Modern pistons for old engines

[JohnW]

You may laugh but in the old days leather was often used in place of a worn out babbit bearing. Pulled down engines & seen.

I think I'm right in saying that Comet windmills had crankshaft bearings made of Mulga. Kept oiled by a wick system, the wood polished up nicely and they'd start pumping on the lightest breeze. Drillers I worked with 50 years ago reckoned they were the Rolls-Royces of windmills.

 

[RINGER]

You're right on that one John. JG.

 

[Greenpeace]

Mate of mine bought an old Y block V8 Customline from out west when I was a young fella. Tidy car but didn't sound quite right and was a bit of on the doughy side. My mate said "It'll just be a head gasket". Bought it cheap and drove it over 400 kms home.
He compression tested it and two cylinders opposite each other in the Vee had no compression.
Pulled the first rocker cover, no pushrods on the affected cylinder, pulled the other side, same thing. Off with the heads, no pistons in either cylinder.
He shone a torch down the bore and there was a piece of a XXXX can (they were steel cans back then) wrapped around the big end journal and secured in place with 2 exhaust clamps to maintain oil pressure. They had put the exhaust clamps on 180 degrees apart for "balance" and added locking nuts on them for "safety". They even tapped the grounding straps down onto the electrodes on the plugs on those two cylinders so there was no chance of a spark igniting fumes in the sump. The block was toast both bores were badly damaged at the bottom presumably from a big end letting go some time in the past.

Buyer beware.

 

[RINGER]

Saw Ford V8 flathead with shim stock fitted under worn slipper bearings to reduce clearance to improve oil pressure (very temporarily) until the bearings spun!

 

[Greenpeace]

Comet windmills had crankshaft bearings made of Mulga. Kept oiled by a wick system, the wood polished up nicely and they'd start pumping on the lightest breeze.

Nothing like a good bit of timber. I'm rather partial to this 1908 GN cyclecar. It's 1100cc V twin replaced by a WW1 era 5 litre V8 J.A.P aircraft engine. The coolest part, the completely original 113 year old wooden chassis.

 

[Reidar]

That kart may be slightly irrelevant to the topic of this thread but it is cool.

 

[Greenpeace]

That kart may be slightly irrelevant to the topic of this thread but it is cool.

He did have a modern crankshaft made for it, that's close to the topic.

The original aircraft one was made out of hollow sections and he considered it too light/fragile for use in a road car.

 

[Reidar]

I received my 138mm Brazilian conrods today. They are just like a normal 1,4L Cleon rod just 10mm longer.

The rods came in original VW box with part number and date(1981) and were packed in storage grease. So NOS originals.

So the just under 20mm small end needs drilling up to just over 21mm and a small funnel shaped hole in the end for oil. I guess I can copy the hole in the mini conrod.

The conrods were bought from Mercado Livre in Brazil and forwarded to me by a company called vwparts@shopandshipbrazil.com. Their communication is exellent and ewerything went smooth and turned out reasonably cheap.
So vwparts@shopandshipbrazil.com is recommended. They aim at the VW guys but will probably handle anything that is legal.