I had this 1911 Hupmobile follow me home I am only the 3rd owner got it from the widow of the grandson of the original owner.
It is in exceptional shape this thing is about 100 times better than my mini was when getting it hard to believe since it's near twice as old.
It had not run in 50 or so years I got it running and took a short drive it will come apart soon for restoration after lots of documentation as it appears very correct and original.
The entire car has 5 wires including the 4 spark plug leads headlamps are gas tail is kerosene.
How long does a project like that take?
Wow, from the dawn of motoring....is it magneto fired? Crank start or electric? My daughter has a 1926 Model T sedan that her FIL restored, and it is one primitive piece of machinery - yet it's amazing to think that my father rode in one just like it from KC to California in 1926.....took them 2 weeks to get there.
This looks fairly sophisticated by comparison, and I expect it was a lot more money when new......
And hey - no snow up there yet? ;D
So cool. It's great to have that intimate peek into mechanical history as the inventors and the innovators and the engineers of that time were working so hard to just figure everything out and develop solutions.
Quote from: jeff10049 on November 19, 2021, 01:48:17 AM
It had not run in 50 or so years I got it running and took a short drive ...
That statement is incredible.
Dan, If time and money allowed me to just go for it about a year I suppose the cars are simple and easy the hard parts are anything broken or missing must be made or if you are lucky someone has one. I hope to get it apart painted and back to driving before next winter pending the condition of some wood parts. Little things Nickle plating top upholstery, carriage lamp restoration, and such will happen more slowly the nice part is that stuff can get cleaned up and used as is and sent out over the next winter or two.
Dave, Henry Ford paid the Hupp 20 the ultimate compliment. "I recall looking at Bobby Hupp's roadster at the first show where it was exhibited and wondering whether we could ever build as good a small car for as little money."
Ford Never did achieve that goal in the early years the Hupp was 100-200 dollars less than a T.
Comparing this Hupp to my 1919 T the Hupp is a superior car in almost every way better brakes, better ignition, easier to operate, smoother running. Hupp made it up to 1940 they built some wonderful cars the last of their cars interestingly were built with the old Cord dies that were also used for the Graham Hollywood.
There were 127 American car manufacturers in 1911 I think what companies like Ford had on them even when another company had a better product at a better price was that Ford was/became a good businessman some of his choices could be argued in later years but early on he had the right ideas they also very much had economies of scale.
The car has a bosch fixed timing mag, crank start only, two speed gearbox, brake on the right pedal, throttle in the middle, clutch on left.
The 1911 hupp runabout was $750 new headlamps and other options were more I'm not sure how it ended up compared to a ford with the same options but the base price was less for the Hupp. Very impressive considering most cars of equal or better quality were not priced anywhere near the Ford sometimes 1000's more.
Jeff on top of the engine what are those spigot/valve type things next to the spark plugs?
Quote from: BruceK on November 19, 2021, 05:37:01 PM
Jeff on top of the engine what are those spigot/valve type things next to the spark plugs?
Those are primer cups you add fuel to them and open the valve to allow it to run into the cylinder before starting then close em up and crank it.
The large nuts they are screwed into are how you remove the intake and exhaust valves.
This is truly a fascinating and ambitious project. I very much look forward to following your progress which hopefully will be documented in this thread.
What color do you think you'll do? I hope it's something bright and cheerful.....
I will post updates here I may have the main documentation over on the AACA forums but I will link to that.
This car was originally blue I seem to end up with blue cars. I think poppy red was an option I like the red better but I want to keep it as correct as possible if red was an option I might just do it. Some say the fenders were always black others say that they also came body color so I guess that's up to me.
Will you enter it in AACA shows around the country then?
Are blue and red the only colors they came in? It could look good in a light yellow or cream too....Edit: right after I typed this I saw the car in the background!
Local guy had an early Mercer runabout in white - that looked good too.....
Poppy red up too late 1910 then blue came out those are the only two correct colors I know of so far. The cream looks good and I saw pictures of a yellow car that looked good. I still don't have enough info to know if red and blue were all that was available but so far that's the only colors the original sales literature shows. I would like to keep it a color that was at least available.
I will do some shows for sure might even take it to Hershey.
Autocolor library doesn't go below 1924. I took a look out of curiosity to see if they'd have this car listed.
Wow that's impressive that they go back to 24.
Lessee.....mill the heads and get compression up to about 8-1, open up the carb jets and build a free flow muffler, I bet you can double the HP! ;D
Shiny, black porcelain coating on the heads and exhaust (like they used to do on E-Type exhaust manifolds) would look great on this.
Acetylene gas for the headlights? So the lights are more to be seen than to actually see anything?
That'll give me about 40 hp >:D think the cork clutch will take it? LOL.
You would be surprised how well the gas lights work they are better than the early 6volt electrics.
I think there are a lot of misconceptions or assumptions perpetuated in part by all of the incorrectly restored stuff that doesn't work well.
The mirrors need to be good and silvered glass, not cheap repro chrome stuff you need correct 3/4" headlamp burners set right most people put them in 90 degrees out and only have 1/2" burners at least in most cars I have helped to correct.
They also had high and low beam options on some lamps a second burner that could be switched on and would light off the main beam burner. The Saxon lights on this car do not have the option but I thought some might find the interesting that such a thing was around back then.
The pictures are my first test of the lamps on this car it has correct burners and mirrors although misaligned broken and dirty they still cast a very visible beam at least the one that's aimed at the ground, not the sky LOL and it's only just getting dark in the pictures. I will replace the mirrors when I restore the lights and get everything aligned correctly and do a night drive video.
(edit) As an example I just noticed in the picture of the red car above if you zoom in on the headlamp you can see the Y-shaped burner yep it's installed 90 degrees out the Y should run front to back not side to side.
Wow that is a lot more light than I figured there would be.
me too!
And that's with no cleaning and a low flame.
Here is a picture of the flame I didn't clean the burner and air bleeds very well it should be whiter you can see the mirror is dirty and broken and the burner is skewed a little I was just playing around assessing things.
I was having a hard time throttling the flame with a hose just stuck on my welding torch the top of the flame is a little rounded looking it should be the other way and look more like a fishtail the gas flow was too low but if I gave it any more it would overdo it very touchy. They will work fine with the proper valve and regulator. This was just a test to make sure someone hadn't screwed up the gas holes in the burner forks they are only a .001 hole and often get ruined by unknowing individuals.
So, do you carry a small bottle of acetylene or do these use a gas generator of some sort?
This car has had two different carbide generators judging by the holes in the running board and a Prestolite tank over the years. I received a beautiful carbide generator with the car and a Prestolite B tank with running board mounts.
I think I will mount the generator because they look neat and put a B tank under the seat for convenience new B tanks are still available they don't have the cool gauge this original one has but that's ok I wouldn't trust this one at all. I will make it so the generator can be used occasionally for fun but calcium carbide in qty is getting harder to come by I have a few pounds if I want to try the generator.
Hasn't calcium carbide been banned? where would you get some once yours is gone?
It's not banned and probably never will be for gas generation. But the demand for it in smaller qty is going away. very small qty is readily available online but expensive (for miners lamps) The local welding shops can still order it if i need some but the tank is just so easy. Calcium carbide as a fruit riping agent has been banned in the U.S.A and some other countries that may be what you are thinking of.
So a lot has happened on this car, I do have a thread over on the aaca but it's all over the place I'll try and do a better job here.
The exceptional shape of this car ends with the body and frame the drivetrain is a complete disaster.
One project I worked on during the coldest time of the year is that I found the remains of an original floor mat under the seat and with the help of some folks on the AACA also got pictures of other sections of the mat and was able to draw the mat up in cad. A test mold has been CNC routed to check the file and its great. New mats will be cast in black urethane 80 durometer in a permanent mold cut from Corian countertop material.
I also did the radiator cap plastic part in cad to 3d print a ne one the original is crumbling apart.
I'll post a few pictures of the original and the mold. then I'll be posting a few more replies of other progress over the few hours and days to get this caught up since some of you expressed interest in this car.
I also removed the windshield frame, top, door, and side from the body the windshield frame has a crack in it 45% silver braze is a close color match so I repaired that, and it's almost impossible to see after polishing out the repair. also removed the kerosene lights, engine, gearbox, steering wheel, and rear end. The wood portion of the framing in the body panels is in superb condition I lucked out on that.
Picture of ground out crack, then braze, then grind and polish.
Door wood.
And a few shots of the engine removal
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Wow, I'm really impressed with you guys who can do this cad stuff with a computer, my cad skills are limited to Binky-style - cardboard aided design!
It's great that you've decided to take this on, the results will be pretty fantastic from the look of what you've done so far.
You and Paul with your 3-d printers - pretty amazing stuff to us mere mortals!
That braze turned out perfectly, you have to be chuffed over that.....
The engine I'm not sure where to start. I had it running so I didn't expect it to be so bad. After removing I found a crack nearly all the way around the crankcase it was almost broken in two.
An old repair had made it useable but wasn't right. It had a brass plate riveted on but the case was out of square and the patch had loose rivets. The engine was disassembled that's when I found a 6" long crack in the side cover that houses the cam it appears a crankshaft broke at one time causing the damage.
After much searching for a crankcase, I found several either also broken or not for sale. So I decided to attempt a repair I have been brazing cast for many years and that is how I repaired the side cover but this involved a lot of build-up and I wanted a little more strength than a braze repair. So after a few test welds on some other cast, I decided to use a 55 percent nickel rod I scraped the flux off so I could use it with the TIG welder. I removed the patch beveled all the rivet holes ground all the cracks through preheated the case to 400 degrees and began placing weld beads 1/2" then peen the weld and repeat. It's a slow process and took a few days and consideration of where the welding was done and moving around to control warpage. The casting ended up straight to within .001 over its length.
During all this, the crankshaft had been sent for grinding and came back looking great .020 undersize cleaned it up. There's more of a story to that as well I'll get to it later.
I'll post some more pictures soon as they are on the computer
Ok here is the case with the patch, removed and some grinding started for welding and finished.
The gray color is where I sandblasted the repair to give it a cast texture.
Hole-lee-crap that's a lot of welding!!! :-\
Quote from: MiniDave on May 08, 2022, 08:36:15 AMWow, I'm really impressed with you guys who can do this cad stuff with a computer, my cad skills are limited to Binky-style - cardboard aided design!
It's great that you've decided to take this on, the results will be pretty fantastic from the look of what you've done so far.
You and Paul with your 3-d printers - pretty amazing stuff to us mere mortals!
That braze turned out perfectly, you have to be chuffed over that.....
I was happy with that 45% silver braze for sure I read about the color match years ago in a brass car magazine.
Dave or anyone else if you are interested in the cad stuff and or 3d printing. You can download fusion 360 cad free for a year you need a good computer to run it. Lots of youtube vids for support there are guys doing entire youtube courses for free for fusion 360. You can also play with tinker cad online for free but it's pretty limited compared to fusion. A good 3d printer that can make very functional and accurate parts with only a hot-end upgrade can be had for under $500 or less brand new. I can print 1/4 20 threads in carbon fiber nylon with my cr10 and the bolt will screw right in off the printer and I can break the bolt off in the hole. (grade 5)
You can print patterns for casting and use pla like lost wax for investment casting. Sometimes just being able to print up a spacer is great. I have been printing those mk 1 mini turn signal stock ends I was making in aluminum so much easier. I even bought some translucent green petg plastic and made the little end I know you can get them but I wanted to see how it would work came out great threaded right in and the light shines through it great. And it was fun to learn how to draw it with the debossed lines around the edge being hollow and having threads it's a good beginner project in cad.
Quote from: MiniDave on May 08, 2022, 10:04:55 AMHole-lee-crap that's a lot of welding!!! :-\
Yes, it was over $100 in Nickle rod but it came out sweet it has a few inclusions I was going to go back and fill but then I got to looking at the rest of the casting and they look exactly like all the natural inclusions all over the thing so I'm done.
Now for the side cover it is unique in that the camshaft is babbitted right into the cover the only way to remove is to melt out the babbitt. So I 3d printed a cam locating fixture to hold the cam in space when re-babbitting it and then melted out the babbitt so I could repair the side cover since the cam was out I sent it to delta to be reground and the lifters surfaced those guys are old school cam shop they can do anything. It came back looking better than it has a right to.
With the cam out I ground a vee into the crack and used silcone bronze to braze up the cover I bolted it to the block to keep it straight and it came out good.
Wow, this is fascinating stuff. Very cool that you're working creatively - CAD and CNC mold-making and 3-D printing - things that would not have been available for a restoration like this just 20 or 30 years ago. This modern restoration will be so much better than what has been been done in the past.
Back in that day would they have machined the mold for that rubber mat out of metal?
Great stuff Jeff!
Quote from: MiniDave on May 08, 2022, 07:19:53 PM
Back in that day would they have machined the mold for that rubber mat out of metal?
I think a pattern maker would have made a wood pattern and used that to cast a metal mold to heat vulcanize the rubber in. I don't know that for sure but the detail is very good on the original we were pretty good at stuff in 1911 however it was done.
I guess the next thing to cover is the cylinders. They are cast in pairs T head style the head and cylinder are integral. I found that dodge 218 fathead pistons that are readily available are the correct size the pin bore in the rods needs to be enlarged but that's no big deal.
I bought some .030 over pistons. Its a blind bore and I couldn't find any local shops (local being all of Oregon that wanted to do the job) even the motorcycle shops I called.
Sooo... like everything have to do it myself or send it far away after getting all the broken-off corroded bolts removed from the manifold holes. I used my friend's horizontal milling machine to bore the cylinders to .025 oversize. Next with help from Sunnen on how to custom grind stones and stroking technique to control choke in a blind cylinder honing operation. I started the honing to final size it took lots of switching between custom stones and standard stones and flipping stones over to control taper but the end result are bores straight to within .00015 or so. My dial bore gauge reads in .00025 increments and it only moves about half a division top to bottom. It was kind of fun I've never tackled a blind bore before it's a challenge but it worked out. In the video, my bore gauge is set to piston size I was shooting for .002 piston to wall clearance. I have since increased that to .003 due to the type of cooling system the car has It may run hotter and the aluminum pistons expand more than the steel bore so I'm giving myself a safety margin on clearance.
7 pounds of tin Babbitt arrived in the ups. I can start working on getting the bearings poured or the cam installed.
Moving back in the drivetrain the gearbox needed one gear the reverse idler it also needed one shaft the shaft the laygear runs on was worn about 15 thousands but the bronze laygear bore is very nice. I think the laygear had been replaced and the old shaft reused. I made the shaft out of 4140 on my lathe and oil hardened it. I again borrowed the use of my friends horizontal mill to make the reverse gear also out of 4140 but now the furnace pyrometer seems to be off as table salt did not melt when the temp gauge was at 1500 so we need to address that before heat treating the gear.
I'll be interested to see how you pour the babbitt for the bearings, especially the cam bearings.
Salt wouldn't melt at 1500*? That's how you harden gears?
Quote from: MiniDave on May 22, 2022, 07:37:31 AM
I'll be interested to see how you pour the babbitt for the bearings, especially the cam bearings.
Salt wouldn't melt at 1500*? That's how you harden gears?
The salt is just a temp test it should be molten at exactly 1,474 degrees Fahrenheit.
The furnace didn't seem right so that was a test to see if it really was 1,500.
It is very important to know the temp as I will be working in the austenitizing range of 4140 about 1570 after heating a quench in canola oil and then back in the furnace to draw back the hardness at about 500 degrees for 1 hour per inch of thickness should produce a hard and also though gear.
But yes you can heat the parts in molten salt bath very even heat certain nitriding processes are done this way but gas nitriding is more in favor these days the old salt bath lines are corossive and the nitriding ones are also toxic as hell.
Jeff
while covering the gearbox I suppose it's a good time to talk about the clutch.
It is a multidisc arrangement all disc are steel on steel running in the same oil as the gear box.
It of course was butchered like everything in the drive train wait until I get to the rear diff.
So the clutch housing and cover were ok the hub had broken at some point and a piece of copper was brazed well someone attempted to braze a piece of copper into the center and broach the keyways into it. It was so far off center that it was apparent to the eye that it wasn't even close and the keyways were broached at an angle it was tearing up the rest of the clutch. No wonder it didn't work well when I drove it. The hub being cast iron and butchered and other damage as a result of the butchering.
I decided to make a new one I ordered a piece of 6" round stock 6" long from the local steel yard heavy little bugger and expensive at $100.00 price of steel is crazy right now.
I have been whittling away at it in the lathe over a few days when I had an extra few minutes. I got all the diameters and counterbores done in the lathe and milled the spring pocket and clutch tab slots today next it's keways and then it's done. At that point, I will finally be able to reassemble a single piece of the car and call it done.
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Wow, in that one pic of the hubs side by side, you can see how far off the center bit is! ::)
It kind of blows my mind when you're talking about past repairs to the car which could have been done 100 years ago - or more!
Poured some Babbitt. I made a mold out of an energy drink can and a piece of pipe (the energy drink was poured out those things are nasty but the can was the right size lol) then I poured a rear transmission bearing and machined it to size the pour was great no inclusions. This bearing is the least critical and was a test of pouring and machining everything went well. Next is the poured-in-place camshaft. The babbitt was poured at close to 800 Fahrenheit per manufactures instructions the babbitt is 86%tin 7%antimony 7%copper this is close to what ford used in the model t's.
Very interesting
The cam is back in its housing I made some dams for the babbitt out of aluminum and used plumbers putty for the rest of the daming coumpnd. The cam journals were coated with antiseiz and one layer of thin paper to give proper oil clearance the babbitt burns up the paper.
Three screws in each end were used to hold and align the cam for pouring the three center bearings after that the screws were backed out and the ends poured. I sawed off the excess babbitt and now need to file or mill down the remaining excess and put in oil holes.
So. it looks like getting the cam dead nuts centered and square is critical, as the cam is not removable once the bearings are poured? You think this is how they did it way back when, or did they have some kind of custom mold?
Quote from: MiniDave on June 25, 2022, 07:37:30 AM
So. it looks like getting the cam dead nuts centered and square is critical, as the cam is not removable once the bearings are poured? You think this is how they did it way back when, or did they have some kind of custom mold?
They had a fixture that clamped to machined spots on the cam plate and held the cam in position all the bearings were poured at once. And from what I understand the final grind was done in place.
I could have held the cam a different way and poured all at once as well but for a one-off this was easy and easy to adjust. I had 3d printed some positioning washers for the ends when I took it apart but the cam was actually off from the factory a little more than I wanted since I can't grind it afterward to correct it. So I used the washers to get close and fine-tuned with the screws. Of course the cam gear also needs to be square to the crank gear in all planes. mesh is adjusted with gasket thickness.
This also means when I line bore the crankcase the crank needs to be parallel not only with the deck but also the cam plate surface and in line front main to back main within .0002 The tolerances are not near as forgiving as a modern engine where the line bore could probably be off a .001 and be fine.
Whew made it through getting all or at least most of the pictures back in here some are not in order but whatever you guys can figure out the steps of the processes. Now to actually start up dating the project last post was the cam plate that is finished here is the final picture with the oil feeds scraped in.
Next it was back to the clutch the keyways were broached in the hub a new ball thrust bearing for the spring was found and an adaptor was made on the lathe for the id as it was larger than the original.
Also at this time, the factory-style floating thrust washers used both as a release bearing and at the back of the block for thrust were updated to two piece fixed washers with hardened steel for one washer and aluminum bronze for the other half. Each half was attached with countersunk fallen head screws. The problem with the factory floating washers was they had a tendency to act as a lathe and cut into the shaft also the cast iron they wore against was too soft and took more wear than the thrust washer.
After all that it is finally assembled.KIMG8097.JPGKIMG8361.JPGhubdone.JPGKIMG8484.JPGKIMG8487.JPGKIMG8489.JPGKIMG8482.JPGKIMG8492.JPGKIMG8496.JPG
Nice job adding the pics back.
Next it was time to get the gearbox assembled I got the gear heat treated and went to work putting it all back together. I found out that some end play washers had been lost in the past so made those up and, had to modify the reverse engagement stop to account for wear. Also decided to modify the clutch release fork a little its a rather heavy chuck of cast iron that hangs off one side of the box and tends to droop onto the clutch hub when free and try to lathe it in two (seems to be a thing with these cars) so I put a ball stud in the other side and drilled the push rd to accept it so it all stays square.
Much more to come in the next few days as I get this up to date. Don't forget to check back to page two I just added a lot at once.
Wow, incredible amount of work, it has to be very satisfying to see the parts all come together and work as designed.
I'm curious, among all the equipment in your shop, you don't have a press? :017:
Quote from: MiniDave on January 17, 2023, 10:17:18 AMWow, incredible amount of work, it has to be very satisfying to see the parts all come together and work as designed.
I'm curious, among all the equipment in your shop, you don't have a press? :017:
LOL... I should, I had taken it to the business years ago and when I sold the business the press went with it. I've always wanted to build a badass one with a powerpack to run it and all that but I probably just need to go get another HF one for now. I have a blade tilt ram off of a D8 caterpillar set aside for this project one day and a 5000 psi power pack, and a control valve. Just need to design a frame and probably have an engineer approve it of course I want to add a system to raise and lower the table as well because that part always sucks. But for now, do I really need a 50-ton press?
I've seen guys modify the HF press with a table lift and an air-over hydraulic power pack for the jack and that's a pretty sweet 20ton setup all a guy really needs that's all I had for 20 years without any mods.
Next got on to some more babbitting the mains were poured and machined.
The front main is a one-piece bearing, and the center main is of course a split bearing so for this bearing I poured two so that I could turn the od to precisely fit the center main carrier and then saw each one in half leaving a slight extra bit of material protruding from the cap for some crush to help hold the bearing.
The final fit of the OD was done by scraping the bearing and blueing the cap surface and checking the fit until good contact was achieved this resulted in over-cutting one half and needing to repoure and start over.
The rear main is also one-piece and the clutch hub rides in this bearing. The tail of the crankshaft is supported by this hub. So the ID of the front two bearings is smaller than the rear.
The large bearing is the rear the two next to each other were for the center te front was another casting just like one of them.
The next part of the main bearing process was to build a line boring setup.
I ordered a piece of precision ground bar 36" long and made three locations to install a cutter through the bar with an adjustment forcing screw behind the cutter and a set screw into the side of the bit to hold it. I ground up a nice high-speed steel tool bit to cut the babbitt.
Then ordered some pillow block bearings and made mounts to center them up in the main line of the engine the bar was squared to the deck and the side plate of the engine with shims under the mounts.
Then the lathe was used to drive the bar and feed the block the lathe is nothing other than feed and power to the bar. The bar is guided by the pillow blocks which ensures an absolutely straight main line. I drove the bar with a couple of 1/2" drive socket universals and a 1/2" extension to allow for any misalignment with the headstock of the lathe.
Then it was time to start cutting and checking the goal is .0005 oil clearance the crankshaft came back 1.230 journal diameter so I'm shooting for a bearing dia of 1.2305 you can not sand or hone babbitt because it is designed to embed any foreign material so you have to hit the number with machining if you overshoot your number melt it down and start the whole process over no pressure. I managed to hit all the numbers right within a .0001.
Pictures of the setup and the surface finish of a cut bearing.
Next, the oil grooves were put in the bearings and the crankshaft was installed it spun nice and felt so good but then...Drag the needle off the turntable without picking it up. You know the sound party's effin OVER.
I went to install the clutch in the rear main and it did not want to go over the crankshaft tail. Well that's neat when the crank was reground the front and center main were not ground in line with the rear hub of the crank it's off by .005 that's 10 times the oil clearance the bearings have no way can it work.
I don't know how or why this happened I should have probably given them the clutch so they could indicate off of it but it is concentric so shouldn't matter other than reminding them that they cannot offset to account for wear because they are not grinding all the journals like most crankshafts.
The easy fix for the crankshaft is to just grind another .0025 or so off to bring it back to center but then all my bearing work is for nothing start over on the front and center mains that's 200 dollars of babbitt and about 30 hours.
I talked to places about welding hard chroming and other options in the end I'm now heading up a project to get some spare model 20 crankshafts cast in ductile iron. The club had possession of a pattern that was used in the past for this and those crankshafts have been successful. So I have a foundry lined up to cast some if I get 6+ the price is right I got 6 orders before I put the pen down so now I'm just waiting for this to happen. $300 each for the raw casting of course there will be another 1000 in machining but that's a cheap crankshaft.
Scat told me even for a run of a dozen at least 5k each but they have to start with a 2500-dollar billet of 4340 so I get it. It would be a badass crank but a 1500 rpm 20 horsepower car doesn't need a 5000-dollar crankshaft. This Ductile iron will actually be an upgrade over the forged factory crank it's about the same tensile strength material but the pattern was beefed up in the areas these like to break. And given that they like to break and mine was over 100 years old I'm not too upset about getting a new one but the time and cost suck and I had a rare good one oh well what can you do.
I'll put the new crank back to stock size so I'll have to set the line bore back up again and take the bearings out to 1.250. I'm really looking forward to putting the engine together in the meantime I'll focus on jigs for pouring the rod bearings and machining.
Whew! What a journey so far!
Somehow I saw the request on FB for people interested in a crank - I don't know how I got into that group - and I wondered if you were on the list......I didn't know you were heading up the effort! Having a pattern for a crank for a 100 year old car that they didn't make THAT many of in the first place is pretty incredible....
It makes my project pale in comparison......but you and your work are a real inspiration to me to do it right.
I'm surprised pillow block bearings allow you to hold that tight of a tolerance.....but the machining came out amazing....
I'm a little unclear about what happened....when they ground the crank they got the main bearing journals offset to the hub somehow?
So the pattern was made or he had it made by a club member about 10-15 years ago because he needed a crankshaft and could not find a usable core after his run of castings he donated the pattern to the club.
It certainly does help and we will use it.
But the foundry has the technology to simply 3d print the sand itself for the mold so having a pattern or paying to pattern shop to make a complex pattern for a small run is not really an issue anymore. The 3d printing of the sand is especially useful for castings that require a core as core boxes are usually more complicated than the main pattern.
Of course, you can also print a traditional pattern out of plastic sand and paint it, and it is just as good as a wooden one.
The traditional pattern shop still has its place as well but there sure is a lot of exciting new tech that helps support old processes.
One neat thing about printing the sand direct is you no longer need to worry about the draft. Although sometimes it is aesthetically pleasing so you might put it in your cad drawing in some areas anyway.
So if you think about a line boring operation the tolerance of the bearings and bar has little effect on the tolerance of the work (within reason of course) as everything is rotating together. If the bearing has some runout it only results in cutting a slightly larger diameter but still round and straight as you make adjustments with each pass you learn how it cuts and adjust for that.
Maybe a cut that should take .005 only takes .004 because of spring in the bar or maybe it takes .006 because of some runout you can then adjust your cutter advancements to account for this. A relatively tight setup is more important to surface finish than tolerance. With all that said pillow block bearings are pretty good. Any rolling element bearing with ground races is probably pretty darn good just by the nature of how it's made.
Dave, I think you get the Facebook hupmobile group posts because we are Facebook friends I get all kinds of stuff I need to figure out how to turn off some of the notifications. I wouldn't say your projects pale in comparison, I've seen some interesting stuff go through your shop.
To clarify on the crankshaft the front two mains are journals on the crankshaft as normal. The rear of the crank inserts into a hub that is the third main bearing those front two journals were not ground in line with the rear hub of the crankshaft.
For those interested, I also made a video about the crankshaft it's not a great video I have a phone camera and no editing software. It's a shaky video if I make any more I'll get a tripod or something.
Terrific, much easier to understand with the video, thanks for taking the time to explain it.... :great:
My wife found a clock for the car and gave it to me for Christmas, a keystone auto clock co. 8-day car clock with a patent date of 1911. It will look good in the Circassian walnut Dash.
I opened it up for cleaning and had to straighten the hairspring a little clean, oil it, polish up the case, and had a new glass cut for it seems to keep time well. It winds and sets with the Nickle plated rim I think it's pretty cool.
Wow! Very cool.... :great:
Another part that I cleaned up over the winter was the steering wheel the glue joint had come apart on the rim. It only has the one joint so that was a pretty good steam bend. I also sanded down and polished the aluminum Spyder and then oiled the wood with watco.
Well, it's been a long road, but we got some cranks cast. So I'll be back on this project soon. I have been doing a few little things like rebuilding the magneto which I will cover later. Now I need to machine the crank so it can be ground.
casting
That is one rough casting.....and it's no wonder those break, it looks weak just sitting there....I hope modern materials and techniques give a better result than the OEM.
Did they make a mold off the broken crank?
Was this cheaper than having one made out of a billet?
Ha I was thinking the same thing!
So the factory hup crank is forged the same as a model t but slightly stronger due to shorter stroke and bigger webs. I'll attach a T-crank pic for comparison. If you're not familiar with pre-war crankshafts they look pretty flimsy but remember they are not balanced so you do not have counterweights. Look at any modern crank and pay attention to the actual amount of material connecting the journals it's not much different probably less.
The hup cranks were forged out of regular old mild steel. The biggest reason for breakage was misalignment same as a T they were plenty strong for 20 HP and many are still going as was mine until it was ruined.
Dave, you may not look at many raw castings but it is anything but rough It is actually amazing for casting only about .030 needed to be removed to clean it up and it was very straight for something of this nature only about .008 out in its entire length damn near better than they ground my other crank straight out of the sand.
To answer the questions the pattern belongs to the club and was made by a member who had some cranks cast years ago those are all still in operation some with over 30k touring miles. It leaves a lot to be desired and if I had it to do again I would have drawn it in CAD and had them directly 3d print the sand molds as the foundry has that capability. The pattern was beefed up in areas it is a typical wood pattern.
As to the billet, a blank of 4340 to start with is over $2000.00 scat quoted me about 5k a piece for a few.
Forging would take about 5 dies and cost upwards of 40k to get started.
The ductile castings of the same material that OE cast cranks are made from and are stronger than the original crank are $300.00 each probably needing post-machine work in the $600 range so for about 1k you can have a stronger than original crank.
The ductile iron hadn't been invented back when early cars were made so the only option strong enough was forging.
So yes modern materials help.
I could have made my own Billit crank and maybe should have because this has been a bitch but for the price of one chuck of 4340 shipped I'm getting 8 cranks to folks that need them so that's worth all the hassle but this will be the only run I do. We've done x-rays, destructive testing, post-tempering, alloy changes, pattern, and gating changes to control Warpage. Producing a critical part is not for the faint of heart.
Model T crank (AKA bent coat hanger)
Ha! Bent coat hanger indeed! :grin:
I have rough-turned the new crank made some plates that clamped on the ends to get the offset needed got it ready for the grinders cut the threads on the end as well. Also made some slow progress on little parts I sent a cad drawing to a HV3D and they metal printed an oil tube cover I still need to polish it but I'm very happy with the results its stainless with bronze to give it the color as they don't print pure bronze at this time.
The crankshaft is back from the grinder ground, polished and balanced.
I also polished up the 3d printed oil cap.
Re setup the line bore and bored the mains out to the new crank size I went .010 bigger than stock so the new crankshaft is 1.260 Thinner babbitt is better and it leaves room to re-grind the crankshaft in the future.
wow, the crank turned out great - thanks for updating us, I wondered if it's been warm enough to work in the shop over the winter......
Can't wait for the "it's alive!" start up video!
Are these engines splash lubricated?
It has been cold I have propane heat in the shop can get a little expensive in the coldest weather but it's nice and I just crank it up can't stand being cold. Although I only had my 120-gallon filled tank 3 times last year and I was in the shop about 3 days a week so I guess it's pretty reasonable.
The lubrication system is a loss system and consists of a drip oiler system that keeps the crankcase full through two points the drip is controlled by the throttle the faster you rev it the more it drips through the two sight glassses. The rods have dippers and the splash keeps oil wells full for all three mains. Excess oil runs into the gearbox then down the torque tube to the rear end and then out the axles to a hole before it gets to the brakes it drips out the hole onto the road. The valve gear is oiled with a can daily along with a few other oil cups on the chassis. And another dozen or so grease cups get a twist now and then.
I fitted the crankshaft it lines up perfectly with the front and center main in the rear main slides right on and they are only at about .0002" clearance right now.
That looks amazing! :great:
I bored out the pin end of the rods to accept the slightly larger dodge pin for the pistons I'm using. Next I need to make a fixture for babbiting the big end. Getting close to assembling the engine
Exciting stuff!
By the way, Happy Birthday Jeff! :cheer:
Thanks Dave, Hopefully, I'll be driving this thing before the next one.