7 Mar from Hartmut
The clutch is almost finished now. I machined the inner sprocket completely and finished the inner plate as well. Then I made 6 new bolts from high tensile steel rod. They have a short thread slightly bigger as your 1/2" bolts to screw into the plate where I will lock them with loctite and a pin. The outer plate was checked for accuracy of the bores - they were pretty much spot-on but too small as your 1/2" bolts were 3,5 thou smaller as an 1/2". So I took the old adjustable head into the machine and milled the bores out to the proper 1/2" plus 2 thou. Now the outer plate slides in without too much effort. In the pic you can see the 4 plate clutch, bolts are plenty long enough to accommodate another pair of plates. Did I say I turned your thread of 20TPI on the bolts so that you are not getting confused and can use the old nuts
Bernhard has been here today and checked my progress - says he feels this thing should work now. From next week on he is working on the gearbox and says it should be ready to assemble in 4 weeks. I will take the engines apart this weekend and do all the welding and threading etc to make the left half ready for some paint and final assembly. Now I am waiting for the pinions that Terry / Somer have sent as I want to finish the right side asap.
BTW - the clutch shaft is long enough to fit a proper axial ball bearing +crown nut - this should be at least as strong as the flimsy roller thing. If you agree on the axial ball bearing I will order a couple and fit them to the outer clutch plate and make a suitable LH nut with a fine thread like 20 TPI - this should be fine enough to adjust the clutch in fine steps.
reply from Max
I designed the clutch so as to have a ball bearing affixed to the outer clutch plate, captured by a ring. This prevents any float of the outer bearing race in the outer clutch plate bore. This bearing, when the clutch is adjusted, must be able to float, i.e., inner bearing race to clutch shaft. There has to be a separate bearing that adjusts the clutch float. I keep that to about .010 to .020. This bearing must be a thrust bearing. The thrust load of that bearing is one side of the thrust, being the surface of the outer clutch plate. The outer clutch plate, when fully engaged, flexes, taking up the .010 static clutch float on the clutch shaft, thereby applying pressure on the other side of the thrust bearing to the adjustable clutch retaining nut.
Now that we're on that subject, if the full adjustment stroke of this nut is, say, 3/8", and the castellated nut has a root depth of 1/4", it will require two holes drilled into the shaft separate distances from the end of the shaft so the full 3/8" of the float can be utilized.
I tried to call you today, but no answer. This particular operation, as far as the bearings are concerned, we pretty much have to be on the same page, so it all works. I hope I explained it well enough, if not, you have my phone number.
Boy was I glad to hear that Bernhard O.K.'d your handiwork. It all looks real good Hartmut, you're doing a fine job. Can't wait to see the progress start on the transmission. Boy. I've been blessed by you guys and many others. Stainless was over today, and he's going to buy all of the needed tuning stuff. He figures the cost to be about $1500. Thanks to all of you.
I just got back from the yard. Got the material for the push prong. Will start working on that tomorrow.