I was confident on how to proceed forward and use these.
Starrett snap gauge
These snap gauges are super cool. You loosen the screw in handle then slide the end in hole to be measured. Slightly tighten the screw handle and rotate back and forth past center in hole. Use micrometer to measure the span of snap gauge for a perfect fit.
It was very late when I finally pressed the newly made bushings into each of the side covers. I thought they turned out great. My grandfather had also made a suggestion. With the final cut on the inside diameter, make a zero pass at a much higher feed rate using a sharp pointed cutting tool.
E-65 side cover with bushing and stock
With the finish cut it would leave a slight machine lead or something that looks like a extremely fine thread. This would help to hold lubrication better and also might lessen the likelihood of a possible seizure on the crankshaft, in case the clearance was very close. I decided to add a flange to the pressed in bushing. This gives a better surface for the crank to ride against. You can see it on the left and stock E-65 with needle bearing is on the right. See difference in the intake feed tract compared to the stock A-400.
It took a lot of effort but I got up and made an early start on Saturday chores. My grandmother gave me a big hug. But before work started, we had to run down to the Howard Johnsons and grab a quick breakfast. Nothing like French toast sprinkled with confectioners sugar for a fix before working. The maple syrup aint so bad either. A big glass or fresh squeezed orange juice to wash everything down.
While enjoying the air conditioning inside Howard Johnsons before hitting the heat of the morning, my grandmother told me of other things she wanted to get done today. If there was time I was to also clean out one of the storage sheds. She told me there was nothing in the shed worth bothering with. All of the papers and boxes of nik-naks were basically overdue for the trash bin. If I found anything of importance or potential value, just let her know before just tossing it out. But far as she knew this one storage shed had nothing of any use to her.
When all of the mowing was finished I tackled the storage shed next. Since my grandfather had died nothing has really changed around her place. Just keeping up with the normal maintenance and minor repairs. What I did find was a big surprise. Under a lot of the junk, I discovered another David Bradley chainsaw. I recognized it immediately as one with the smaller engine. It is still just as heavy like the newer one I have already used once before. But I didnt know my grandfather had bought this one or even when it was last used.
After cleaning up the mess I made, then inquired about this older model chainsaw. My grandmother told me it was bought new back in 1956. They were still clearing out a bunch of the trees back then. But it had always been hard starting and got to be too tempermental to rely on so much. Then the other one was bought about two years ago.
This one has the same size chain as that newer model, but the bar is shorter. My grandmother had decided this saw was no longer worth keeping around. Then she asked if I wanted to bother with it for myself. What could I say? She had no need for it and the newer one sure works good. Since I was the only one that would probably be using the newer saw, she didnt see any reason to keep this one around or spend whatever it would take to get running again.
I did some more digging and found another bar and chain. Something I noticed is this earlier model has two positions for the bar to mount. This older David Bradley chainsaw is a model 360. All that meant is it would run in just about any position. Most newer saws mounted the bar inboard. This model could also mount the bar outboard. That would be to the right side of gearbox. There was a red painted cap covering the chain driver where the bar would mount to on the right.
This saw is way too heavy to carry off very far. But I decided to take a chance and drag it home with me. Even if it didnt run right now, I saw no reason why it could not be fixed then have as a spare. I sure dont plan to sell it if I do get the big monster up and running. This way I have a saw at home and a backup if the main saw does not feel like running sometime.
The work was finally finished. After hugs and kisses, I said the usual goodbyes to my grandmother. I layed the chainsaw over the frame of my bike then walked home. So much as my hands wanted to tear apart this saw, there was another yard still waiting to be mowed. After unloading everything, I hosed off my head at the outside faucet to cool off. Even tho summer has just passed, it still feels like July. It didnt take that long to push the mower up to Mrs Tallys house and do a quick mow job, Her yard is fairly small and very well kept. The grass never gets long enough to do any bagging or much cleanup.
After this mowing job was done, Mrs Tally brought out the usual lemonade and invited me inside. I declined the inside visit today, since all of the outside work I had been doing already. So she sat down in the porch swing and we exchanged some idle chit-chat. When I noticed her dozing off, decided to call it a day. I helped her up and inside then thanking for the lemonade.
Back home I was torn between playing around with the newly acquired chainsaw or getting back to working on the kart engines. Geez, why is there never enough hours in the day to do things? Instead of tearing apart the chainsaw and trying to figure out way it didnt run right, I reluctantly just piddled with it. This is when I realized it would not take much effort to mount both of these bars to the saw at the same time.
OK, it might be useless. But sure would be super cool looking. I didnt really care either way. There was not much need for a chainsaw here at home. But I could not resist the temptation of mounting both of the bars and chains on this saw. The only thing I needed to accomplish this was to add an extra pair of studs on the gearbox cover. With the cover removed from gearbox, I could see by leaving off one cover bolt would open a passage so the added bar and chain could get oiled.
Maybe I wasted what was left of this evening playing around with something unnecessary. I had a lot fun doing it and now have something I can sit up on the shelf that looks really neat. The saw is still in very good condition. I didnt have to do much more than a quick cleanup. Then do some touch-ups on the tips of both bars. After a few pumps of the chain oiler, I noticed both bars were getting lubricated. Super cool!
David Bradley 360 dual bar
So now I have a real eye catcher when someone new is over in the garage. I think it is awesome looking. Maybe it will cut small biscuits on larger diameter logs, instead of having to split them. Hey that can work. Two biscuits per cut with the saw. Instead of having long small split logs, now use short thin cookies for fire wood. Maybe this will work out perfect. Or maybe I am not thinking this thru all of the way. Well I dont care. I have a cool looking chainsaw now.
09-12-2022, 09:17 PM (This post was last modified: 09-13-2022, 01:24 AM by Terry Bentley.)
Chapter 117
As I was about to call it a night, my hand was already reaching for the light switch in the garage. My eyes kept focused on the chainsaw now proudly sitting on the shelf. I have no doubts of getting it to run. But the time to tear it apart and fix is more than I really want to commit to right now. Sure it would be cool to chop down the dead tree in the back yard. Then turn it into cookie slices. But....
I pulled my hand away from the wall and opened back up the garage door to get a breeze flowing thru. I had a very long day, but it was not so late that I could not get something done constructive in the way of our kart engines. I was thinking if my dad had taken me to the kart track just one year earlier, then maybe we would be already racing and very competitive by now. But realistically, my ability to do this work so far was accelerated only after the accident.
If I had not taken Mr Cates up on his offer last spring during break, it would not be very likely we would have anything running or even acquired by now. But by finally getting enough nerve to take those first laps, nothing like what happened after the crash would have taken place at all. I am nearly positive without that one mishap, neither me nor Steve would have fast tracked so quickly and be this close to racing. That is considering we had nothing before that first visit to the track.
It took all spring, then hard core working thru the summer just to manage repairing and copying the original Cates kart. Now we have both of them running very well and handling like a dream. Well, with the new tires from Chris, my kart will again be driving like Steves kart already does. Those old Tex-Con tires were just too worn out, and I didnt have enough money saved up yet to replace them.
If we did not finally get that first race behind us right before school started, I would have never met up with Chris. Then not having the opportunity to do the upgrades on his kart. If not for the crash, I would have not stopped in at the Gasset fix-it shop either. Without that one day stopping in after shopping with my mom, all of those junk engines would not be sitting here all over the garage floor.
Is this just coincidence that everything fell into place the way it did? Most of the projects me and Steve find ourselves involved in usually starts out this way. We find something thrown away then drag it home to tinker with. But it usually needs some parts, so the project get sidelined until another piece of junk makes its way here. Then we find the parts needed from the other non-running whatevers that show up and eventually get one project finished.
Most of the time we manage to resurrect older mowers, edgers, a couple of tillers, bicycles, and even a chainsaw ocassionally like I now have sitting above my head on the shelf. So many things we have put time into then bringing them back to life and useful again. A lot of things have been sold. Some of these projects have been sacrificed, just to learn more about how things work or dont work, or even used as a chance for one of us to blow off some steam.
With some time left tonight, I decided to make an attempt at finishing out something that is holding me up getting the engines finished. While looking around, I found my eyes focused once again on those intake manifolds. After initially getting the adapter pieces machined out in shop class before school, I ran into some complications that really were not that difficult to work out. It just took time. Time I seem to be finding less of every day.
I ended up second guessing myself over what I thought was originally going to be the spacers needed to adapt the Go-Power six petal reed cages to work on the stock intake manifolds. I got mostly finished and hit a snag. But it was not anything as complicated as I first made it out to be. But got sidetracked on other things at the same time. Then working all day today put the brakes on making some more headway.
So tonight would be perfect if sticking strictly to finishing out these manifolds. No other distractions to keep that from happening either. I have one Mountain Dew left in the fridge and should be some M&M's in there too. I like to eat them nice and cold. So first I take time for a good sugar fix, then make some progress tonight.
OK, a few hours has passed and now is very late. I need to call it quits since my brain is about ready to shut down. But I wanted to follow up here in the journal while fresh in my mind what I did manage to get done tonight. At first I kept getting side tracked, like usual, thinking about other things that might help out, but stopped in time before my hands took over. Some nights out here they take over and I cant stop whatever my hands want to do.
After I finished up with the modifications to a stock intake manifold, now thinking if this much time was really worth saving the ten dollars it would cost just to buy a new Palmini or Go-Power manifold instead. My grandfather always harps on how valuable experience is and you cant put a price on a real education. So I am thinking I got more than ten bucks worth of an education and experience adapting this manifold over to use the new parts on.
The next question is will it work anywhere near as good compared to the aftermarket ones? That is something I will find out sooner now since the manifold is finally finished. Originally I had planned to rotate the carburetor slightly so the low speed needle is easier to access. But it was not until I did a trial fit the other day did realize it was not necessary to even do that. So scratch the first adapter. It will still work, bit I dont plan to use it on one of our main engines right now.
On the second adapter, I went ahead and finished it out like was originally planned before second guessing myself and making changes without confirming everything first. I made some assumptions that turned out not to be as I thought. Just from thinking it thru too much in my head. But that is what my brain does sometimes when I do think too much. Maybe just over analyzing things without actual hands on the parts in question at the time.
One day in Algebra class, my brain shut down on the equations. I wanted to beat my head against the chalk board. Why is that stuff so impossible for me to figure out? So instead of focusing on the problem in class, like I should have done, my brain went on vacation and started working out problems on the manifold. That is when I realized a potential problem. But it was so easy to resolve that problem right then. I worked out all of the bugs in my head and really proud of myself too.
So when the two spacers were machined out, I had already worked out the problems going forward, just in case there was a problem. Since I didnt bother confirming if I even had a problem yet or not. But if I did, it was already resolved. Why cant Algebra work out this easily? Except the problem wasnt worked out since there was not a problem to begin with. So applying this same strategy on my Algebra would still end up with the wrong answer.
After Steve drilled out and counterbored the first spacer is when I realized none of the problems existed, so wasted all of that time and have a spacer not exactly like was originally planned or wanted. But it will still work just fine. Only slightly more complicated than needs to be.
On this second spacer I spent a lot of time checking and rechecking everything to make sure I didnt stumble into something unforeseen. Before finalizing it, I checked everything over again and again. This time there would be no surprises to work around. I have to admit it turned out so much better than I had first planned.
manifold with new carb adapter
On this adapter I went ahead and finished it out removing all unnecessary material. Cutting this to match the reed assembly took like forever, but well worth the results. So one carburetor adapter is now finished and ready to put to use. I needed longer studs using this adapter, so decided to use a couple of 2 inch long 1/4-20 bolts and just cut the heads off. Then used a die and cut the fine threads on that end. Everything worked out great.
modified manifold and stock manifold
You can see how much work was done to grind out the passage. The first stock manifold I already did this to is one that got scrapped when too much material had already been removed when trying to fit the chainsaw reed petals. I spent a lot of time with the Dremel to get so much aluminum ground out. But there is still plenty of meat around the opening. I sure like seeing the results and hoping it will be just as impressive out on the track. Time will tell. Our next practice day has to be getting closer every time I make progress on the engines like this.
manifold adapters
Not much difference in these two adapters except the outside material removed. I can still use the first one without rotating the carburetor by filling in the counterbored holes with Devcon Epoxy and redrilling. That is if I decide not to rotate the carburetor on one engine. Still not sure if it is worth the extra work to do this now.
manifolds Palmini and modified
Finally the finished product. You see the stock manifold opening is smaller than the Palmini. Also using the six petal reed does not need an opening so big. I am now more confident that this adapter will work reasonably close to the hotrod parts sold in the magazines.
manifolds with Tillotson carburetors
This has got to be my most favorite picture to add in my journal tonight. On the left is the Palmini manifold with a Tillotson HL-93A. This carburetor was found in the pile of junk we worked all day for from Gasset. Originally it came on a McCulloch MC6 and then as a replacement for the MC5 and MC 10 carburetors. It was the largest carburetor Tillotson made until earlier this year when the new model HL-115A first came out.
You see the modified HL-66A carburetor on the right that originally came of Franks big monster Power Products AH-82 engine he blew to pieces. This cartburetor iwas originally smaller than the HL-93A. Frank is still unaware it is not the new HL-115A from the last time I showed it to him. He assumed I gave up modifying these carburetors and spent the big bucks purchasing a new one.
You can see how much the air horn and venturi have been opened up comparing them to each other. This modified carburetor worked so well on our second practice day out. But I have not tried it yet for a race. Since it did make such a difference, I am already modifying three more of these for our engines. Just hope it does not take too long to get them finished at school next week.
Well journal this is enough for one evening. It is way past my bed time. I got up early this morning and spent most of the day working, so that is all for tonight. But tomorrow I want to get right back on the engines so they might get assembled and it will be time to plan a practice day to try everything out. Then back to the drawing board if all this work turns out to be a total failure. But that is not going to happen. Well I sure hope it doesnt happen.
09-19-2022, 08:01 PM (This post was last modified: 10-02-2022, 07:39 PM by Terry Bentley.)
Chapter 118
Looking back this last week I did manage to get some things done after school. Not much worth reporting like the progress made Friday and Saturday night, but I did make some headway on our three engines. There was no reason to go completely overboard on little details. Mainly assemble the engines using E-65 pistons and installing the Bradfield rods in all three of them.
Another decision was to go ahead and raise the cylinder wall in the transfer passage area below the intake ports. This makes sure there is a very minimum of restriction in feeding fuel to the ports. Basically cutting it up from the bottom to closely match the notched skirt of an E-65 piston. I believe this is referred to as a slipper cut after reading articles in the magazines.
Yesterday morning had come too early having to do all of that mowing. But the old chainsaw from my grandmother renewed my motivation to get back working on things last night. I had forced myself out of bed this morning to focus on the engines. But since today is Sunday, first I had to attend church. No sooner was it finished, I was on the way home and already trying to get some things worked out in my head before my hands had the chance to over run my brain.
Back in the garage I checked everything over and did some more measuring again. I was considering bolting the internals together after the final trial fit.The Bradfield rod sure looks cool in there. Steve and Chris both have brand new connecting rods in their engines. I am still using the one that originally came in the engine on the Cates kart. There is a bunch of track time on it but shows no signs of wear.
I just kept staring down at the intake and exhaust ports on these engine blocks before final assembly. They sure seemed small to me. There is plenty of room to open them up. While taking some measurements I had an idea. Both sets of ports are 7/16" in diameter. The ribs between them are wide enough to drill these out to 1/2".
But, like there is always a but, I did not like how narrow the ribs would be after drilling them out. Especially if just using the drill press and a 1/2" drill bit to do the work. There was also a risk of possibly chipping or breaking out the cast iron ribs by using a drill bit. So I needed to look at other ways to proceed.
My first thoughts were to go with a smaller drill bit first then follow thru with a finishing reamer. I have that bucket of surplus reamers my grandfather had picked up from an auction where he used to work before retiring. This could get me a safe way of making sure the rib would most likely stay completely intact. As I was contemplating opening up the ports this way, my brain was racking another solution that might pan out a whole lot better.
One of my friends, Jim Scrivner, only lives two streets over. Actually up the dirt road then over one more street. His grandfather is way past retired and likes to fix things in his spare time. Which he now has a lot of.
A while back Jim told me his grandfather had some machines, but a lot fancier than any of mine. So naturally it got my curiosity and I was interested. We grabbed our bikes then took a quick ride over to his grandfathers house one afternoon.
Jim was not that inclined or even interested in building, working or even fixing things. So he never payed any attention or had much of an idea really about the equipment his grandfather even owned in his shop. If only he knew what he didnt know what his grandfathers machines were capable of doing in the right motivated hands.
I had met his grandfather several times. We always had great conversations about working on things. He did mention if I ever needed some help on stuff to give him a holler. He would try to assist any way he could. I just didnt know he had a real vertical milling machine in his garage at the time.
When Jim mentioned his grandfather had a much fancier drilling machine than the one at home, I figured it was just a bigger drill press. A real milling machine was not anything what I had thought in my mind or expected to see. Of course even three years ago I would not have had much idea of what to do with a lathe either.
I was thinking what if my grandfather never offered me that little Craftsman lathe back then? What would I be doing today, if not for the head start I got with him patiently spending his time to teach me to build the lathe? Would I have been so motivated by my self to start making things? Things i would not have a clue about or how to build if not having the opportunity to learn about machinery and what the machines were capable of making.
Steve is a whiz at least in my eyes on working with wood. Of course his dad is a cabinet maker. I have seen his work and amazed how raw wood can be transformed into things so finely built. Steve is really impressive working with wood, but he seems to favor working with metal and engines. I think that is why me and him have become such good friends in the last few years.
So when we headed over to Jims grandfathers house, I found out out first hand what he actually had in the way of equipment. The metal shop at school has two lathes and a whole lot of other good metal working equipment, but no vertical milling machine.
They do have a very small horizontal mill of some type, but I could not figure out how to make that work for anything I needed. Well except for cutting new key slots. That would work great on lawn mower crankshafts that have been machined down to work on horizontal engines.
Today, after the usual greetings, his grandmother invited us in for a late lunch. Jim had called before we left, so they were expecting us. I have learned from past experience, there is nothing quick when having anything to do with the grandparents. That included mine or his grandparents. This is one of the downsides he told me about visiting them. We would likely be stuck there most of the day. But we will be fed and well taken care of the whole time.
After all of the expected casual conversation out of the way, I asked his grandfather if he had any good ideas on how to machine out the ports on the engine blocks I had brought over. All I really wanted to do is open them up from 7/16 to 1/2 inch. But there was a small problem I needed to work around.
At first he suggested the very same thing I had already considered doing. Just to run a slightly smaller drill bit thru each port opening then follow up with a 1/2 inch reamer. That would work, but not the way I was wanting to get them done. I could do this to each center port on both the intake and exhaust, but did not want the ribs to be so thin, if they were to be drilled out that way.
Since I have been called hard headed and probably for a good reason, I wanted to do things the hard way. My thoughts were to move the outer ports over just enough so the rib did not get any thinner like would happen by keeping the holes on the same centerline. I wanted to set up and locate to the center port, then drill it out. After that, I could offset farther past the centerline enough so the rib stays close to the same thickness after drilling the two outer ports.
Jims grandfather scratched his head, then grabbed a pencil and piece of paper. After taking some measurements with his fancy vernier caliper, he figured out how much to offset the two outer ports. Yes Terry, that wont be a problem at all. We can do it that way easily enough. It requires so set up time, but nothing we cant handle. So out to the garage we went.
I was very surprised on my first exploratory visit to find out his grandfather had not only a real milling machine, but also a much bigger lathe than the one I have at home. His lathe is a Southbend and a full size 12 inch model. Wow that would be so cool to have one this big to use all the time. I could make all kinds of things.
The milling machine he has is a Millrite. It is slightly smaller than what I have seen before in a real machine shop. Like an INDEX or Bridgeport. Otherwise it is basically the same in every other way. I have never used one before, but it does not look nearly complicated as the lathe in metal shop does to operate.
It took most of the afternoon as I watched while Jims grandfather explained how to open up the ports like we had talked about. He chose to use what was referred to as a 1/2 inch four fluted endmill. It sort of looked like a short stub of a drill bit that was twisted much tighter and flat on the end. But the cutting edge is very sharp when compared to a regular drill bit.
He explained to me that an end mill would do what I wanted and could cut straight down even when off the centerline from existing port. The endmill would not walk off center or try to follow the old port opening. It will not flex at all like a drill bit always does.
Another thing he did explain, is how a drill bit usually triangulates a hole when drilling. The endmill, if sharp and used properly will leave a near perfectly round hole and almost exactly to size.
To set up for the center port, all we had to do is use a 7/16 inch drill bit shank to hold the cylinder in place while squaring and clamping it to the milling table. Then bore out the center port to 1/2 inch. From there the table was moved over enough for the end mill to just make contact with the rib on each outer port. We did this on all three engine blocks, both intake and exhaust ports. According to his calculations the mill table would be moved 600 thousandths of an inch each way from the center port.
Getting the first block set up and finally drilled out like I was hoping, took most of the time. Mainly Jims grandfather explaining everything to me as he went thru the motions of getting the ports opened like how I wanted them. Since it was set up for the intake ports first, all I had to do was locate back to the center port, clamp the next block down secure, then repeat everything that was done on the first engine block.
After the first ports were drilled out, I was confident enough to do them by myself. While Jims grandfather sat back on his stool he told us all kinds of stories about making things in his shop. He didnt bother so much to watch me working, making sure I wouldnt screw anything up. Just more like enjoying the company of us being there.
The rest of the work did not take nearly as much time. Once I saw how easy it was to operate the milling machine, everything went along with out a hitch. Well I could operate it good enough to drill holes. Past that maybe not so sure how to do much else.
When Jims grandfather was explaining everything to me, I learned how to adjust for backlash in the table screws that move the mill table. For a more accurate way to measure the distance to offset those outer ports, he set up a bracket he made that holds his vernier caliper. It butts up against the table. Before moving the table, you push the vernier caliper up against it. Then make sure it is zeroed, and with enough over travel before tightening up a little thumb screw. After the table screw moves the table to the correct location, you double check the travel on the vernier caliper. If all of the back lash was taken out it is perfectly on target.
Getting this work done did take all day, like Jim had said when we came over here. But I was more than satisfied with the help his grandfather had given me. After we finished up, I made a point to clean the milling machine really well. After oiling everything I wiped it down so there was no chance of rust from making hand contact with the bare metal on the table, ways, and handles. I sure didnt want it to be my fingerprints that were all over the bare metal if it rusted over.
Me and Jim ended up staying there way too long. It was late in the afternoon before we finally left and headed back home. That is fine with me. I am ready to assemble the engines tonight, not matter how late it gets. Except I do have school tomorrow. On the way back I kept thinking about something I was supposed to do or remember today. But what was it?
It had completely slipped my mind that Steve was planning on dropping by today to help out any way he could working on the karts. By the time I got back home he had been there for a while. But I showed him what had been done to the ports in our engines. He seemed more than pleased with the modifications on his engine. So long as it helped to getting us closer running up with those two brothers with the Westbend engines next time out there at the track.
stock and enlarged intake ports
Lookie here Steve, look at those ports. How do you like your engine now? You think this might make some difference over how the engines were running? What do you think?
Hey, dont you want to open up the ports even bigger with the grinder? Dont they usually square them up too? I did look at the pictures in that article on modifying our engines.
Cates kart engine intake ports
Yea that is what I have seen done on a full mod job. Like the way the ports are squared on the Cates engine. But I think we are on the right track doing it this way for now. I still want to clean things up, just not go full out modified yet. I think there is a bunch more to be gained even with keeping the engine mostly stock appearing.
We have been working on gearing and handling with a lot of success. I want to keep going in that direction. A fully modified engine is more or less useless bolted to a kart that is not setup to handle very well. Once we have a good idea of how to set up the karts really well and make changes when needed, then maybe spend some more time on the engines.
With opening up the stock intake manifold to use a Go-Power six petal pyramid reed, I think is going to help a bunch. Then the modified carburetor, well you know how the engine ran with that. I think the engines will be running way better than anything we have put together so far. Using the E-65 piston bumps up the compression enough that it should be noticeable from the tightest turn to running down the longest straight.
test fitting with Bradfield rod
cut piston skirt
It is surprising how well everything is fitting together right now. The Bradfield rod looks so cool installed for a test fit in the block. I am getting so stoked about being this close to having our engines almost ready to be put together. Just about all of the machining has been done and now just deciding on some finish work before actual final assembly of the three engines.
The piston was cut like the intake tract opening. It could only be raised up to just below the piston pin boss. It would have been cool for piston to match. But the amount of material that was removed really opens up the transfer passage more than enough to do some major good.
Another hour after cleaning up the three engine blocks and all of the parts, it was time to finally assemble something. I took extra care to make sure all three of them went together exactly the same way. No compromises that could cause problems later on at the track. If an engine had too much end play, I corrected it. If there was one crankshaft with more resistance rotating it over, I wanted to find out why.
After all this time I had everything ready for a possible final assembly. Steve did put a lot of effort in washing all of the pieces in the parts cleaner. I really hate getting my hands in there more that necessary. Steve had to bail out and get home for dinner. Another one of those times he would either get a decent meal if home in time or possibly be in the doghouse for the rest of the evening if he was even five minutes late.
I had grabbed a ton of new parts already for the engines. There was new points and condensers installed, and I even used a degree wheel to set them correctly. After some input from Mr Grimes and a better explanation from my dad, I even put together a timing light to set it up exactly the same on all three engines.
On my engine, I was thinking about going way overboard on the piston. The stock E-65 pistons have three 1/16 inch thick rings. The original pistons in the A-490 have two 3/32 inch thick rings. So basically the same surface area between them.
Would it be too gutsy to use only use one piston ring? But that was not the issue needing to be addressed. I had to do something with the two empty ring grooves. It has been written in all of the articles these rings can just be left out and no ill effects.
I just could not believe that to be completely true. When the piston is traveling past the port openings, those ring grooves allow the crankcase pressure to escape. As the piston comes down before the intakes are opened up, the two lower ring grooves allow for air/fuel mix to escape thru the exhaust.
Same problem when piston is traveling up. Crankcase pressure is affected before ring grooves are both above the intake ports. So instead of drawing in air/fuel mixture it could pull thru from exhaust ports.
Back earlier this summer right after reading the June karting World magazine, I spent one night swapping out parts to see what did and didnt work. These was conflicting information in the two main articles i read about modifying the engines. This is when I found out about the problem when leaving out one or two of the rings.
After cutting down the skirt shorter on an E-65 style piston so it would fit in the A-490 block, is when I discovered something. I had installed the top ring just to make sure everything worked out. Then completely assembled the engine. After rotating the crank over a few times is when I realized how much crankcase pressure was escaping out the exhaust after the piston ring had closed the intake port.
I may be way over thinking all of this. But if right, then need to come up with a fix. Having only a third of the ring drag using just one of them makes sense. I dont see how it would have less compression, if ring is seated. So trying to work out anything that could cause problems now.
There are two ideas floating around in my head, well three now while I am jotting all of this down thinking about what might work out. The first idea is heating two of the piston rings while in a spare cylinder using a torch. This should cause them to loose tension and not have any drag on the cylinder walls.
One down side I see is the possibility of the ring vibrating or moving around so much that it could break without the tension against the cylinder wall. I didnt think this would be so likely for short term use. But also not wanting to find out I was wrong either.
Another idea is cutting some aluminum rings to replace the stock ones. Cut them to fit tightly on the piston, instead of larger to fit snug in the bore. Again the possibility of breaking without the tension against the cylinder wall came to mind. But this in only me thinking it thru in my noggin. I wont know for sure without trying first.
If I do machine aluminum rings to fill in the gaps, maybe then use high temp epoxy of some type to make sure these aluminum filler rings stay put. Either Devcon or Marine-Tex could be good choices. The lower ring grooves should run cooler than the top one. Maybe this can work.
While working all of this out in my head, I thought about just filling the ring grooves with high temp epoxy. Then if anything broke out or came loose, might not tear up the cylinder so much. But again without testing any of these ideas is still just speculation on my part.
Should I run all of this by Frank with his store bought education and an engineers degree? At least I can get another opinion. Since he is batting a thousand on being wrong every time, I just do exactly the opposite to what ever he thinks is a good idea.
As I was contemplating about which way to go with the rings, another idea popped into my head. What about building a ring fixture for the lathe? Cut in a stepped recess just big enough around and deep for a ring to sit in there. It would be held in place with a round plate just smaller than the outside ring diameter. Then carefully cut back part of the outer diameter to reduce surface contact.
Maybe leave the top ring alone. Then remove about half the contact surface from the other two rings. Is that too much trouble? Am I putting too much thought into this? I have options now. Maybe try out one or two of the ideas then find out what works well enough for the effort it takes to do the machine work.
My mind still keeps focusing on using some type of filler in the ring grooves. If this does work, I will have the other two rings as extras. By machining the rings, I loose any possibility of having spares if something crashes.
10-03-2022, 09:48 PM (This post was last modified: 10-03-2022, 10:56 PM by Terry Bentley.)
Chapter 119
Last night I did not sleep so well. Seems like every time I dozed off an engine blew up. I saw piston pieces spraying out the exhaust header. Then one engine block broke in half. Happened to be right where the intake tract was opened up for better flow to the ports.
After finally waking for good, I quickly sat up in bed right before another engine exploded. This one was actually swelling up like a balloon. As I was racing around the track, everyone on the sidelines along the fence were pointing to my engine.
I looked back behind my seat to see the engine had swelled up almost twice as big like a balloon and looked about ready to explode. Fortunately I woke up right before that happened. Maybe from too much stuffing and too small of ports. But loosing three engines in one dream could get expensive. I sure cant afford that.
It was sometime back not very long ago when realizing having dreams like this is just lack of confidence in myself or about something I was working on. With the engines going back together and not sure which way to proceed, I needed some outside input.
A week had already passed by so I figured it had been long enough for Frank to get those parts ordered and delivered by now. This sounded to me like it was something he would be right on top of. Unless he drank another beer and totally forgot everything. I took a chance and rode my bike over this afternoon following the bus dropping us off from school.
Like no surprise seeing the garage door was up and Frank inside just piddling with his kart. I almost announced myself, but Frank was steadily going non-stop rambling on about nothing fitting right. He was even moving his hands and arms all around for better clarification of things.
This is the second time I have seen him talking to himself. Or like there was someone else hiding in there he was complaining to. Or he was looking in a mirror hanging somewhere on the wall in his garage.
I have heard the term two-faced being used before to describe someone. But I dont think it would apply here exactly with Frank. But in one sense it actually does. He seems to hold a conversation with him self just fine. And even argues with himself too. But who usually wins the argument? Frank or Frank? Can Frank be frank with himself? Or does Frank need to be careful with what he says not to offend himself? Frankly I dont care.
As I was listening to him he was just rambling on......Seemed like the angled brackets welded to the cross member were not in the right location to use the new style motor mount. Frank was mad at me for suggesting he replace the other ones. The one odd thing is that he had not seen me ride up yet. I wasnt sure just then who he was even talking to. Except he had mentioned my name during his rant while complaining.
But he kept carrying on a conversation as I walked in just like someone else had been standing next to him this whole time. There is no way I am going to cut that cross member off my prototype frame and move it far enough forward for everything to fit.
I would have to replace that whole section of tubing. I dont see a reason for compromising my frame like that. Too much welding overlapping the old welds. That doesnt make good smarts at all. That is not a good thing. It is an engineering disaster.
If I shorten this frame enough to match the specs of an A-bone, then nothing else works. I wasted good money buying all these parts for nothing. I think you should reimburse me for the cost of those parts there. They are of no use to me at all.
If I did cut out that cross memeber and move everything forward, there is not enough room before hitting the back of the seat. So none of this was worth all the expense just to find out it didnt work. I listened to you and see where it got me. Worthless kids, all of you. You sure steered me wrong.
And another thing that danged steering shaft is all loose and wobbly now after knocking out those old bushings that are too small. What the heck was I supposed to with those anyway? I had to cut the shaft in half removing the dangity thing. Now I dont even have the old parts to use. Nothing fits now. My special kart is ruined.
I spent all this gawdangblasted money for absolutely nothing. What a waste. You see why I dont trust kids. They dont know nothing. They are all useless misfits. None of them will amount to anything. I sure hope you learned yourself a good lesson today. All at my expense too. You think you know everything and see where it got me for listening to you.
I thought you were different that maybe one K-nucklehead might have a clue. But I was right the first time you came over here. You are all alike. Nothing but useless worthless leeches on society.
This is why you should go to school and learn how to use your brain. Then dont get taken to the cleaners like I did this time listening to such far-fetched lame ideas. Without a smart brain and real college education, you wont amount to nothing. Mark my words. Nothing at all.
I knew it sounded too good to be true. Why would I buy newer parts and expect them to fit this chassis? It is a special one off prototype. I knew better and did not go with my gut instinct. It is never wrong. You made a good pitch but I should have double checked your half-brained scheme to make sure what you suggested was even possible. Man was I dead wrong.
So you mad about something Frank?
Did you not just hear me explain what the problem was? Are you deaf or just too hard headed to grasp what I have been telling you about everything? Maybe you should take responsibility for your actions.
Gee Frank, I just got here. Who were you talking to? Besides I didnt expect everything to just bolt on. Why would it? Anybody with a brain and college education would ask Mickey Rupp about replacing these parts when ordering them. You know just to make sure there isnt any major problems. I am sure he could have told you exactly what needed to be done. I know you would have done this, so what is the problem?
But Frank did not answer me. He just stood there with a totally blank stare. I just suggested some parts that could get your kart close to the new A-bone. How the heck would I know what does or does not fit without some adjustments? I still dont see what all of the big fuss is about?
To make these new parts work, I have to just about cut up the whole frame and start over. Did you not hear me explain all of that to you already?
Frank I told you I just got here. Now hold on, just chill out for a minute. Lets start at the front and work back.
You were saying something about the steering shaft is all loose, since the old bushings are too small for the bigger diameter of the new shaft. Where are the old bushings?
I already told you they are too small. I just about destroyed everything trying to get them unstuck and out of there.
Alright Frank, I see the shaft has a lot of play now. So what I had said is you could get some new bushings or bore out the old ones. But since you tore the old ones up, that wont work now. I can make another set that should fit. There is enough thickness so they should work fine. You might even find the bushings at the hardware store. I think they are the same as used in dolly wheels.
OK Frank, what else is a problem?
Those new pedals, you just had to make sure I needed them. They were not all that cheap either. Well the old hole is too small, and too close to the front axle for a drill to get in there to hog them out big enough. Well not possible without removing the floor pan that is welded on PERMANENTLY. So that was another waste of MY hard earned money you seem to spend so freely.
Frank I got an idea that you should like a bunch. Why not weld up those smaller holes in the main frame where the old pedals were bolted thru. I can cut a couple of short pieces from round stock and drill the 3/8 hole thru for the new pedals to fit. Then you could weld them on top of the frame.
This way you can put them where they fit your legs perfectly. Dont you think that is a much more professional look than just a hole drilled thru the main frame rail like it is right now? Have you looked at the new models to see how they are done?
Hey Frank, you could even weld the short pieces on front of the axle. That gives you some extra leg room. I noticed your knees are bent up a lot. Then the front axle could work as your heel stop. That sure sounds like a good way to do it. What do you think?
Frank sort of calmed down a little bit. But I could tell he was stressed way too much and blowing all of this way out of proportion.
Why dont you sit down for a minute and drink a cold beer Frank. Maybe even several. You seem too stressed out right now. Dont you have some self help tapes that are good for something like this?
Frank grumbled for a few minutes as he turned up two beers barely taking a breath between them. He was not in such great spirits, but I was having fun with him right now.
OK smartazz, let me see how you are going to work out a solution for the rear cross member. I dont plan on chopping it off and fabricating another one. That is way more trouble than it is worth. It would be smarter just to buy a new frame.
Frank, I still dont know exactly what you are talking about.
He pushed me out of the way and pointed to the rear section of the frame, jabbing his finger on the guilty cross member in question. Do you understand now genius? It wont work. Not with out chopping everything up. I could almost build another frame after doing everything to make things fit on this one here.
Do you know how much metallurgical damage and stress there is when you weld over old welds on the main frame rails? Not smart at all. This is like putting a bandage over a bandage.
While Frank was droning on and drowning himself in a couple more cold beers, I went around his frame with a tape measure. I still didnt completely understand what he kept blasting off about needing to be cut up.
OK, I was right about his frame. It is just like a very early Super K. The first ones were nothing more than the dead axle version converted over to a live axle. Uh-oh, that is exactly what Frank had told me was a very, very bad idea the last time I was over here.
The one main difference in this frame and that first model Super K is the swing mounts on this one. The first ones had welded plates. So Franks prototype may actually be real. Just somewhere between the very first conversion from a dead axle and when the wheelbase was shortened.
Frank had been going on about all of the negative aspects of converting over the dead axle on a kart to a live one. Just like I helped Chris do on his Simplex. Now I find out Franks kart is the exact same way.
Franks prototype Super K is not much different from a converted over dead axle model. The wheelbase on his kart is right at 48 inches. On the regular production Super K models, it was shortened down to 45-3/4 inches from what I read in last years HOTROD magazine test article. The second test they did later in the year.
Now the problem I am seeing is just Frank. Nothing wrong with the kart. The new A-bone has a wheelbase of about 43-1/2 inches. I dont know exactly what it is for sure, but that is close enough for tonight. This welded in cross member behind the seat hoop is just way too far back. I had suggested cutting off and moving the bearing hangers forward to shorten the wheel base already.
The only problem now is this very early design originally had a frame mounted gas tank behind the seat. A large round one that set half way down below the frame rails. After some measuring, I see the frame will have to be cut in front of this rear cross member.
So all that needs to be done is clean up both ends of the cross member then weld it back to the main frame rails. The bearing hangers will get welded on behind this cross member. Then everything fits almost exactly like the new A-bone.
Alright Frank, I see only one major problem to doing it this way. Your cross member will have to be turned around backwards to the way there are here. Then the angled mounting brackets will line up with the new style swing mounts. That is if you would you risk doing it that way.
So, Frank, will what I just explained fix it for you? Just flip the cross member around then forward on fresh clean rails so your new motor mounts will bolt right on perfectly. The bearing hangers weld on just behind that. Wont this work out?
These older swing mounts do set your engines more forward of the axle. It needed all that extra wheel base for them to fit everything in there. But this way here like I suggested, lines up right and puts your kart almost exactly like the new A-bone.
Well if I knew it was going to be that much work to change everything over.......
Frank I told you what I thought needed to be done when making the suggestions last time when I was over here. So far, nothing much more than moving the cross member is what else is needed for this to work. Nothing else I see is different than what we talked about. Or what I talked about and maybe you didnt bother paying much attention to my recommendations.
While Frank was mulling over his frame and measuring everything I had just gone over, my mind went back a few years. Several times in the past, I got way over my head on tackling projects. Sometimes so much I bailed out of a few. In more recent attempts and near failures, dad had taken the time trying explaining to me how to make big problems seem smaller.
It was not hard for me to see the finished project well enough in my head. Sometimes even picturing most of the steps along the way to get there. But other times I got in too deep and completely overwhelmed.
I spent too much time tearing everything apart and not yet figuring out how to build it back to what was worked out as finished in my head. There ended up way too many things needing to be done that I completely overlooked. With each step finished I stumbled over a few more that were not factored in to get to the end.
Dad slowed me down and got my brain focused on one step at a time. When that was worked out, I look a few steps ahead and make sure everything is still going in the right direction. Then work on the next major part. If I kept it going together is small steps, then I was able to get farther along and finally finish in a reasonable amount of time without giving up so soon.
Mom told me when she was alone and had free time, which is rare for her, she liked to sit down and do jigsaw puzzles. Some of the hardest ones were of a solid color. So you could not go by what the picture was. Well you could, but did not help at all for the obvious reason. She would usually try to finish the border of a given jigsaw puzzle then work small chunks together. Eventually everything would fall into place.
Those solid color jigsaw puzzles came out in different levels of difficulty. The pictured ones, even if very complex were not so bad to do. Since you could sort of match the piece to a picture on the box cover.
Once again she explained how the border would be the first part to put together. Then match the similar colored pieces, until they fit together in small chunks. Move these groups around and fill in with the last of the puzzle pieces.
At the time I sure didnt see a lot in common comparing one of my attempts of altering something into nothing at all like it was, is like doing jigsaw puzzles. After dad breaking it down into smaller pieces, it makes more sense. But only a little.
When grandpa gave that little Craftsman lathe to me, I thought it would be sort of cool to have a machine to make some things. But he showed up with it in several boxes completely torn all apart. Then smaller boxes full of pieces inside the larger ones. This was one project I was no where ready to tackle.
But Grandpa saw the expression on my face and could tell I was completely lost. Just leave it alone and we will work on the lathe with my next visit over here. If we start with the small pieces first, then work on bolting them to the bigger parts, it will be a lot easier putting the lathe all back together.
Hey Frank, when your kart is finished, I think the wheelbase will end up very close to the new A-bone. But right now there is about 4 inches you can play with to get everything fitting without too much butchering. So does it still look like too much work to do?
Well, it is still a lot more work that I thought. But what you showed me here looks promising and might even work. I still need to do some calculations just to make sure.
Frank turned up about 6 beers already. He had started out from a grouchy sounding jerk complaining about everything that was all my fault. Then shifted over to a slouching and slobbering moron. When he started apologizing about all of the complaining to me, is when I thought about bailing out of there.
After a few minutes, he finally shut up and sat down at his desk. OK kid, I am in better spirits now. Maybe I didnt see the trees because all of those other trees were there in front of them. Well something like that.
Yea whatever Frank. I am thinking about heading on out of here. You know I got school tomorrow and everything. So might check up on things in a few days or so. Just depending on if I got a lot of homework or not.
No, you can stick around for a little while. I am over my tantrum. Oh do you mind grabbing another cold one for me? I have de-escalated my stress levels and now lowering my blood pressure by self projection.
OK, Frank, now you are freaking me out. Here is your beer, I am out of here. As I was turning around to head out of his garage, I saw a kart magazine under some papers on his desk. It was the February issue of Popular KARTING.
What caught my attention was a bright yellow kart in a pack lined up making laps on some track. Looks like the pace laps before the flag dropped. But the kart sort of looked really cool.
I eased back over next to his desk and snagged up the magazine. Frank was busy using the can opener end on his bottle then spilling the beer as it slipped out of his hands when the cap popped off. Sure glad I had just pulled the magazine away when the beer spilled all over his desk. This is a full size magazine, not like the Karting World mags I have.
On the cover was a list of its contents and one in particular was circled with a red marker. WEST BEND HOP UP. I was still more interested in that yellow kart on the cover tho.
I first studied the picture of that kart, but not sure what make it was. Then went flipping thru the pages and stopped at a ROAD TEST 100. They were track testing a Bates Eagle. Nothing really spectacular at first about the kart. But with some closer...wait a minute.
Hey Frank where is your magnifying glass? While Frank was multitasking himself drinking beer, and cleaning up his mess, he handed it to me. Not the beer bottle Frank, your magnifying glass. I pulled the desk drawer open myself then rummaging around for it.
There were several things about the kart I noticed. Not that kart on the cover, but in this track test. The first thing is it had a front extension forward of the axle. The kart also had the tie rods located out of the way behind the steering shaft. Another closer look, the main frame reals were very close in design to the Hornet S-85.
I checked over the specifications listed and they did not seem to match what I was seeing in the pictures. It claimed to have 15 degrees caster, 3 degrees negative camber and 12 degrees kingpin inclination.
I know after re-repairing the front end of my Cates kart, having a good idea of what negative camber looks like. There is no way it has much more than zero degrees negative camber not accounting for the clearances on the kingpin bolts.
There is a front view of the frame and 3 degrees of negative camber would look like it was worn out. Maybe if it was three degrees total adding both sides, might be more believable. It does not look like having anywhere close to 12 degrees kingpin inclination either. There is some, I would say closer to half what is listed, but nothing more.
My Cates kart has a ton of kingpin inclination. More than any of the karts I have seen locally. I still dont quiet understand all the effects of the geometry yet, but starting to get a better grip on it more.
If you put this kart right next to a Hornet S-85, they would not really look that much alike because of the obvious differences of some things. But removing the front extension porch and reversing the spindles around would look a lot more like the Hornet.
Well anyway I need to do some reading up on this kart. I have never seen it listed anywhere until now. Hopefully Frank is sauced up enough to let me borrow this magazine for a few days.
Flipping some more pages I found the article about modifying one Westbend 580. I guess Frank had already read this article since it was circled. I looked back to the table of contents in front and saw a lot of good articles. Well some good subjects worth reading about.
The contents had articles on crash helmets, 100 mile races, factory teams, fuels, welding, build your own kart, this track test, and the hop-up on a Westbend. I need to borrow this issue for sure.
Yea, there is a good article on porting out my Westbend in that mag. You should read it. Might actually learn something to put in that hard head of yours. Frank was now slurring his words together a lot more.
Well OK Frank, I will do that. Thanks for the loan. I promise to return it in the same condition, plus maybe a few extra incriminating fingerprints.
Uh, I didnt say you could...oh H-E double hockey pucks, just make sure it gets back here in one piece.
I noticed Franks head sort of bobbing, then plopped down on his desk, so decided to hit the road.
Oh sorry Frank, I cant stay any longer. But you know I have curfew. Dont want to get caught out after hours and get a citation. Those are not the right kind of citations like they hand out for being extra good in school. So I will catch up with you later. Thanks for the loan. After saying my goodbyes, my bike was already rolling down the driveway and I was gone.
Frank sort of mumbled out something while attempting to lift up his head. But I ignored whatever he was saying, just humming a tune to myself drowning out whatever it was. I am not so sure about hanging out with Frank when he had one too many. I am not all that comfortable around him when he does drink. Oh wait a minute. Now that I think about it, when has he not been drinking? Hmmm
