BMW V8 dry sump from billet

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Brass_Machine:
Looking forward to seeing your dry sump made out of aluminum. Got a kick out of it in wax... gave me the idea to try some of the complex stuff I want to do that way first! Good job on that... now onto the real thing.

:thumbup:

Eric

AdeV:
Zeroaxe - it certainly is, but my typing is appalling too - but having typed pretty much daily for over 25 years now, I make & correct mistakes really fast :) Incidentally, you should probably know that, about 6 months ago, I didn't have a mill, lathe, or any machining experience whatsoever... I'm still learning like crazy, and for all it's size, this sump is actually relatively simple.

--- Quote from: John Stevenson on March 18, 2010, 06:49:29 PM ---
Do you have the horizontal attachment for the Bridgy ?

--- End quote ---

John - I've got the #4 right-angle drive (the small one that takes unobtainium collets), and have recently picked up a Quillmaster + right-angle attachment; but the beefy #3 right-angle drive + arbor + support has so far proven to be beyond my meagre financial means. I'm guessing you're going to suggest that it would make light work of trimming this piece to size, and I'd be tempted to agree (although I'd need some pretty large diameter cutters). One day, I will have the #3 head, at which point I'll sell the #4 on, as any work it can do can be done with the Quillmaster instead.

Eric - The wax version certainly taught me a lot about what I'm trying to do; and has given me a good idea about what order I should be doing the machining operations in; and also which operations to avoid (that 2mm "pocket" which caused so much grief with the angle plate, for example). I'm not finished with the wax yet, I still have to profile the back of the sump, and I'll do that in wax before I do it in the aluminium.

John Stevenson:
OK then no head.
What I was going to suggest was, if you had the #4 head you could spin the ram over so it was at one end of the table, fit the head and line it up parallel to the bed and then when you drill you will have the plate better supported because you have most of the bed not being used up with the head located over it.

John S.

zeroaxe:
Btw, what you mentioned the other day about drilling holes right through the Ali to have reference points once you turn it over..., and this way loose a lot of WD40 'draining' through to the bottom..... I thought of something that you might be able to use(might work, might not) for the next time. Drill your holes through just like you did, and then shove a wooden dowel in the hole to (re)block it up.....? Makes sense? :scratch:

AdeV:
John - not a bad idea; it would also mean I could be sure that the drill was parallel to the table (to the best of my tramming abilities), wheras with the head canted over I have to try to get everything lined up perfectly, without any really decent tooling. I'm open to ideas on that one.

Zero- makes perfect sense (doh). Having said that, I'm done with the 6mm cutter (for now, at least), so it's not currently a worry, but thanks for the suggestion :headbang:

OK, on with the show. Another 4 hours in the shop, started like this:

That's a 4.5mm cut with the 12mm rippa cutter (ebay link - buy one, they're ace). I sliced down in ~1cm depths at around 250mm/min feed rate until I had to lower the cutter in the collet. After that I went at 1/2cm DOC, just to reduce the strain on the cutter. I've only got one 12mm cutter, didn't want to break it.

After roughing out, take the final 0.5mm in 4 passes - top & bottom, 0.25mm at a time - using a 20mm 4-flute cutter (the only one I've got deep enough to cut the whole depth, with the flatted section inside the collet):

Repeated this on the backside, and the end (I had to move the clamp again, quelle surprise. One day I'll clamp the bugger in the right place the first time).

So, here it is, looking almost exactly the same as it did yesterday.....:

But now it's the right width, compared to the wax version:

Saturday tomorrow = all day in the shop :thumbup:

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