snow Tandem

[Joe d]

Hi all

Started this a couple of years ago, got the cylinders done and a few other bits, and then shelved it for quite a while. Finally got back at it last fall, and have been nibbling away at it ever since. Still have the cams to do, and then have to take a break to make some tooling, need some line-boring bars to finish the cylinders, and need to make a tubing bender for the coolant, fuel, and exhaust.

snow Tandem

a look at the crank end of things
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Cheers, Joe

[dsquire]

Hi Joe

I would like to take this opportunity to welcome you to MadModders. It looks like you have already caught  .
It is looking pretty good for starters. I'll be watching your progress here as you post up any updates. It certainly looks like their are lots of interesting pieces in this engine.  

Cheers  

Don

[Dean W]

Nice to see this magnificent build making itself known here, Joe.
You're a top hand, Mr.

Dean

[Bernd]

Nice start on that engine Joe.

Looking forward to many more posts on your adventure of building this engine.

BTW, Welcome to the collective. 

Bernd

[Rob.Wilson]

Hi Joe 

Great job  this is going to be one fine looking engine 

Cheers Rob

[Stilldrillin]

Hi Joe, 

Welcome to the collective! We`re a bit of a mixed bunch on here...... 

That`s some project you`re on with. Looking forward to seeing further progress! 

Enjoy!

David D

[sbwhart]

Welcome aboard the cube  Joe

A very nice build of a real interesting engine, I was watching a full size Robey tandem in action recently they are real powerful beasts, this one was used as a winding engine, watched them stop and start it they had to use a donkey engine to wind it over to get the valves in the correct position before they could restart it.

Look forward to following progress.

Have fun

Stew

[madjackghengis]

Welcome aboard, Joe, I looked at that engine build with longing, but one has to choose what to focus on, or will end up with more projects than time to accomplish any of them, so I've been hoping to see one of these get a build log going, and watch it come together.  I'm looking forward to seeing the sticky points, and how you get around them, and to the day you put a video on, showing us how she looks running, and hearing her sound off.  I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoy watching the build.
mad jack

[Joe d]

Well,  thanks for all the comments/welcomes.  Seems that the collective IS assimilating me.....  for those interested, there is a build log over on HMEM here but now that I'm here too, I'll keep you guys up to date as well.

Cheers, Joe

[Brass_Machine]

That is such a great engine. Saw some about 3 years ago at cabin fever...

Very cool stuff.

Eric

[Joe d]

Well, finished up various tooling side-tracks, and got back to the main event. 

Spent a bit of time to make up a boring bar to line-bore the cylinders:
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and a driving dog
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and damned near ruined a cylinder assembly as the part shifted during boring... came out with a bore slanting off to the side...I'd bolted a bit of angle to the cross slide, and bolted the cylinder to that, and it was not up to the job.

soooooo after a longish pause for recriminations and practising bad words, went back to the 4 jaw, indicated the thing to pretty much zero runout and finished the job that way.  Fixing the boo-boo has left me with a bore that is .0025 bigger than the plans call out, I'll adjust the piston size to fit. 

Once the bore was done, bolted on the head without moving the cylinder and  bored the head for the piston rod bushing
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Installed the bushing, and the head cover and reamed them to final dimension
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Then turned it around in the chuck, re-indicated as close to dead nuts as I could, and did the 2nd head the same way,
and then all over again for the second cylinder assembly

And here's the stack-up:
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This one got me worried for a little while!

Cheers, Joe

[Bernd]

Nice save Joe. 

To bad that line boring didn't work out for you. Looks like your streching the limits of the Taig there.

Bernd

[Joe d]

Thanks. Bernd.  There have been a few moments that I'm right on the edge of Taig's envelope ..Moving along... time for pistons & rings

Chucked up a piece of cast iron, turned it to the required diameter, bored to the required ID, and here I'm about to start parting them off
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and here's a pile of rings (I need 4, so I should be good even after breaking some in the installation)
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The pistons are held on their rods with two set screws at 90* so I turned them oversized, drilled and tapped for the set screws, and then mounted them on the piston rods to act as an arbor to turn to final size and cut the grooves for the rings
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And here you need your x-ray vision to see the all where they belong inside the cylinder.  (It's all in there. Trust me.)
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Cheers, Joe

[Brass_Machine]

Looks nice Joe. You make it seem like it is easy stuff. Good job!

Eric

[Rob.Wilson]

Hi Joe


Great work 


Regards Rob

[Joe d]

Thanks, Eric.

Rob:  Good to hear from you, mate!  Don't be such a stranger.

Cheers, Joe

[Dean W]

You're doing a mighty fine job, Joe.

Dean

[madjackghengis]

Hi Joe, good to see some serious progress on that engine, it's also good to know other people have to adjust the size of their pistons on occasion too, I'd hate to feel alone in that regard.  Nice job, keep it up and we'll see a real show stopper.  mad jack

[Joe d]

Well, been a while... caught one of the many bugs going around, and have been bloody miserable for most of the last couple of weeks.  Actually stayed home from work one day (I HATE wasting a day off work being ill.)  Anyhow, went in the shop every day, and most days came right back out again, realizing that running machinery was not going to end well.  Slowly starting to get back to normal, so have slowly started to make some progress

Got the honking big chunk of flat ali squared up and drilled here and there for the base plate
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Then started on the coolant return manifold, turned the "funnels" that go on the top of the vertical pipes
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soft soldered in place
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and then soft soldered  them on to a longish bit of pipe that runs back to the coolant tank that isn't built yet
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Lots to do still, but it's getting there!

Cheers, Joe

[Bernd]

Looking googs Joe. 

Sure are a lot of pieces in that engine.

Bernd

[DeereGuy]

Ditto...your coming along nicely...keep up the good work.

[Joe d]

Thanks, guys.

Once it's all done, I'm going to calculate just how many pieces there are.... don't want to know just yet

Joe

[madjackghengis]

Hi Joe, your build is coming along very well now, you've got quite a bit accomplished, and it's beginning to look like an engine. mad jack

[Joe d]

Thanks for that mad Jack.... I've been following along on the Radial you're doing... gives me a really bad case of 

Cheers, Joe

[Rob.Wilson]

Hi Joe 

Your giving me     ,,,,,,,,,top job   


Regards Rob