Had a call from Colin this afternoon, he wanted me to come over and lay down some policy guidelines for the Crankshaft. The problem is, how long is a piece of string? Things we make are generally imperfect and what we built 100 years ago are somewhat more so. The question is how good do I want it and the answer has to be good enough to get me through the next 4000Km rally without trouble and then some. The last thing I want is to be sitting on the side of the road with a broken car wishing I had sold my children into slavery in order to have the perfect unbreakable crankshaft.

Colin has found the following problems:

1. The conrod is not straight although the big end the little end are parallel, the rod is “S” shaped and is scraping the inner flywheel.
2. The inner flywheel to output shaft taper is wonky (not his words)
3. The big end journal had been previously machined making one of the tapers  seat about 60% however this is not the drive side so is probably OK
4. One of the crankcase breather “Flapper” valves is missing and because of previous modifications may be hard to rectify.

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Yesterday I spent the good part of an hour making a tool that I used for 10 seconds. I needed a 1 ½”AF deep socket to remove the flywheel nut, luckily I had a spare ¾” drive Chinese one that was made of such crap metal that I could easily turn the square drive into a circle, then added a bit of gal pipe and a spare ½” drive socket for the top add some dodgy welds, the rattle gun and as I said the job was done in 10 seconds….at least I can use it to put it back on later. I will throw it in the box labeled “Special Tools”. However it will not stop me making one just same when I need to do this job again, I always forget to look in that box!

Having had this engine apart a couple of times now means it came apart very easily this time , whacking the flywheels with the copper mallet freed it from the crankshaft and later the big-end journal from the inner flywheel. This engine has effectively 3 flywheels and the ones inside are heavier than the one you can see in the picture, in fact the engine looks like it should run on steam by the robustness of construction and therefore weight. The reason I have dismantled it into its component parts is so I can carry it. Never mind shaggers back this thing will hurt much more without the fun angle.

So today I have dropped the bits off and await Colin’s call so will have to pull something else apart while I wait.