Not-a-number

Got half shaft/axles and hubs on as a test fit. Two corners feel a little tight, though I dont know whats acceptable. So when it comes to it ill have to size smaller rollers for those ones. Steering arms from 4140. Front Spring Hangers machined. Drums from 6061 Gearing up to do a bunch more Blocks so making new patterns to fix some issues and make life quicker. Old one from a decade ago. Pretty crude. Im mostly focusing on the engine (I keep saying). But if I really got into it it wouldnt take a ton of work to make it a rolling chassis. Which is crazy! 😅 Just need to machine rear brake backing plates, 2 chassis crossmembers, front spring hangers. Then wheels, which are a huge job but are on the go at the moment and will be a cool update.

Nice. Do you work there? I just finished SN:005 (3rd one off the machine) and ready to ship it down. Gearing up to do a bunch more castings now.

Found a supplier for cylindrical rollers for the hubs. Got a sample to do one of the fronts. The original design doesnt have a ball bearing or angular bearing like normal hubs. The outer/inner race are the hub and stub axle. So you can imagine you have to have a perfectly sized hub/stub and roller diameter combo to get the right clearance and stackup. Theres no adjustment other than picking a set of slightly larger/smaller rollers. The axle is interesting. They look like a solid/fixed axle but they are split and move in the middle to work independently. Cross-section of the hub. Test fitting rollers and hub. Made a stand. Will be good later to have on wheels when assembling brakes and steering parts etc.

Finished another block this week. The setup is working quite well now. I need to figure out a quicker way to cast them though. Dad did a set of cam box retaining studs.

Only a few parts are original. Theres a couple of rear spring hangers, brake levers, cam caps and a front hub. Id use the cam caps but the rest are good for reference. There were only really 6 cars (in various forms its probably 8 cars) and they are all accounted for. It was a race car so there were obviously extra parts around though theyve been scooped up years ago. All major components are with those original cars. Its not like the Type 57 road car where they made close to 800 cars so there are old usable parts out there. Original hub on right. Original cam caps. But they might be from a T57. Original drilling jigs for the crankcase and cam box. Yeah pretty much. But isnt that what we're supposed to be doing? Spending all our money on car parts!

Well Christmas came early a few weeks back. Made a huge commitment to the project and managed to acquire close to 1 ton of Type59 parts (962kg to be exact ). Several months of organizing but several hundred parts later. Almost all remaining castings for the engine. Gearbox castings, gearbox internals. Rear diff, front axle, hubs, brakes, fuel tanks, radiator, a wheel, firewall, steering box. Goes on and on. Its exciting! Now I possibly have a chance of completing something in my lifetime! Theres a lot there and it has saved a couple of decades work but theres still an absolute ton to go. Its both motivating and depressing So on that note, Im going to change the build title from Engine to Car

Finished and out of the machine. Had the Sparkplug cups machined at a place in China Ive been trying out. Really good and only $20 each. From ordering to in my hand in 8days! They will be press fit I just need to decide on the fit. Took 20+kg out of it!

Yeah I have a couple more to do. I’ll start on them once this one has valves seats cut. Not many people doing them but also not many people needing them.

To face the ends I had planned to use the horizontal part of my manual mill. But only just clicked that I could come down vertically in the cnc with the long face mill. Did 1mm stepdowns and it worked great. Then theres a clearance/face for each nut mounting. Got it with 3D contouring with a 3mm ball nose.

Got the combustion chamber bowls finished. Took 10hrs! On the 2 cylinder test part I used an Aliexpress steel shank, carbide single insert Lollypop style tool. It would ring and chatter so easily that it took 3+hrs just for one bowl. Luckily in amongst a bunch of tooling I bought from an auction was a full carbide shank, carbide insert ball mill. Turns out these are worth 1000s on their own so that paid for itself! Managed to find some new cast iron inserts on Ebay. So much more ridged. The only issue is there are 3 inserts at different heights and I guess they are not quite aligned right. The point you transfer between inserts it leaves a slightly raised section. Not really a problem. On to the final cylinder opp now. Need to have an undercut / relief at the top of the bore. So when boring and honing they can run upto the bowl without hitting it and messing up the bowl and hone.

Finally got onto machining the full block. Its going pretty well. At about 7days so far with about 2 days left I think. Setup outside the trunnion to do the underside. Start on the top face with all the oring grooves and sparkplug area. Then Cambox faces. Exhaust/Inlet faces Water inlet side. Underside with leadins and roughing out the bores. Final opp to do is the bowl finishing which takes forever. Then Ill send it away to have valve seat cut plus final bore and hone by the guys that know what theyre doing!

It took several days to figure out how to machine the bowl/chamber. Was a challenge for sure, both in the programming and the surface finish. But it has come out nicer than I thought it could considering how long and chattery the tool could be. Ive talked to the engine machine shop that I will have hone it and it seems like it might be a good idea to have them finish bore it anyway. Then itll be done in a proper boring machine with proper tool by someone who knows what theyre doing. So Ill leave about 0.1mm on the bore but finish the rest.

Have completed the sparkplug cup area. Theres a cup that presses over the top of the dome and orings to the top of the block. Usually its a press fit and bonded on but I think Im going to Oring top and bottom and retain it differently. Just so I can take them out. Now starting on the bores. Roughing them with a long facemill and then with a boring head. You can get some pretty nice tooling on AliExpress for a couple hundred bux these days!

Been working on the 2 cylinder to work out the programming/process. Learning a lot. For the most part its rigid enough to get a good surface finish, but a couple of faces want to ring no matter what. Luckily a couple of jacking screws sorted it. It may or may not be a problem on the full block but if it is its not a big deal. Unless I forget to remove them before the 4th axis moves!! Now onto the harder part of boring and doing the combustion chamber. Boring should be ok but doing the bowl will be tricky. Waiting on a special tool holder for it.

The large plate moved around quite a lot due to how much material was swarfed. So iv spent a lot of time measuring all over and cleaning it up to get it accurate. Measured and clocked it up once assembled and all looks good now. Definitely looks serious!