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:
- 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.
- The inner flywheel to output shaft taper is wonky (not his words)
- 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
- One of the crankcase breather “Flapper” valves is missing and because of previous modifications may be hard to rectify.
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Oh dear oh dear … but hey, instead of selling off the kids, how about selling (some of) the horses?