Landracing Forum
Bonneville Salt Flats Discussion => Build Diaries => Topic started by: Stainless1 on March 04, 2012, 02:09:40 PM
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During the Bub last year the Black Lightning had a couple of engine issues that kept the bike from making successful passes. Tuning problems, clutch problems, transmission problems, timing problems, primary chain tensioner problems... you know, the regular gremlins that keep you from getting down the course and setting a record. The last pass resulted in a burned piston and no time left to repair the damage.
Well Hartmut Weidelich, the rider from Germany may have let his mouth overload his.... well anyway Hartmut said he wanted to take the motors and transmission back home and go through everything. His plan was to make the entire combo bulletproof... or actually Bonneville proof as we know it.
So a couple of weeks after we got back, after cleaning up the bike, Max and I pulled the motors and tranny. Hartmut had a friend with a container leaving Oakland full of classic cars headed for Norway. The problem was the container was loading in less than 10 days from the day we started pulling the motors. Lots of international phone calls and calls to the shipping lady in California resulted in the decision to get the motors crated and quickly shipped out west.
Max and I put together a materials list for a shipping crate, Max went to Home Depot, we were to meet the nest morning and get it packed.
Luck prevailed and Ross Powers (mc2032) dropped by the house to check my shop progress (did I ever mention that Ross drew up the plans for my shop addition). He agreed to meet me at Max's in the morning and help.
Well Ross showed up with a pallet and a few chunks of lumber in his truck, not to mention another set of building tools. We cut the pallet down to size and had the motor crated by mid afternoon. Max spent the next day stuffing every nook and cranny with spare parts he wanted to add, and Monday morning we put in the last structural members, screwed the lid down and rolled it (did I mention it weighed about 700 lbs) to the curb. 30 minutes later the FEDEX Freight truck rolled up for the scheduled pickup and the crate headed to Oakland for shipment to Germany.
It took a couple of months for the crate to get to Germany, and a while longer to get through the customs process but the got there. I will post pictures of the progress the Hartmut has been sending back as time allows.
For now all you get is this "back story"
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Fine story about a fine project. The Black Lightning's saga has been great all along, and now this adds to the enjoyment and excitement. Keep us up to date if you will, please. Best regards to the whole danged team, too.
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I've seen a couple of photos of the work Hartmut is doing on the liner and it's impressive. Keep it up Hartmut.
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I'll get this started, and I hope Hartmut has time to fill in the blanks and post additional fotos if he has them... I don't have an arrival pic but the first batch starts with the crate unpacked and in the shop, then on to chunks. The crate chunks can be seen in the background.
Number 2 in the front motor didn't survive the thrash.
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Cool build, and great start to a cool story!
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A little aluminum plating on the valves of number 2.
More of the chunks, Hartmut plans to rebuild the transmission as well
Here is a bit of the Jan 16th email Hartmut sent with the pictures in the last 2 posts
"Here is news: took the heads off today. Rear piston of front engine is broken, smeared a bit alu into the bore, shrunk about 1mm in size. There must have been a lot of molten alu sprayed out the exhaustport before it broke as there is alu droplets around the exhaustvalve and in the port.The other three piston crowns look good, the bores too.Maybe that damned jet it that pot got blocked again while on the run.... The motor turns over freely without any harsh points - lets hope the crank is not damaged.
Tomorrow I will take off the geardrive between the cranks and take out the clutch and everything.
Then my buddy and me should be able to heave the rest onto my workbench to get it all apart.
Opened the gearbox today and did not like what I see. The gears look good but the drive coupling is a bit wobbly and the engaging teeth on gear # 2 and # 3 are very rounded off. When engaging them and giving some force on them the coupling ring wants to crook and go sideways a bit. This puts load on the selector fork. I figure I could make the engaging teeth much bigger and longer and make a bigger coupling ring as well. I suggest to make it only 6 or 8 engaging dogs with more play for easy and fast engagement - thus more strength and less rubbing before the gear slips into place. Then we would have at least 8mm engagement depth on #2 and #3. Now we only have 5mm - sorry for metric - conversion is 1" = 25,4mm.
My idea would involve the making of gear #2 and gear #3 and the coupling ring and maybe the inner splined thing as well. Will know for sure when I have it apart.
On wednesday a gearmaker visits me to have a look at my idea and next monday my buddy Bernhard (the car race engine builder) comes to check it out. I am sure we find a strong solution. "
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From the 17th
"got all cylinders off. Upper piston rings are slightly rusted on #1 and #3 so are not free in the pistons - no problem. Now the more nasty stuff:
when I took the clutch off I saw that the modified seal was pushed out a bit at the bottom. Took the blowerdrive off and the front crank nuts etc to get the outer cover off. All 1/4" screws of the gear carrierplate lose, two of them broken off. Removed the inner big cover and out fell the chain tensioner - in pieces. Seems the weld did not hold it - will make one from solid material - no problem. We were lucky after all as the chain masterlink had lost its spring and outer link plate - found the linkplate and spring teared apart in the swarf at bottom of case. Thank god this chain has double plates!!!! The sprockets are worn away conmpletely due to the trash going through but as far as I can see right now no trash went through the gears in front and thus there is no crack in the cases - keep fingers crossed that I am right when everything is completely clean!
When checking the bearings I found the needlebearing behind the blower pulley outer race broken in 5 places. The bearings in the gears need to be replaced as well. I will make a new plate to carry those three pins for the gears and plan to incorporate the two cranks as well - thus we would gain strong support on both sides of the gears and the tendency to bend the engines apart under load will be gone. There is this tendency as the outer sinterbronce plates show heavy load and one or two setscrews have been sheared off while all others are lose. The rearmost pin is lose as well so will need to be replaced. Space is available and it will all fit under the existing cover.
Tomorrow I will take the timing cover internals out of both engines and split the cases. I plan on welding a plate of 6 to 8mm (to have something to mill flat after welding) to the inner big cover to gain more space for the chain and the big seal. This will need to slim down the outer assembly of the front crank (no big deal, if I need I can leave the timing disc off and slim the washer and starter nut by about 1,5mm each - would give me the desired 6mm) the yoke for the starter might need a bit trimming to fit in front of the cover - thats it. On the rear crank I could use a narrower needle bearing and make a new carrier for it - thus the blower pulley will be where it is right now.
I would need those imperial bearings - more or less impossible and f#*#ing expensive to get here in Germany - I will give you the dimensions tomorrow and maybe you can find out a price in USA where I can order them cheaply. And I will need a handful of screws and helicoils of your american threads as well - will tell you when I am ready for it."
As you can see, forcing 10 times the original horsepower out of 60 year old motors can be a little hard on parts
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This from Max...."Lots and lots of stuff that needs fixin'. This job ain't for the faint of heart. Truth is, if I would have taken the engines apart and found the extent of damage, I would have more than likely given up and had a very expensive paper weight out in my garage. For this undertaking of repair it takes new blood, young blood, and "the fire in the belly". Let it be known that Hartmut's the man."
Without a doubt this is going to be a large project for a guy that also has to make a living while he works on the beast. Here are a couple more to go with the previous post
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Jan 18 from Hartmut
The motors are completely apart. See the shrapnel in the front engine? The rear crank was touching the timing case slightly - the alu looks polished halfway around the crank. Will give it a bit clearance on assembly. The rear rod of front engine had a bit alu spray on its upper end but I could scrape it away with a fingernail. Not enough heat there to worry as there is no discoloration. Anyway - both cranks turn nice and smooth - no work needed on them - PUHHH!!! Will check them for runout but I am pretty sure they are okay. Luckily both oil pumps still turn smoothly- will take them out tomorrow and check for wear but I guess they are still good for another "Go". I started on the left crankcases, remove all filler on the gasket surfaces. Will try to correct the warping between the two motors a bit by peening. When I get them cranks properly aligned I might add another connection between the cases for better strength. Had the first gearman here today - he gave me another useful contact for the gearbox pinions as he was unable to help. Still wait for Monday when I get the "audience" with Bernhard - the man is brilliant but has too many projects going on. Will stand a bit on his toes to make my gears first!
BTW - did you leave the oil jets in the timing cover oil gallery out on purpose?
The left cases are the most work to correct and strengthen the gear drive to keep it all in line when full power is applied. So I start with the worst - once this is completed I will enjoy myself with laping valve seats and other trivia. Now its a couple days uphill and as soon as the gear drive is finished its downhill all the way until I put the last screw into the wooden box to send you the motors back!
From Max... yes, the oil feed jets were removed on purpose. The oiling system on Black Lightning is a semi splash, which pretty much lubes the pistons and the lower end.
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26 Jan from Hartmut
after carefully checking and measuring the gear drive between the cranks I found a couple things that I did not like. The pins were not parallel to each other, the rear was lose anyway. The crankcases were not parallel so we had the tendency for the gears to wander outboard under load. And finally there were several small cracks in the gear drive plate - probably generated by swarf going through the gears. So I decided to mill it away and leave only the inner plate for the correct fitment of the engines in the frame. I welded an aluplate into the plate between the engines and repaired a lot of cracks around the crankcases, cut all the helicoils out as the bosses around them were cracked anyway, removed most of that material and welded it all up, including the seal face of the chain drive to the clutch. Then milled it all flat and straight, cut a rectangular pocket in the welded-in plate to locate the new gear plate. The gear plate is shrunk into that plate now and secured by 15 screws that lock it to the crankcases. I then decided which gears to use - thank god you sent the other gears as well - will use two of them. The holes in them are not cut concentric but they are too small anyway so we are in the process of machining them correctly - the two gears that I need will go into the carrier plate and have the needle bearings fitted. I managed to arrange the whole gears that I can still use both crank gears with their original pins with both cranks locked to TDC on front cylinders. To give the gears a sideways bearing we will machine a 4mm deep pocket with metric thread 70mm x 1mm. Into these threads I insert bronze plates, threaded with said thread outside. So we are making these plates right now - three LH threaded, three RH threaded. This to have the gears tighten them if they put load on them - which I doubt as I got the engines fairly straight - less than 0,5mm crocked - before it was 2,5mm. See the strengthening ribs between the cases - these help to keep them straight.
Outboard the carrier plate I will fit a 1" thick aluminum plate that carries high load roller bearings for the crank and the other three bronze plates. The plate will be bolted to the carrier and incorporates the three pins for the gears, these sitting in pockets and bolted up as well to the plate. Thus the bearings are where the load is and these roller bearings keep the cranks in line at all times.
The carrier and outer plate will be machined on Mikes CNC after I have taken all necessary measurements today.
NOW MORE GOOD NEWS:
Bernhard (the race car guy) was here this morning and checked out the Muncie gearbox. I explained to him how we use the box with the manually selected low gear etc. He says there is no way to make the Muncie stuff work again but he will construct all new gear internals including the selector stuff. It will get straight cut gears as the angled gears put a not wanted side load into the box. He says he can incorporate a mechanical device into the selector to push the box out of first gear before it engages second or high. The driving dogs will be like in a proper modern motorcycle gearbox - probably 6 of them each gear - thus faster shifting and deeper engagement.
So today I strip the box completely, wash it all and deliver it to Bernhard in the evening. He will then use his CAD and construct a new set of gear pinions into the old housing. Within a few weeks we should be able to machine the gears on Mikes CNC lathe and deliver them to the gear cutter. I told Bernhard about the high torque at low revs going into the box but he is confident that he can make it much stronger than it was.
Back to the engines:
Succeeded to make the cranks spin free and true after checking it all out, taking the heavy lump apart several times etc. The spacers between the taper bearings were worn (not hardened) so I make new and have them hardened and ground.
So now I take the final measurements for those gear pins and finish machining the carrier plate free cuts for the gears.
Then it all goes onto Mikes CNC mill and will get the pin holes machined into the carrier and outer plate, together with the crank holes for maximum correctness. Bernhard had a look at it and said he is sure that this gear drive will stand all punishments.
Next step is the making of the sprockets for the clutch drive - they are worn anyway and have cracks along the weld. So I will make them from solid and have them case hardened. Will order more material as I want to make a new clutch shaft as well. Want it slightly longer to fit a double lipped seal. The outer seal in the cover will be replaced by a smaller seal (diameter) as I can get it out of the chain then - no more chain links rubbing at the seal and no need to modify the seal for clearance internally.
Had a look into the cylinder # 2 and was able to get the aluminium out, liner is still fit for use. Tomorrow I will select the pistons for assembly and send them off for coating.
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More
Inserted the new gears and put 0,004" paper between the teeth for minimum clearance. Locked all the gears in their position by inserting alustrips between gear and housing. Then used a pilot drill inside the bearings to get some clearance for the next tool - the cutter. This was pressed into a steel piece having the exact inner diameter as the bearings - no play, just enough to let it spin in the bearing. Now I have three proper datum holes! Tomorrow I take it all apart and take the big plate one last time off the engines. Then its off to Mike and his CNC wonder to mill the bores accurately into the plate and cover and of course thread the big bores for the bronze plates.
To use up this evening I started on the cover plate to locate the new bearings. I used the old needle roller sleeves to find the exact centers - my measuring was not far off. I measured 275, 45 - turned out 275,48 mm (this is slightly more than ONE thou in your system) is the proper distance - checked with tightened crank nuts of course. Now I will place 3 dowels and a couple screws into the cover plate to locate it on the carrier. Then it all lines up and cannot be moved.
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another pic
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Here you see the new roller bearings. Offered up the cover to show you the available space - PLENTY. No problem incorporating the bearings into that big plate.
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1 Feb from Hartmut
The two plates are (almost) finished now. Yesterday Mike worked his magic on the 5 axis CNC mill. Milled the bores for the pins and threaded the holes for the side thrust washers. Today I turned the pins and threaded them at the outer end for an extra nut to hold it all together. I drilled the washers for some oil pockets and checked them for fitment - three LH thread, three RH threaded. All fits nice and snug.Made a tool for tightening the washers - and used YOUR spanner size 1 and 1/2" ;-).
While I write I wait for the oven to come up to temp to shrink the pins in. Then I will dress up the outer circumference of the outer plate tomorrow and should be finished with this part of the job. Tool Steel is ordered for the five sprockets of the chains and the clutch shaft. I should get it by weekend and will bring it straight into the hardening shop to have it all glown out for a couple hours to relieve all stress inside. This will keep everything nice and straight when I bring the finished parts there for casehardening. Bit more work but well worth it.
Yesterday I had a long conversation with Bernhard about the gearbox - he came up with the following:
He will make up a diagram of all three gears and we can chose what ratio we want.
We will not use the old shafts anymore - he has slot cutters in 34 and 40mm size which he uses in turbo / blown cars over 700 hp without any problems - so we will use these slot cutters for the input and output sprockets. As I machine them new anyway from a solid piece we will have it all running dead true and no play anywhere - just what we want.
The gear change gets a different internal design, first gear will be engaged manually - like before - but pushed out of engagement mechanically in the gearbox before second gear engages. The pushed out low gear will get and extra safety device for staying out of gear. So it will not depend on that lever that pushes it out for double safety.
Bernhard recons that 4 engaging dogs will be enough and will assure a fast and dead secure gear change.
I made sure that he knows the gear change lever outside the box has to go up and down for gear changing and has to stay in the same place as the liners chassis is very cramped and no other place available. He says this will not present a problem to incorporate in the design. At the moment he takes all measurements and makes drawings from the old box to know all the important dimensions - the he starts on his CAD thing and designs each and every piece on the computer. Then I only need to order the material and turn all the wheels on my lathe to prepare the shafts and gears for teeth cutting. Seems we only keep the box - everything else will be new and perfect. Should be fun to click the switch and have next gear in immediately.
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as I said in my last mail: slotcutting was the wrong word - I meant broaches! Yes - we will use the good broaches that Bernhard has - they will be easily up to the job in hand. Here is the last pic for today. Pins are in. Very tight and strong.
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Here is your new gear drive and the steady plate. Fits nicely into the cover. The three gears in the big plate have minimum backlash, the crank gears "just" slide in. Will stone them both tomorrow with a little fixture that I made today. The cranks turn easy enough but I could not detect any backlash on the crank gears - but I want a small bit. So the gears go on my fixture tomorrow for an hour or two to remove 1 thou. Then it doesn't matter if the engines expand later than the gears after start-up.
Max calls these pictures "gear drive porn"
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3 Feb from Hartmut
Finished the gear grinding late afternoon (see pic) - now they spin all free and true with a minimum of backlash - I am just able to push or pull the gears between the cranks - no matter where the cranks are TDC / BDC or anywhere in between. I wanted it as close as possible because we are only running one ignition on one motor for both engines - too much backlash will give a different firing point on the motor without ignition. Anyway - I am happy so far. The outboard plate fits nicely over the pins - everything is straight. I shrunk in the big roller bearings with 2 thou. Tomorrow I can make the spacers for the front and rear crank and machine the outer cover to fit it over the whole thing. The free length of rear crank between roller bearing and blower pulley is about 1 and 1/8th ". Have to get another roller bearing of the same size that I can attach to the cover for extra safety of the blower drive.
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more pics and added info
the two front gears are on my grinding jig - it takes hours to grind away 1 thou - very hard surface.I spun the front crank for a while and found the driven gear after the front crank wants to come out of the housing - fair enough as the front crankcase is still not perfect parallel in all planes - I couldn't make it any better. So now those two gears are ground at a slight angle to compensate this. The two rears were on the jig for about 2 hours and now have around 1 thou play.
I don't think we need another outboard bearing for the front crank. The gear is right between the existing bearings so there is only outside load on that crank while starting. I thought about fitting another roller bearing of the same size as those in the outboard plate onto the rear crank - just behind the blower pulley. at the moment I don't see the need to widen the cover - the outboard plate fits inside, so you would not need to work on the starting yoke.
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4 Feb
Fitted the rear excentric spacer. No problem to find the sweet spot. Will mark where the slot in crank is and fit a dowel. Rear crank was tightened up and still turns free, this with all gears, bearings - everything. Seems the worse end is done as front crank is only 4 thou - will make another spacer for the front crank
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6 Feb
Today I had to run around to get some suitable material, buy some stuff to eat, let my helping friends know that you want to put their stickers on the liner, bring my tax documents to my taxman and finally get back to work. I made the front spacer 0,04mm eccentric as the front crank was out of round by 0,08mm. That crank was running true on the bearings as well so probably the same cause as on the back end. As the roller bearings were shrunk in so tightly I didn't have any clearance on the rollers so I had to grind both inner tracks down 1,5 thou. Front spacers slides in just as nice as the rear, finding the correct position is as follows. Nip the crank nut up until all play is gone from the timken bearings. Grip the spacer with a big wrench and turn around each direction until it starts to bind, mark each position, middle between is the correct spot and maximum even play all around the bearing. Will put the pin in the front spacer as well. By coincidence I had the rear spacer length totally correct without measuring - the blower pulley sits right where it used to be. The front spacer is still 1/8" too long. So I guess I can start on putting the big cover back on and drill and tap all those holes. All the gear drive is just fitting the two covers with 1mm to spare so no work on the starter yoke needed. It will stay where it was before.
This morning I talked to Mr Baier - the piston coating guru. He is a one man operation as me and very friendly - he has worked for BMW F1 to get them engines reliable, has done 30 years of engine tuning and preparation for speedway bikes and is still coating pistons for Porsche�s works racer engines amongst almost all Moto GP pistons of the current race teams. After telling him what we do and what I want him to do with the pistons he said he will make me a special price if I put one of his stickers on the bike - I agreed. So I will send all 4 cylinders and a set of the best pistons that we have to his place and let him work his magic.
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8 Feb from Hartmut
Having checked all pistons and finding that the pin on #1 is sloppy and the skirt worn away 2thou I decided to use both new pistons in the front engine. I copied your design of oil groves and bores, brought the crowns to the correct measurement and matched both pistons weights. So finally tomorrow the big parcel containing pistons and cylinders gets shipped to Mr Baier. The cylinders get a fine hone and the pistons get coated.l Should be back in a week or 10 days. Until then I will refit both covers on the primary side and do some more welding, and thread repairs on the cases.
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Yesterday I got a call that my ordered toolsteel is ready. The guy runs a toolmaking factory and is one of my buddies at the racetrack. I invited him to see the engines and talk a bit about what we want to do. So he drove to my place and delivered the material. Its call the same case hardable steel which I will make all the monsterchain sprockets and the clutchshaft of. Anyhow - I ordered the material knowing that he works most of the time with it and will get a much better price than me. After showing him pics of the liner etc he said the material is free - so here we have another sponsor - good buddy!!!
This morning I brought it all to one of the local hardening shop. I was lucky - the junior boss was there as well. I took a pic of the liner with me and told my story - he couldn't believe it and said he will come and take a look at the engines. He promised me a special price. The material goes into the oven for many hours at 800 degr C for stress relieving. Then I can machine all the parts and take it back there for case hardening. Due to the stresses absent in the material it will not change its shape when it is hardened - so no precision lost and everything should run true when mounted and have maximum load capacity. We have still minus 20 degr C at night and about 12 over the day - everything is moving slower - all my ordered parts take a couple days longer to get here. I myself need an hour longer ion the morning to get up to my usual working speed. Can't wait to get rid of the lousy frost outside.
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13 Feb 12 from Hartmut
here is good and not so good news: the cylinders and pistons arrived at Mr Baier safely - here is what he says:
two cylinders are okay - no problem fine honing them and coating the pistons. The other two are very problematic because they have valleys in the bore - up to 12 thou! He will hone the bores up to a point where the valleys are almost gone. As the coating cannot be applied in endless thickness he will phone me as soon as he knows more. He thinks he might get away with one of those barrels but the other one might need another liner. So I sent him the one extra liner - now keep fingers crossed that the barrel needing the liner is not the one that has an oversize muff. If that is the case he will send me the muff and a suitable liner that I will machine and fit then. How much oversize do you want the liner in the muff?
Mr Baier says the valleys were produced by too much piston play under lousy running conditions - too hot, not enough lube etc...
Anyway - I'll find a solution. That was the bad news - here is some good news:
I machined the front and rear sprocket for the clutch primary chain and drilled and threaded all holes for the big primary cover. I have ordered the sealing rings for inner and outer clutch seal. Tomorrow I will turn the clutch shaft and make a new chain tensioner. Now the outer clutch seal is smaller and can thus withstand more revs. It is still on the fast side but should hold much longer than the big seal that was in there before. Usually these seals can run up to 12mtrs/sec - we still have 26 mtrs at 6500! The smaller seal makes a concentric spacer necessary in the clutch cover but this is no big deal - I will turn it on the lathe and shrink it in. Then we are a couple millimetres away from the chain and don't risk anymore that the seal will be damaged and we don't need to modify the seal for fitment. The inner seal is sitting in the sprocket as well. I always wanted to make the inner clutch plate (the one with the bolts) from steel - thus it is stronger and it will sit on top of the small seal - so no movement possible. When clutch is removed from bike both seals stay in place and are not disturbed.
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That is just a dream come true for Max and everyone who wants him to go fast, amazing, great work, wow!
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The incredible part of this is that Hartmut is also running his business in his spare time as well as pouring a bunch of his own money in the engine rebuild project. Luckily a lot of folks all over the world are pitching in on this project as well. Hartmut sold his 38 Norton recently to support his speed habit... piloting the Black Lightning.
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Harmut is one righteous dude.
Sold his '38 Norton........
FREUD
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This is a whole lot more than most would tackle........certainly many times more involved than my simple Triumph Cub! I watched them run a few times and could feel the pain when it did not GO.
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Stainless and Max,
Hartmut was a God-sent. I would have hated to see Max's liner sidelined. Now because of Hartmut the liner has new energy. Go out and up the records. Best of luck to all of you.
Tom G.
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I will echo the sentiments above and add that this is better than reading an Anthony Bourdain novel!
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Thanks to all of you for the nice words. I am just helping my american buddy to fulfill his dream - make a double-engined Vincent go real fast! It came as a big surprise to me when he offered my a ride in that liner in 2004 without knowing me personally!!!! - we only had e-mail contact before. Over all those years he became a close friend to me and when I realized he will not be healthy and strong enough to rebuild the motors another time I knew I had to offer my help, give him something back for the ride(s) of my life. Gladly Max accepted and sent the motors over here. As I knew before that 2012 will be our final attempt under Max`s banner I am going through every part and check it - anything that might give trouble is replaced by something that I hope will be stronger or better suited. As Stainless will show you in the next few posts I have almost finished the left (drive) side of the engines - in fact I liked the 100s of hours spent on my mills and lathes as usually I restore and repair british bikes of the past, mainly Nortons and Vincents so the toolmachines are only used occasionally when some silly UK-made part doesn´t fit. Being a trained toolmaker with Master/engineer degree this work on the motors reminds me of my youth when I used to make tools etc before I opened my own bike shop 16 years ago. I really enjoy it. Have probably infected many of my racing friends as I get some materials for free, get CNC operated machinery for free etc etc - all good buddies that want to see us succeed.
Cheers Hartmut
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Toller Kerl.
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Wow I have no words. Machinist porn! Ok I had 2 words.
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I truly look forward to inspecting the liner this August,
and please tell Harmut I enjoy seeing, and admiring his work.
A very skillfull and well planning engineer and machinist.
Drew Gatewood
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Harmut...good on 'ya.
Max deserves the very best and You were what he received.
Thanks so much.
FREUD
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14 Feb from Hartmut
I realized that you have different piston pins - those from the JE's are lighter than the Arias pins. I also saw that the bush in cyl #2 is worn out and needs renewing.But what I was talking about was the piston pin on #1 - it was sloppy on the timing side of the piston, caused probably by lack of lube due to the flinger holes in the crank being closed by swarf from #2. Anyway - I can handle all this. If all goes wrong I can sell another motorcycle.
The coating on the pistons is applied in layers of 1 thou". Mr Baier says he has done pistons with up to 8 thou" coating thickness - that's 16" in diameter - the original shape of the piston stays the same. These pistons worked just as good. If he is in doubt he will replace the liner(s). I don't want to do all this work without having the best affordable solution and I want to avoid all possible problems. As this is the last attempt we have 5 days to prove what this bike can do - and I don't want to fly the spanners half of the time to keep it running - so I better burn some midnight oil and a bit more money to get it all together without any shortcuts.
Don't worry about the seals and bearings: once I am finished with the engines I will order it all again and ship it with the engines - I can get bearings and seals at reasonable prices here as well. Thus you get the exact replacement - I need to modify the roller bearings for the crank outrigger anyway as they are now C4 clearance.
I am starting on the clutch shaft this evening or tomorrow - will leave it longer on the primary side to have all options. Have to study the bearing catalogues that I have to see what the most robust bearing for this application is.
Will make some more mountains of swarf on my old trusty Matra lathe as I want to have the sprockets for the other side (chain to gearbox) premachined and ready for broaching at Bernhards shop this week. When they are broached internally I can finish them on a tight fitting pin on the lathe for maximum concentricity - then I will hand them over to Mike for CNCing the tooth form for the chain.
15 Feb
I have finished a couple sprockets for Mike to put teeth on ;-) So tomorrow evening we will do a little CNC machining.I told Mike already that I need a bit more CNC when I make the new clutch plates - typical answer: "just bring it here and I do it - no big deal". That's what I call a true friend! Another stout supporter is my sidecar passenger Thomas. He phoned this afternoon to ask what material I might need. So the material for the clutch plates will come from his factory. He has given me material before for some parts for the liner. And he never asked for payment - good buddy! So Friday evening when Thomas arrives I get the material for the new clutch plates. Hope to have the clutch shaft ready then as we have milled splines into shafts before here - nice job on a Friday evening, finished off with a round of beers. Usually Thomas visits me on Friday nights to work a bit on our old two stroke race bikes - the last few weeks we only worked on streamliner stuff.
I have shrunk in an aluminium disc for the new seal. I hope you see it in the picture that the chain now rides outboard of the seal - there is just enough space. When it all is finished the chain will have about 2mm space inside the case.
Terry Prince says he has got the halftime pinions that I need and wants to ship them over. I hope to have all the clutch and primary stuff finished when his parcel arrives so I can work on the other side of the motors.
In the next few days I will visit Bernhard and get the other sprockets broached on his 25 ton press and see hopefully some progress on the gearbox design. But first I have to empty all my boxes full of swarf here - can't walk anymore near the lathe.
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16 Feb from Hartmut
Just back from Mike and his CNC mills. Both sprockets for the clutch chain are done. The chain is sitting tight and we left the teeth as strong as possible. On the other pic you see the big cover - I decided to weld the ring for the seal in as I don't trust fully into the shrink-fit as I don't know what material you used compared to my aluminium. Anyway - I got a bit warpage due to my outer weld but was able to bring it all back as I had to do some welding on the inside. After a lot of heating I welded in a new boss for the chain tensioner and connected the two pieces that make up the big cover by another weld - this brought it back in shape. This morning I spend a while on the lathe and turned the chain tensioner - now the chain will ride on the rollers so no wear of the tensioner or chain. I chose the radius of tensioner to allow the chain rollers to come into contact with that rib slowly so less stress. Will work on it tomorrow but in the picture you see that it is a perfect fit to make the chain go round the sprockets. The anchor bolt for the tensioner will be located on the crankcase and go through the hole in the boss - thus the cover is pulled onto the cases with this bolt as well. Of course the tensioner will rest on a spacer bush to allow free movement when bolt is tightened. This allows us to fit the chain over the tensioner and preset the chain before the cover is put on. I like it.
As we have carnival going on here this week and half the next week I cannot order material or anything else as most shops are closed - stupids!
Anyway Thomas is bringing material tomorrow for the clutch so I can work on the shaft and start the clutch stuff before I need to order more material.
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"If all goes wrong I can sell another motorcycle"! I like this guy, spoken like a true gearhead! :cheers:
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Trent, I guess you are reading it :-D Yep Hartmut is a real gearhead... like Freud said, a righteous dude
17 Feb from Hartmut
Spent half the day in making a big angle iron to get the rotary table vertical for milling the slots into the clutch shaft. While milling on the angle piece I had the lathe turn down the shaft to about the size of the bearings. Thomas came this evening and brought another heavy lump of steel for the clutch plates. While I set up the mill for making the slots he produced a couple small parts on the other lathe. Finally we started to cut the slots after everything was dialed in to less than 1 thou". On the first round I was barely able to get the clutch plate on but another round taking off another 3 thou made sure that the plates slide in and out on the splines. Then I converted the mill to use an end mill for cutting the slots down to the bigger diameter. Finally all was finished and we stopped working at 10pm and will now go for a round of beers!!!
CHEEEEEEEERS!
(more pictures in next post)
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More clutch shaft pics
and more to come in the next post
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a few more clutch shaft fotos
Looks like Max is right, Hartmut is making this thing bulletproof
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From Hartmut, 18 Feb
Here is the latest news: clutch shaft is finished and installed. I left the splines longer and the outer diameter thicker to see where I end up when the whole clutch is installed. While working on the shaft and tensioner I had the big lump of metal on the saw - took ages to cut it in half....
The tensioner is shaped and almost ready to install. My long time buddy Werner Baer ( he sponsored you as well and lives in USA/Boston) came in as he is here in Switzerland and Germany for business. He is on the mailing list and knows of what I do but used the chance to visit us and see the motors. While he was here I used him to show you the t-shirts that my other buddy Andy had ordered and payed for - they arrived yesterday.
OK guys, these T's are available to Black Lightning contributors... a $50 contribution to the project will get you a shirt. Maybe we can get Hartmut to post a paypal address if he has one, he can collect the names of the folks here in the states and send them all at one time to me. I will then send them out or bring them to Bonneville, which ever you prefer.
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21 Feb from Hartmut
The inner clutch plate is ready for CNCing. I leave the outer clutch plate as is - its strong enough. Will only check geometrically and lighten it slightly. As there is space enough on the splines I could fit another friction disc and steel plate - let me know if you want this and if so send me a friction plate and a steel plate - better two steel plates as one of those that I have here is slimmed down a bit.
The chain tensioner is shaped enough to go into the case without disturbing anything. Had it closed today and was able to turn the rear crank by hand with the chain turning freely - the only rubbing is happening on the tensioner but now that the chain runs on the rib with its rollers it should be smoother than before as there is less shock from one roller to the next. The links were bumping much more into the old tensioner.
Maybe tomorrow I can take the engines apart and do some welding for the tensioner screws and finish it all on the mill. Then its time to finish the outer cover and the left side is done.
Max's reply
I should make you aware of a little background on the clutch plates. When we blew the HYVO chain, and I changed everything over to the monster chain, I had to increase the thickness of the tail piece of the big cover by 1/8". You can see where I screwed the 1/8" plate onto the tail plate of the big cover. I built the first jackshaft, locating the clutch splines on the shaft to accommodate a three friction plate clutch. I felt when the HYVO chain broke, it would be a good idea to make a four friction plate clutch. The stacked height of four friction plates and five steel plates was about 5/8" too much. The 5/8" included the 1/8" I lost on the inner cover. To get the five steel plates and the four friction plates on the clutch shaft, I had to machine the friction plates, reducing their thickness by .050 each. Taking material from each side of the plate by .025. The inner broached spline was also reduced in it's root thickness to prevent tube locking, as I also reduced the thickness of the five steel plates by .025. They were quite warped, and my buddy ground the plates on a huge grinder with a magnetic table. So that reduction in total clutch pack thickness was reduced by .325.
In lieu of all of this, the spline length that you have should not be reduced in length. The outer plate should be made adjustable. When the outer plate bearing comes within 1/32" of tube locking on the spline end. This would be the length of the standoff tubes without any shims. Next would be to determine the length of the clutch studs. A friction plate should be placed on the shaft, the short side of the friction plate broached spline is outboard. Then add the thickness of a steel plate, plus .050, that would be .025 for the removed .025 on the friction plate, and .025 for the reduced thickness of the steel plate. Then with the outer clutch plate assembled, slide the clutch plate on the outer clutch studs and inner clutch bearing. When the pressure plate float plate comes in contact with the steel plate, back off the predetermined .050. Make up various shims. Those are the ones that go between the outer clutch plate and the stand pipe tubes. Enough shims should be made to provide full stroke adjustment of the outer plate. Studs should be long enough to accept adequate clutch stud nuts. It appears the shaft is plenty long enough to thread, make a nut, and revamp the Torrington bearing design to something more robust.
With the clutch plates I have here, many new friction and many new steels, and with the worn clutch plates and turn down clutch plates, there will be no problem coming up with a four plate clutch pack, and maybe even five, as you suggest. I don't think we'll have any problem doing it that way. The clutch plates that I have here probably weigh 100 lbs. So it's my vote that we don't send any clutch plates your way, and just save the money. It would be easy enough for me to stack and adjust the clutch here with the starting clearance of .040 total between plates.
You mentioned that the seals would be good up to 6500 rpm. The clutch turns about 4000 rpm, so we're in good shape there.
Again Hartmut, you're doing some pretty fine work over there. I can't tell you how much I appreciate the time, effort, and expertise you're putting in to the gear train. Looks super strong and bullet proof to me.
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Beautiful work Hartmut, I wish you and Max succss.
Jon
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good to see this bike being worked on with such great enthusiasm again-everyone i know wants it to WIN
enjoying the machine tool shots,and the parts pictures-
will be sending my contribution over with ernie from the vincent club.
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what a great job. so much work going on.
good job , hartmut. good luck in '12.
bf
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22 Feb from Hartmut
I plan to caseharden the inner plate and the shaft. So I have to be sure that it all works as desired as it is quite hard to machine it again. The proud length of splines now is 55mm or 2.16" outboard of the inner clutch plate (the one with the 6 bolts)
Are you saying that you want the outer plate with the fingers and pressure plate sitting outboard of those 2,16" by 1/32"? So the bearing in the outer plate sits 1/32" in front of the outer end of splines? If so I will lose about 1/4" of spline length - not desired. So I will machine a step of about 1/4" length in front of the splines with the inner diameter of the bearing in outer plate. This gives you the whole length of splines to play with.
Is that okay for you? I will make a drawing and send that to you - hope that will make clear what I mean.
reply from Max
We're almost there, but not quite.
The full length of the splines will be utilized when the first installation of the clutch plates are made. The quarter inch shoulder which you suggest would not allow for retaining the .040 gap of the clutch plates during wear. Clutch plates wear, shims are removed, and the outboard clutch plate moves inboard to retain .040 gap. If you were to shoulder the main shaft 1/4", this wouldn't allow the outboard plate to float on the shaft when adjustments are made. With the 1/4" shoulder removed, this allows 1/4" of clutch wear to be corrected. After 1/4" of clutch wear, the spline shaft would stand out proud 1/4".
So the absolute minimum of adjustable shimming of the outer plate can be no less than 1/4". Probably 3/8" of shimming would be more desirable. Ensure when threading the six studs on the inner clutch plate, that the studs are long enough and that the thread length is long enough to accommodate the full float of the outer clutch plate through it's adjustment phase.
After 1/4" of clutch wear, clutch plates will be replaced with new, the clutch basket properly re-shimmed, allowing .040 of clutch plate clearance, and the reduction of shimming starts all over, retaining .040 clutch plate clearance during wear.
reply from Hartmut
Here is the sketch - hope you understand what I mean. I will machine a step of 1/4" wide on the shaft where the ball bearing rests on the shaft. Free usable length of splines is 2,16" and the pressure plate that is worked by the fingers is 0,04" outboard of the splines when the bearing is resting against the step.
reply from Max
That would work for awhile, but after each run the fingers would change their relation of movement. Their movement would become more so. The floating pressure plate would increase the .040 movement required for clutch engagement. The physics of spring pressure increases as the spring is compressed. The clutch adjustment is made considering two factors, spring pressure and the counteracting of that spring pressure with the centrifugal force of the finger weights. The movement of .040 is determined by the rpm of the clutch. If the fingers have to move the clutch pressure plate more than .040, the overall pressure on the clutch at 4000 rpm is reduced by the amount of spring pressure poundage incurred by the compression of the springs in that amount. So it's important to keep the .040 clearance during the clutch wear phase, because if you didn't the clutch wouldn't have enough clutch pressure to hold at high rpm and full horsepower torque. We have smoked a couple of clutches in the past due to this phenomenon.
Reply from Hartmut
Okay Max
I completely forgot the wear taking place!!!!! Sorry about that. I will turn the shaft to 1" all the way to the splines - thus you get a bit more than 1/4" to compensate wear. If the outermost friction plate only sits 3/4 of its spline length on the splines you have almost 3/8" of wear taking place before the bearing will come near the splines.
Another question: is there enough space inside the belly pan for the wider clutch?
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23 Feb from Hartmut
The steel plate is the same thickness as the old aluminium plate but with the reduced diameter where it bolts to the sprocket I thought it will get extra strength by hardening. However I have changed my mind - the steel is anyway far stronger and before the plate can dish it needs to bend the six long bolts and distance tubes as well. This cannot happen by the force generated of the fingers so I leave it as is. Talked to Mike this morning and he will do his CNC stuff again when all parts are ready for him to machine.
Vincent motors seem to become my bad habit - haven't finished the big one and yet another one came in for repair :-D
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27 Feb from Hartmut
The cover is modified and fits the rest. The 3 big nuts of the pins fit under the cover, the smaller screws need their bores countersunk about 1mm to have them not resting against the outer cover. Neat. Tomorrow I will finish it and get the seals at the correct places - the front is about 1/16" off - the rear much more. Do you think I need to fit another bearing on the rear crank between blower pulley and cover? I think the crank with that big spacer (outer diameter 2 1/4") should be strong enough to handle the load of the blower....
Let me know.
from Max
The front crankshaft being 1/16" too long on the spacer length, is actually a good thing. Leave it long, that'll give us an extra 1/16" engagement on the starter nut drive. A different story on the rear crankshaft. That has to be exact to ensure blower belt alignment. Not enough sugar for a dime to employ an extra outboard carrier bearing on the rear crankshaft. Here are my calculations to support that determination:
The blower's rpm is approximately 10,000 rpm at maximum engine revs. Engine to blower ratio is 1.63 to 1. Years ago I asked Weind Superchargers what the max rpm would be, and they said around 10,000 before cavitation. In other words, when it won't pump any more air. It takes about 100 hp to turn that blower 10,000 rpm. I'd guess the torque factor would be around 75 ft. lbs. That 2 1/4" sleeve on the 1 1/2" crankshaft main shaft would make it a virtual impossibility for any crankshaft flex in the approximate 2 1/2" distance from bearing support to Gilmore belt pulley inner surface. So no additional support bearing required.
Now what you'll have Hartmut, and you fully realize, is the inner primary and outer primary cover being bolted to the engine cases with no aligning dowels. There is only one stress point on the covers, and that's the through stud of the pivot point of the primary chain adjuster. This is a good design, and eliminates possible heat differentials of various components of inner and outer covers, which could cause stress deflection of crankshaft bearing supports. Another thing is that sealing surfaces will stay sealed with a non-stress design.
One thing I'm planning to do on this side of the pond is to remove the blower shaft, and duplicate it so we'll have a spare. I recall that we broke one one year, and that put us on the trailer. I remember increasing it's size, however, and identifying the material I was making it from. Same will go for the new shaft, it'll be made from 4130 or 4340, and of course, heat treated.
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5 Mar from Hartmut
A bit news for you: talked to Mr Baier about the pistons and cylinders - they got them cleaned up enough to remove almost all traces of valleys in the liners. The pistons get a coating thick enough to compensate. I will probably need slightly bigger rings to compensate the wider bore. What ring end gap do you want?
Meanwhile I drilled the holes for the clutch into the inner plate and the clutch sprocket. My digital readout has among other goodies a nice little function: just enter the diameter and number of holes and it guides you to each - so we can remove and fit the clutch in any position as the holes all line up perfectly.
Tomorrow I will turn the two sprockets for the RH chain drive and get the rear broached this week and then turn it down to proper size. I realized I could put on one more tooth on the gearbox input sprocket - that would make the chain run almost straight with a minimum of tensioner needed. Any reason not to do so? Any variation in input speed will be compensated in the gearbox so nothing really changes.
reply from Max
The reason this build is turning out better in many respects than ever before is precision. The clutch bolting to the inner sprocket for instance, this in years past required alignment, and it would only go on in one position. My build was done with a rotary table and a Chinese mill drill, not the best combination for accuracy.
Boy, we dodged a bullet by the cylinders being salvageable. That'll save us a lot of labor, and there's always the possibility of turning something into a bucket of worms. Ring gap has always been kept between .015 and .020. Those figures have worked in the past, so there's no reason to change in my opinion. If you have to get rings, try to make the scraper ring, the second one down from the top, a gapless ring. This seems to have helped ring/liner blow by a lot.
I can't remember, but I think I tried to increase the transmission drive sprocket by one tooth. Couldn't get the chain on, if I recall. It might be just my imagination.
I'm not so sure that we shouldn't keep the number of teeth as is. Two reasons. The transmission would spin faster in relation to crankshaft and rear wheel rpms. As you know the faster you can spin the transmission the stronger it becomes in it's ability to transfer a given amount of torque. The other reason is that the water brake during dyno testing, would turn at a higher rpm, which in turn makes the efficiency of the water brake more so. Dyno testing is conducted with the transmission in high gear.
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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.
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12 Mar from Hartmut
Weather is fine, bikes want to come in for repair -so far I refused most jobs until the liners engine is finished. My electrical wire to the shed is broken so I have to spend a day or so to dig out some earth, cut some concrete and install a new wire - what a crap!
Got the gears back from nickel plating - internally only, the outside was coated with a special sealer. They were a sliding fit on the cranks and I wanted it a little tighter and maximum concentric. So I had a couple thou plated into the bores and have now ground out the rear gear to be a tight fit on that crank. Tomorrow I grind the front and make the cover for the seal on the rear crank.Than the gear train is completely finished. Mr Baier phoned me and said he was ill for a week or so but my pistons and cylinders are ready this week. Today I was at the customs office and picked up Somer Hookers parcel with all the 1/2 time pinions - Thanks Somer!
Next step: take the engines apart, fix all the small jobs on the left side like finishing the chain tensioner, weld another crack that I found, make it all look a bit neater and start with the right halves. Don't expect much work here.
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13 Mar from Hartmut
Didn't do much today as I was outside digging for the broken electrical wire. Anyway - this evening I worked on the clutch. Finished the clutch shaft with a LH thread 20TPI on the 1" stub and made a nut for it that incorporates the center for the new thrust bearing. Then I cut those 10 screws for the clutch to length and undercut the first 1/4" of thread in the clutch sprocket as the screws have almost 3/8" solid shank. Thus they can hold a bit more and give a little rest of safety if they were getting lose on a run.
All for today - tomorrow I will dig a bit more in the yard and hopefully get that electric crap sorted. In the evening I finish that nut and start dismantling the engines to get the left side finished completely.
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14 Mar from Hartmut
Finally I found time this evening to take the engines apart and work on the left half. Have welded all cracks and added some weld where the pin for the chain tensioner sits. Added two webs where the tensioner screw will be and filled that area in the case as well. Should be strong enough to withstand the deceleration of the liner under all circumstances. Clutch shaft is drilled and the nut finished - do you have a 2" spanner? I milled the slots about 4,5mm wide and 8mm high so a 5/32" pin slides through easily and can be adjusted 5/32". To make it possible to adjust this nut over a range of more than 1/4" I will make suitable spacers for the thrust bearing.The thrust bearing will sit in a cup on the outer clutch plate - keeps grease in and dirt out Thus the nut stays where it is more or less and any extra difference is taken out with a spacer washer.
All for today - I am tired as I spent the whole day outside digging the canal for the new electric wire to the shed - 12 yards with a lot of stones in between.
reply from Max
All looks good. I like the idea of the cup. Good thinking. The nut design is also a good one, far stronger than a full castellated nut. Will the adjusting bolts to the tensioner be threaded into aluminum with a fine thread, or are you planning to use a steel insert, NF female NC male thread? In one of your posts you said there would be two adjusting screws. Is this still your plan?
One thing I might suggest, that you give a bit more valley between the forward section of the primary and the after section of the primary, at the apex of the cover. This will allow oil in the primary to find it's desired level, with full free flow between the two oil valleys. One being the valley below the clutch sprocket, the other being the valley below the front engine drive gear. The monster chain acts as a scoop and tries to void the rear and fill the forward. We don't want to fill the forward portion of the primary and only allow a trickle passage back to the rear of the primary. Anyway just a thought.
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15 Mar from Hartmut
The tensioner is finished. As you can see in the pics I made a bigger thread where the pin enters the cases. The pin itself is 12mm (slightly less than 1/2"). On the pin sits a bush with a step to increase the face where it rests on the case.On the outer side a big washer completes the system. The tensioner blade stays free to turn on the bush but the bush and washer get compressed when the pin is tightened up. Next was the need for spreading the load as wide as possible and generate a strong thread. So I milled the welded-up area under the tensioner flat with a radiused end mill - thus creating a soft edge and no stress riser. The steel plate is more than 1/2" thick and carries the thread and has the same radius outside as the pocket. It is a perfect fit as it sits flat on the milled face without any play. Nice!
The aluminium of the case was drilled through and the steel plate drilled and threaded. Made a bolt from high tensile steel and a locknut with big surface facing the cases for extra strength. The locknut has its head opened up to accommodate part of the bolts hexagon as I wasn't sure if there is enough space when engine is in frame. Anyway - all looks good and solid.
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More pics of the tensioner
Looking very good. Hartmut, feel free to comment in here or add stuff....
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Several posts ago Max mentioned we were getting some tuning equipment...
We are working with our newest sponsor AEM (http://www.aemelectronics.com/)
Here's the plan
AEM has a 4 channel A/F sniffer
http://www.aemelectronics.com/wideband-air-fuel-systems-15/4-channel-wideband-uego-controller-60/
The sniffer plugs into their data logger without using any of the input channels
http://www.aemelectronics.com/data-loggers-66/
We will also be logging EGT using their 4 channel amp and thermocouples
http://www.aemelectronics.com/engine-management-systems-9/4-channel-k-type-thermocouple-amplifier-32/
Luckily AEM recognizes LSR, Nathan Stewart (one of our own that I've known since he was a brat) works there and has been working with us to help us find the right parts to make this possible... and we got great discount for being racers.
Thanks Nate
Thanks AEM
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More pics of the tensioner
Looking very good. Hartmut, feel free to comment in here or add stuff....
Hey Stainless
I am much better on my tools than on this PC stuff. I cannot comment on my own work as that is your (all of you readers) duty. All I did so far was improve or strengthen where I thought it might be neccessary - all under the saying: "better be safe than sorry". So probably some of my parts are a bit overdressed but as far as I can say right now it should all work without problems - at least I gave it my best shot and hope that that will be enough to hold the motors together for a couple fast runs. Wouldn´t it be nice to have a good meeting this year and send Max home to start his book? ;-)
Thank you for your big support - I don´t know where we would be at without all your help over the time!!!!!
Cheers
Hartmut
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I truly look forward to inspecting the liner this August,
and please tell Harmut I enjoy seeing, and admiring his work.
A very skillfull and well planning engineer and machinist.
Drew Gatewood
Hello Drew - thanks for the kudos
Is there any differency between AMA and FIM scrutineering? I can´t remember - sorry! You are probably in the know of all the FIM stuff - I seem to recall that a couple things are different to the AMA procedure. If I can find the money for FIM entry I sure would like to go AMA AND FIM. I think this is possible?
Looking forward to your reply
All the best and see you in August!!!!
Cheers Hartmut
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I guess it's time to catch up a little, we have the AEM data pieces, I will post some pics of it later, we found some space next to the fuel tank that will fit the boxes. The plan is to mount and prewire everything on a plate and then mount the plate and final wire the equipment into the scooter.
But let's get back to Germany...
22 Mar from Hartmut
Andy was here and helped the whole day, grinding, and filling the cases and covers where I ruined the old paintwork. Now the left side is ready for painting as I drilled all necessary holes, set a couple helicoils etc. Went to a nearby paint shop and asked for a colour match of the red parts - will get some paint mixed up next week.
Talked to Bernhard - we will have a meeting on Monday evening about to discuss his gearbox construction - if everything is as it should I guess we are making swarf again! A German classic bike mag is publishing a 5 page story about you and the liner and some pics of the rebuilt - maybe I can generate a bit money for the FIM thing as the mag will be printed in April. Have to go now and see the journalist and check what he has written.
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Between making a living and working on the scooter Hartmut has also been working on the plan to get the motors back to Max when he gets done. With any luck they will arrive air freight in Dallas or Kansas City, and maybe at a very good rate since the normal cost is outrageous... more on this as things transpire.
22 Mar From Hartmut
I was planing on taking two rivets out of the old primary chain and use them for the master link of the new chain. Look what I found, I hope you can see it in the picture: the rivets are very worn on their shaft, probably due to binding in the rollers as they were not running properly over the sprockets - thus the side plates turned on the rivets! Seems we have to live with the clip on the master link but I can soft solder this for extra strength without disturbing the steel plates hardness.
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From Hartmut 28 Mar
Not much to tell tell lately as I was working on some Nortons to get them out of way and a bit money. I have not got the pistons back as Mr Baier is not fully recovered from some illness but he promised them to be the first stuff to finish this week. He can only apply one coat at a time and the coat thickness is only 1 thou - so it takes a while to have all four pistons finished.
Bernhard is busy constructing the new gearbox internals - he phoned me twice this morning to get some needed info. In a day or two it should be all in his computer - then I can study the layout. He wants to know how high the pressure of our Co2 system is as the selector cylinders (there will be two small ones) have to override a spring in the selector mechanism - So I need to know what pressure we run in the CO2.
There will be two little air cylinders attached to the gearbox end, one working only in one direction, the other in both directions. They will be about 3 to 4" long and 1" diameter and will take the space that we occupy now with the two levers behind the gearbox. The shifting can be left as is on the handlebar - if we prefer to have the possibility to shift back into low gear this can be arranged as well.
On the liner engine I have finished the left half completely with all helicoils etc and will paint it tomorrow. By weekend I plan to finish the right halves as well so probably somewhere next week I can assemble the bottom end.
All the steel parts that need hardening go into the shop tomorrow, some small stuff is away for plating - when its all back I will be ready with the right half.
Will take some pics tomorrow
30 Mar
Here are the latest pics: left half is painted and ready for assembly. Finished all parts of the left side for the hardening process. They are in the shop now and will be finished next week. I forgot to tell you that I need 4 ball bearings, they are all the same dimension. outer dia 2,62", inner dia 1,5" x 0,562 wide. They are marked: Japan Nachi 7R24. These are the bearings for the clutch shaft and the clutch sprocket. I can't find them here. The old bearings are notchy so I would like to fit new bearings.
Now I am checking the right halves but so far there is nothing wrong. Next step is the making of a couple bolts to connect the halves together. As I cannot fit nuts on a couple bolts near the primary due to lack of space because of my stiffening brackets, I have to make a couple studs that are fitted into the helicoils.
Talked to Mr Baier about the pistons and cylinders. He is still handicapped with a broken hand but he's working on our stuff. The pistons are receiving the final coats. The coat gets baked on the skirts and on Monday he will make the final measurements. So they will be here next week.
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2 Apr
Here is some news. Went to the paint shop today and found a very close match for the red paint on the covers. Ordered it and should be there tomorrow. The man representing the Erik SEALS factory will come tomorrow and visit me to tell my when seals for the clutch are ready. Bernhard has phoned me this morning about the gearbox.The man is amazing - as he is chief of the whole construction department of a big factory he is always very busy. To avoid losing his driving licence because of speeding he has a driver. So he spends the drive time in the back of the car and constructs things like our gearbox or a new race car engine.....never wastes any time, a restless soul!
Here is what he says about the Muncie box: The old gap between gears was 1200 revs between low and second and 1800 between second and high.The shafts were not parallel, 0,02" off!!! Anyway, we have to modify the box housing so this will be corrected. We talked a while and are now planning for around 1800 between 1 and 2, and max 1500 rpm for the gap from 2. to 3rd gear (depending on numbers of teeth). Thus we would use the big spread torque at the slower speeds and when changing into high we would probably fall into the torque spike of engines and go from there. Tomorrow evening he has all the internals dialed in and starts on the CAD to make drawings for my mate Mike. I will meet him then and discuss all of it to make sure we get what we need. So by weekend the material gets ordered and early next week Mike will start to mill and turn the first parts for the new box. While Mike and the teeth cutter are doing the parts Bernhard will finish the CAD for the gear change - we will have a new end cover where the shifter cylinders are bolted on as well.
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4 Apr
The cases are painted, red color for the covers is a close match - not perfect but I think we can live with it. Sent the envelope with cash to Mr Baier - he gave me a special price - less than half what all his work usually costs. 350 Euros. He checked all his records and said he has put equal thick coatings on race pistons and they all worked. The EriK Seal representative was here yesterday - after seeing the engines he said he will give us all possible help. Those two big seals would cost 450 Euros as they are specially made - I get them free!!!!! As they will only be here when the engine is already back at your place I will send them over and make a tool for fitting them - is a bit tricky but should stand all heat and punishment on the flats.
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4 Apr reply from Max
The paint job looks good to me. Of course I'm a bit color blind when it comes to reds. It'll look good, I'm sure. If those high dollar special seals are a bit tricky to put in, like you say, I think I'll have Stainless put them in because I don't want to screw up a 450 Euro seal. If it doesn't work we can all blame him. :-D
from Hartmut
Don't worry too much about putting the seals in - they work differently than ordinary rubber seals: as we all know a rubber or viton seal has a sharp lip which rides on the shaft. Inner diameter is only a fraction smaller than the shaft. These special seals have two lips (one for keeping dirt out- facing outwards and only a fraction smaller than the shaft) BUT THE INNER SEAL IS A LIP WITH MUCH SMALLER DIAMETER - facing inwards. Thus the procedure is to fit a spacer inside the seal prior to fitting that is bigger in diameter than the shaft. Let it sit overnight. Then take it out and you will realize that the inner lip diameter is stretched bigger than the shaft. Push the seal in quickly and wait a while - the lip comes back to its old shape and will seal perfectly. So no big deal - when I send those seals over I will put a spacer-stretcher in the parcel as well. As the outer housing is steel they should be easy to fit.
Will check the idlers and other shafts over Easter - weather forecast is lousy so I can spend my time in the workshop;-) Tomorrow afternoon pressure is off from my shoulders as I finished a couple bikes this week so I have time to check all wristpin bushes and renew where necessary. Hope to have all of the bottom end ready to assemble after Easter. Will talk to my friend Helmut about the piston ring situation when I have the cylinders here for measurement.
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Oh OH! Pressure is on Stainless now! :-D
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6 Apr from Hartmut
This afternoon I had to visit Bernhard to check his gearbox construction. Everything is ready in the CAD. We talked it all over and came to this conclusion:
low gear will be 187 mph at 6500
second will be 283 mph at 6500
high gear will be 384mph at 6500
So the jump from first to second is 2200 revs, second to high is 1700. We think this is a good compromise between a shorter low gear (what we want) and still the possibility to go very fast in high....
In the first pics you see Bernhard on the CAD with the gearbox internals (viewed from the bottom upwards)
One pic shows the two gear selector forks - each riding on its own shaft. The shafts have groves on one end where a lock pin sits - thus the lock pin is moved out of one shaft and travels into the other shaft when a gear is changed - this makes extra sure that there is no way that the system can accidentally select two gears same time. The low gear has its own air cylinder, working one way only to push the box in low. Second and high work with a double working cylinder that pushes the selector muff in either gear. More or less the same we had with the exception that the box jumps back into neutral when air or electricity that triggers the air valves is switched off - I like it cause I have the opportunity to take the bike out of gear immediately if shit happens at high speed.
More in the next post.
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more
In these pics you see the man and some of his work. There is a heavy duty four speed gearbox for a 600 hp AWD race car. You see the 3 broaches which we will use on the gearbox parts. Selector forks and selector muffs are parts that he already uses in all his gearboxes. On the shelf you see injection tubes that are cast and machined to his design for his race engines. There are many more shelves with special parts - the man is a genius. Anyway - I found the time to test our Norton twin project on Bernhard's dyno - our 905cc engine puts out 82 Nm between 3000 and 5500, this without any tuning of the inlet track length etc - all based on Bernhard's calculations and on his homemade cams - the slowest was in the motor when I tested it so I have four more aggressive cams to test and play around with inlet and exhaust length and form to get the best out of it. Bernhard gets a 600 Domi from me with one of these engines to cruise around (run circles around) with his BMW friends :-D Needless to say he has already constructed a 6-speed gearbox for our Norton project as well....
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from Max
All of the energizing and de-energizing of the three solenoids required will have to be done through electrical circuits. First, before I begin, I'll have to add one more solenoid, as there is only a double solenoid set up on the bike, which will work just fine for second and high. This is how I'll wire it up: I'll run a hot wire back to the area where I manipulate the switches for starting. It'll have a toggle switch where I can energize the solenoid for low gear. There'll be a switch, as before, for second and high; however, when you shift to second, not only does the switch energize the solenoid for second gear, but breaks the circuit to the low gear hot lead. The delay needed to get low gear disengaged before second gear engages should be controlled by the shafts of the shifting forks, if I understand how they work. As soon as low gear is out of gear, or nearly out of gear, i.e., the pin out of it's slot, this will allow the already pressurized cylinder for second gear to actuate the shift. The set up as it is with the dual solenoid will work fine. Switch up, second gear solenoid energized, simultaneously breaks circuit to low gear solenoid, switch in neutral position, no circuit to either second gear or high gear, all pressures relieved on all air cylinders. Switch in the downward position, solenoid energized on high gear. As you say, you'll be able to put the bike in neutral by centering the second and high gear toggle switch. One feature that we gained is that we can easily start the bike in the pits and not worry about it being in or out of gear, and it will also keep us from putting the bonnet on when it isn't in gear, requiring us to pull the bonnet to put it in gear, which has happened several times. I like that feature. Now I've got to find a suitable solenoid valve for low gear, and of course, find a place to put it.
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I mentioned earlier we were getting some tuning and data collection equipment from AEM, pictures will be posted when I start the layout. A couple of Max's supporters, Ross Powers (mc2032 on this site) and his brother Kurt Powers figured we would need a computer to work with that stuff so they donated one.
Thanks Ross and Kurt
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Last one for a bit, I have to get back to work on the Bockscar...
Max is working on T shirts to sell at the salt to support the effort a little, his daughter Kim designed these...
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12 Apr from Hartmut
Here is a pic of piston and cylinder. Superfine hone and coating on the piston. Mr Baier has sent a couple small stickers as well.
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13 Apr from Hartmut
I made a new bushing for the front crank, front cylinder. The old bushing had spun in the rod and thus no oil reaching the pin - more heat in the piston, that was the reason for the sloppy piston pin in that one....
All cases are cleaned completely and cranks as well so I started the rebuild. Rear crank is in, case bolted up. Tomorrow the forecast is lousy so I will spend the day in the shop and put the front crank in and bolt that half up as well. On Monday I will see Helmut and tell him the measurements for the needed piston rings - he has a contact at one of Germany's biggest piston makers - Mahle.
Now Thomas and me are off for another Friday evening beer :cheers:
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More
On the other pics you see the article in the German classic bike mag. No text worth mentioning but at least we got into the papers :-D
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16 Apr
Front crank is in, cases bolted up. The two spacers that I made for the crank Timken bearings were hardened and ground to the proper size. No play but easy to spin the cranks. So now we have two cranks in cases that don't rub anywhere and spin nice and easy. Got a phone call that my hardened stuff is ready so I went there and picked the box up. Will start the clutch shaft assembly etc this evening so expect a couple more pics later tonight. Tomorrow I have to call for the piston rings - if I fail to get totalseal rings I will fit high quality rings with 0,015" ring gap
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16 Apr... late
After all the bolts were in the cases and tightened up I started on the gear drive. Heated the front pinion in boiling water to make it expand a bit as I had the bore nickel plated and ground out to a slight under-size to make it a tight fit on the shaft. Once hot it slid easily over the shaft and I tightened everything to make it cool in its final position. All still turns nice and free. The clutch bearing plate got new bearings and a slit to allow oil to drain in there. I left the seal on the inner side of the inner bearing so that all oil that gets in there cannot escape - should be well lubed now. Too late to start on the assembly of the chain drive so I managed to solder the spring clip to the outer link plate for extra security. Tomorrow morning I will assemble the chain and gear drive and offer up the big chain case - this time with sealer on the mating faces - seems we are making progress now!
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Stainless
I'm figuring on WOS only this year. Maybe post T-shirt info here when available so we can buy/help before SW.
Ron
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17 Apr
As the hardened stuff changes dimensions somewhat anyway I put the big sprocket on the lathe and ground the under-size (I left a couple thou in there) internals to proper size for the bearings and the seal. The outside diameter was ground to correct size as well to make the seal run smooth and easy :-D So its all concentric to less than a thou.
Next step was to grind the front sprocket internally to a tight fit on the shaft. Took half the day to do all the grinding but it feels so good when all is tight and fits as desired.
After putting the bearings in and securing them with a circlip I pressed the rubber seal into the rear sprocket. Then the whole assembly of front and rear sprocket connected with the chain was pushed on the shafts. Front sprocket is tight on shaft and needed to be pulled home the last 1/8" completely with the big nut and a couple spacers - nice. Then I fitted the inner Bronze disc over the rear gear pin and tightened it up.
Next step was warming the internally nickel plated and ground rear gear pinion in boiling water. Had it in there for 1/2 hour to make sure it will go fully home over that long shaft. First attempt worked perfectly - all dimensions correct - it slid almost home, getting tight within the last 1/16". Hurried to fit a couple spacers to pull it fully home.
So to try if everything is correct I fitted the chain tensioner and turned the cranks - all spins nice and free without tight spots - I guess we have a good bottom end now.
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Ron, as soon as we have shirts going and a good idea of cost that info will be posted here. Max is entering the scooter for FIM at the Bub, then possibly staying for the World of Speed. A lot of that will depend on how things go and if Max's SS and Navy Pension hold up.
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Mocked up a circuit board (pun intended) for the AEM tuning and data collection boxes.... lots of wire there.... we are looking at putting it between the skin and the fuel tank... more later as we get it sorted
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24 Apr from Hartmut
Measured all neccessary spots to make sure all fits as desired - it does. Then got all faces cleaned, turned the distance bushes to their proper size and polished them for the seals in outer cover. Put sealer on both faces and fitted the inner cover. Now its bolted up and sealer dried enough to remove one screw at a time and re-insert it with Loctite to make sure no screw can fall out. While waiting for the sealer to dry I pushed the big seal into its recess around the clutch. So as soon as the ordered Viton seals are here for both cranks I can fit the outer cover as well. Next step now is to fit the big bearing support plate. Have to drill all the screws first for safety wire - will take some time but I'll post pics again.
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30 Apr
Finally I drilled all holes to safety wire all nuts and bolts. So now everything inside the primary is buttoned up. All bolts which couldn't be wired are loctited. Still waiting on the seals for both cranks. So I tried the outer cover for fitment. Had to relieve it for the lowest gear pin nut - but only a millimetre. This week the seals should turn up and I can then finish the cover completely. My piston rings are promised to be here by weekend - takes a bit longer to get steel rings. By then I should have the primary side finished - seals and all.
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That is one big erector set!
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What marvelous updates.
Way to go fellows.
FREUD
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Just read this from beginning, man what a beautiful piece great job.............
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Did a test fit for the AEM tuning and data collection equipment... a couple of issues but we should get it to fit in the scooter. Replaced the board with an aluminum mount plate, removed some of the unnecessary wires from the connectors so it is a little less crowded. As you see in the pictures it will mount next to the fuel tank, between the tank and skin.
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Looking good
Max, I have a quick question on your chutes if you dont mind.
Which chute do you have the tilt switch wired to, I was going to wire it to the slow chute so that if it triggers i can have the maximum braking i can get.
Does this make sense or am i missing something?
Thanks
jon
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Jon, both chutes fire if the tip over is activated. Max's tip switch has a separate mercury switch circuit for each chute wired to fire the pilot pneumatically when tipped. They do not require master power to be on, they are wired straight to the battery through a fuse of course.
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Thanks Stainless/Max for your help...again.
Thanks
jon
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Time to catch up a little on the progess across the pond
6 May from Hartmut
Sunday has come and gone almost - spent most of it in the workshop. Chamfered all liners for smooth inserting of rings.Made gaskets and gaped all rings. Then the assembly started. Everything went nice and easy. I lubed the wristpin and the conrod small end with ultra lube - should help a bit on initial start-up as it is very sticky and will stay up there. Rings went on the pistons and each pot was pushed down. The liners go into the bolted up cases without any effort - all fits properly. Each pot got two tubes to hold the lower gasket a bit under pressure until the sealer has cured. So now I have to start on the heads to get them ready to fit.
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Love that last shot, thanks!
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16 May from Hartmut
On Monday I started on the heads and got #1 ready and started on #2. Late Monday afternoon I had visitors arrive here so we planed a little sightseeing tour for Tuesday. Then the telephone rang and my mother said she had been at the doctor and he sent her home with the diagnosis that she probably had a stroke - she is tough with her 90 years so she took her bicycle and rode home to phone me! Needless to say I went there in a minute and drove her to the hospital to have her treated as needed. So the sightseeing tour started a bit later. Today my visitors left and I was able to install head 1 and 2. In one pic you see the crap that came out of #2 - all molten aluminium, combustion chamber looks good with only minimal scratches from the piston debris - I took some sandpaper to it to make it all smooth. Luckily the valves were not damaged so I lapped them all in and installed everything in the heads. Valve guides have much more play than a road going Vincent but I left it like that as there is so much heat in the heads to avoid a sticking valve.
Mike has finished the big plate for the gearbox. I installed the front oil pump and installed another shim behind the worm gear to compensate the new offset of the crank. All spins nice and easy. So tomorrow I will fill the front crankcase with cams etc and dial that engine in as it is a holiday in Germany with all shops closed so probably none of my customers will show up as it is cold and wet as well. Will visit Mum tomorrow to see what the doctors say but nothing else planned for the day so will probably get a lot work done on the engines. Viton seals for cranks arrived today as well. For Friday I have an appointment with my doctor for the test form, have paid the licence already. Test form will be sent to the head office and by end of next week I should have my licence. Petra leaves for a week to work in the dog rescue home so I am on my own next week and should be able to finish the big lump as nobody waits for me in the evening (only the dogs;-))
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19 May from Hartmut
Been installing the cams - first tried 60degr btdc with 10 thou pre - lift - doesn't work as I have much more lift of exhaust on TDC as inlet. Exhaust 5,2mm, inlet 3mm. Now I have advanced the cams to 5,5mm inlet and 5mm exhaust. This should work pretty good as equal lift is now at 6 degr BTDC. Without pre-lift the inlet starts to open at 70 degr.
Tomorrow I do the rear heads and cams.
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20 May from Hartmut
I finished the heads, had to replace the exhaust valve on #3 as it was bent slightly. Did not find any cause for this when I took the engines apart so I don't know what caused this. Replaced exhaust valve #4 as well as it had deep marks on the shaft below the lower valve guide- salt is a killer! Anyway - all valves were lapped in and everything reinstalled. Oil pump worm was shimmed according to the new position of crank and pump plunger installed. All turns without harsh points. After checking the difference between head #3 and #4 I pulled the rear pot again and replaced the lower gasket with a thicker to get same compression on both pots. When playing with the idler boss for no backlash I found a stripped thread on one of the bolts - so took it all apart and replaced two bolts as the other one was a screw. Got backlash to zero and after trying several half time pinions from Somer I found the one that just slides in without any play. Good so far - tomorrow I will make a new sleeve for the 1/2 pinion that drives the ignition - this one here has far too much play and makes ignition timing a hit and miss affair. So probably tomorrow evening I should have the rear engine timed as well and can install the ignition and fuel pump - didn't you say you get another pump? That might mean I will not install the pump at all?
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Well I guess it is time for me to catch up again, been a little busy working on the Bockscar, getting a 1 liter for SpeedWeek. But enough about that, here is a link to a bunch of fotos Hartmut's friend Eric took, a few cool bikes in there also
https://www.dropbox.com/gallery/79313418/1/Germany%202012?h=668097
23 May from Hartmut
Here are some gearbox parts. I have had hectic days, even missed my midweek training due to visiting mother in hospital, making meals for dad, walking the dogs and keep the house in order and cash flowing with customer work. Anyway, today I picked mother up and brought her back home so I have a couple hours per day more to spend on the engines. Mike has finished the small parts of the gearbox and starts on the pinion stuff. I was not exactly happy with the backlash on ignition drive in # 2 so I made a new bronze sleeve with just enough play to rotate on the shaft and selected the biggest pinion I could find in Somers stuff - got one that just slides in with no play at all.
Have ordered all parts for the gearbox:
4 springs
2 air cylinders
8 bearings in various sizes
Have to see Bernhard and pick up the selector forks and sleeve gears.
All should arrive next week. Tomorrow I time the rear engine. Have checked the front engine at overlap for clearance - no problem as I can push all valves about 2mm further without hitting the pistons. On full lift I can turn the adjuster screw in at least1,5 more turns before the valve collar sits on the lower guide or the spring cap on the upper guide. There is enough play between the coils of springs as well. So the front end is done now.
I could make up aluminium tubes to go over the pushrod hoses. I have a thin wall tube here that would have a bit clearance on the hose. As it is tight near the barrel it would stand proud of the hose on the outside and thus leave an air gap between hose and tube. Will show you a pic tomorrow. Have to pull the heads again to fit those though.
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Lest you think Hartmut is the only one working to make the project go, here is some work that Max is doing. I'll drop over and take a few pictures of progress in the next few days. One of us spent Memorial Day weekend in Denver building a new lakester front axle.
Here's a picture of the dash with the two additional switches. First gear and data switches. Had a real productive day today. A total of four people working on the bike and the wife bringing sustenance. My daughter Kim captured one of her co-workers and spent the better part of yesterday and all day today building the new bracketry for holding the top section and lower section of the rear body. Looks real good and quite professional. Hired my helper Elio for the day. He and I finished the mounting of the push bar, straightened the right hand mounting band of the body, did some clean up on the adjusters for the rear wheel axle, painted adjusters, greased, and made them ready for another week on the salt.
The water switch, master switch, and fire bottle pull cables, (the ones that have to be externally accessible) have all been moved back to the very end of the tail section. The push tube that shows provided location points for these items. The reason for these changes is to eliminate a six inch hole in back of the injector intake on the outer skin. The liner will have an air scoop built into the skin, facing forward, not unlike a Formula 1 car, only flatter.
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28 May for Hartmut
You couldn't reach me as I was out of the shop for most of the days to take care for my parents and get the house in order for Petras return and bring the gearbox parts for stress relieving to the hardening shop. I got my German race licence and am now waiting for the FIM permit - had to pay an extra fee for that but expect it to be here soon. I sent you copies of all that I sent to the DMSB. In between I managed to time the rear engine. So that is all done, max overlap is at 4 degree BTDC - I couldn't get it any better - well maybe if I used a stepped key.... Petra is home now, parents are taken care of by my sister and I could return to the shop now. I will put AL tubing over the pushrod hoses and fit ignition and fuel pump drive and close the timing chests tonight.
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I reported earlier that Marty Dickerson had a heart attack, probably in health and welfare, but Marty reports that is was just a spot of breathing problems, although the Doc told him he was a fine candidate for an attack. Marty plans to be found at the Bub under the shade of the Black Lightning's tent... business as usual. I think he retired from racing, last year was the first year he did not take a pass, the previous year I think he set his last record on a Vincent.
30 May, from Hartmut
see attached pics - the rubber hoses are covered with aluminum tubing, held in place by the hose clips and having an air gap of at least 1/8 ". Its anodized tube so should look good for a while.
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30 May continued
The ignition is fitted - I set the magneto over the center of the pick-up at 45 degree BTDC. I don't know when the signal comes, i.e. when the magneto reaches or leaves pick-up but with the long slot that we have we should be able to dial the motor in without disturbing the timing cover internals.Fitted the fuel pump as well, all screws secured with lock wire. Need to work now on the head steadys (top motor mounts) and weld a couple cracks and fit those. Will put the timing covers on tonight and finish the outer primary cover. Will mark the degree-wheel on the motors with a definite mark for TDC on the front motor/rear cylinder. So whenever we put a strobe light on the degree disc we will see where the front motor is.
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June 1 from Hartmut
This evening I welded the cracked head steadies.
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June 1, more
all parts for the gearbox are finished on the lathe and I will get them to the tooth cutter next week. Bernhard will do the splines on the shafts and the internal/external splined ring on the mainshaft. My other buddy with a grinding shop is already waiting for the shafts and pinions to grind them to size but first we need a couple teeth on all of it and let the hardening shop have the parts for a day or two. 6 needle bearings are on backorder but should arrive sometime next week.
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I have been following this build diary and am very impressed with the craftmanship going into this. As a person that knows very little about motorcycles, and even less about Vincents, I am curious how the valve train works. I can see the push rod and end of the rocker but also see the valve stem and spring at the very
top of the head. How does that system work?
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Monte, the gears drive the cams, cams are mounted high in the motor so the pushrods are fairly short, the rocker arms are actually in the middle of the valves. If you search Mad Max or Thunderdome from the forum home page you will see 3 other build discussions that cover the motor particulars.
Lots of pictures and explanation.
The scooter may end up at your event again depending on finances and life after the Bub FIM attempt.
See ya on the Salt 8-)
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Robert, from the looks of things I expect the bike will go very fast. I will check out the other information
you suggested. Would love to see ya'll at WOS. Here is wishing you good luck this year.
Monte.
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Howdy All. Mad Max the Kansas Bad Man here.
A lot of the postings on this thread are probably a bit awkward to read. I have a racers internet list that I post to with all the updates of the build. Stainless is on my list and he pulls off correspondence between Hartmut Weidelich and myself. Stainless manages to get Hartmut's words on this thread, but hasn't been posting my words, as a rule. I was surprised that he did post my words on Marty Dickerson. Stainless will be over tomorrow I believe, to take some pictures of some of my build on the chassis end of it that's going on in my garage. I'll be asking Stainless to include my words to Hartmut as well as Hartmut's words. If you think this thread is interesting only hearing one side of the conversation, you'd probably like to hear both sides, as there is a lot of technical back and forth and 'what if's' going on between the two of us.
Hartmut and I are going through all of the hoops together to get the liner qualified for the Bub Meet for both FIM and AMA record attempts. I've got all the stuff that Hartmut's sent me. Most of it is in German. But a couple of the main forms are in English. Anyway he says he'll have his FIM license the first part of next week. I've already paid the $600+ entry fee, and Hartmut has already paid $500 on his physical and so on. This racing thing ain't cheap, is it?
I finished up all the push bar stuff today, so tomorrow Stainless will have something to photograph. My daughter came over today however, and took some pictures. I'll be posting them to my list. Maybe Stainless will pick them up and post them here. I don't have the ability to post pictures with my WebTV player. Actually Stainless has been pretty good about posting, but here late he's got a couple of cars over in his garage that's taking up his time.
Max
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Max we will wait for the photos. The builds are just awesome and we all enjoy the great fab and engineering.
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Well Max is right, there has been a lot of technical interchange that I have left out of the mix, clearances, peculiarities, explanations of why things were done and advice. A lot of that was mixed with financial exchanges, Max sending money.... so that is why there seemed to be a few jumps and answers with no questions.... But the photos tell the story of the work going into this one last attempt.
Well I'll try to give y'all a little more of the mix from now on as time permits. On this side of the pond Max has been working on a pushbar, body mounts and new sidecar cover.
Max sent this to the Vincent group a couple of days ago
Here are a few pictures of the new push bar for 2012. I finally came to the conclusion that pushing the bike up to around 40 mph would be the way to go. It was probably just a macho thing on my part to be able to say that "My liner drives off. Doesn't need any push". Well the fact is that it can, and has many times, but the clutch takes a beating in doing so.
The first picture shows the aluminum roller, which is the push contact point. Above that there are two pull cables, these cables satisfy the scrutineers, as one pull cable is for a fire bottle in the engine compartment, and the other is a fire bottle that can be released externally for the cockpit compartment. There are two switches on the left hand side of the push bar at the extreme rear. These electrical toggle switches control the master electrical circuit and the water pump circuit. On the right hand side of the push bar is the engine breather hose. The catch can still utilizes the inch and a half chrome moly tubing frame. The two drains are still located in the same place. The fastening points of the push bar are all complete, except for one, not shown. When finished, there will be eight fastening points, push bar to frame.
The battery is dedicated to the AEM data system we are installing to monitor air fuel ratios and exhaust gas temperatures in each cylinder.
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And a few more including the addition of the cattle guard and push board to front of Max's truck
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The build is certainly looking clean.
FREUD
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Yes, Hartmut and his friends are doing a beautiful job
Here is more from Hartmut, 1 June
Here are a couple pics of today's work. Mike worked his magic on the CNC lathe and produced all the internals for the gearbox. I have attached a couple pics of the cover as well - so you get an idea what it looks like. I was busy driving around to get the needle bearings and get the chrome stuff here. More to follow.
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here's more from 1 Jun...
note from stainless... a few of these may be out of order, got lost in my mail.... but you get the idea of what is happening
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3 Jun from Hartmut
outer cover is finished. Tomorrow morning I will make the seal holder for rear crank - its too late today at 11pm to start that piece on the lathe :-D
The headsteadies are fitted but I will not paint them as I guess you might need to close the fitting holes with weld and realign them to the framework - if they all match the frame you only need to paint them. The rear holder is still painted as it was not cracked.
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4 June from Hartmut
A day has come and gone and I finished the primary side. The cover was already machined to accept the Viton seal for front crank, today I made the spacer that holds the rear cranks seal. I had to space the 8 holes for the screws a bit differently to avoid the old holes that are in the cover already - therefor I stamped the TOP on the seal holder. The holder has a shoulder that rests in the cover so the position is a given. Next step was to find exact TDC of cylinder no 2. Checked it with the degree wheel and put a permanent mark on the cover - used a screw with the slot facing to the crank. The degree wheel was stamped with TDC 2 and 45 for ignition advance. Total play between the cranks is 1.5 degrees so I guess we should have two very simultaneous firing engines :-D
Some bearings for the gearbox arrived, others are coming soon and I got the two Festo air cylinders. Tomorrow evening I see Bernhard and bring him the gearbox parts for teething.
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Back on this side of the pond, Max picked up the spare blower drive and 4 cases of Brad Penn... there goes June's Social Security Check :|
The first pic has Max's newest friend... 5 hour energy.... or one of it's competitors.... Max needs all the help he can get
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Stainless, you are doing a great job presenting this build.
You are also receiving excellent machine work from over the pond.
Max.......the best to you this year.
FREUD
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:?
Hi Frued,
Thanks a bunch for the kudos on the clean build. Over the years, working alone in my garage, I've put a boatload of thought into the chassis build as well as the engines to make the bike clean, neat, and factory in appearance. I was particularly proud of the engineering I did to couple the engines. I made all of the outside covers with much thought as to function and form. I'm pleased to say that all of my engineering has been retained by Hartmut and his professional friends. They have better machines, and are more talented machinists, each having schooling in this field. No original design concepts have been changed, however improvements in my design have been made.
The transmission is the same, only different, if that makes sense. Different gear ratios, different engaging dogs, and a different chips set up. All different, but are the same as my initial design. I'll say one thing. I would never have thought that the Black Lightning Project would receive a one off transmission. My hats off to Hartmut and his crew. Nothing but excellent.
Hartmut is also doing an excellent job in emailing me step by step and keeping me informed of the builds progress. I do the same. I have a list to which I post the information and Hartmut's pictures of the build progress. Stainless takes that and posts to landracing, which I appreciate.
Were you talking to me or were you talking to Stainless about receiving excellenet from across the pond?
Max
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It's been one heck of a busy day on this side of the pond, and on that side. The day started off with my daughter coming over to take snapshots of the now five different designs of the Black Lightning t shirts. She did most of the art work, and I'll have to say that they look pretty good. After that the rest of the day has been consumed in fitting the body to the streamliner. Quite a bit of work had to be done on the top lid at the rear where I made major modifications. Kim Stuever, my daughter, Max Re', my son, and Clyde Varner, Kim's buddy from work all came over to pitch in. Kim and Clyde have finished the machine work on the side bands that hold the bottom half and the top half of the rear section body. The new aluminum bands are thicker and wider. They are also doing a custom fastening method to attach the body to the side bands. Pretty neat, and impressive.
I got two emails from Hartmut which included ten pictures of the work going on in Germany. He did some racing today with his side car rig, and even though he was exhausted he answered a help call from his friend Bernard, to finish up some machine work on the liner's transmission at his shop. These guys are truly something else. I met Hartmut some 10 years ago. He's become a very good friend, and I feel humbled that he is donating so many hundreds of man hours to me and the project known as Black Lightning.
Max
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Max the way I see it is that you are the one that gets the info from on far and Stainless posts it.
AS long as we keep hearing from your build site is all that's important.
I have more confidence in your success this year than ever before.
I'll be watching and listening.
Go for it, Bad Daddy.
Thanks to Harmut and his chip producing friends. They too have the feel for the project.
FREUD
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This has got to be your year!
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9 June from Hartmut
I was at the racetrack today with the outfit and had an enjoyable outing. We were faster than ever before (if the stopwatches were not lying) - I had changed the set-up of my dampers and used different springs - no more bottoming so we could go faster over the big jumps.
Then my friends son (15 years old) asked me if I would accompany him in fathers outfit - haven't passengered for 30 years but I went to guide him round the track. We mastered a couple laps and I came home totally exhausted....unloaded the outfit and all my gear, walked the dogs and finally had a cup of coffee at 7pm - time to put my aching body on the sofa.
Telephone rang and buddy Bernhard said he needs my help as he is working on splining of the gearbox parts. So I jumped into the car and drove there to find him busy making splines on our gearbox. Turned out that he wanted me to do some lathe work to make it easier for him to dial it all in on the mill for perfect concentricity. So I reworked a couple parts on the lathe while he ran the CNC mill.
Anyhow - at 10pm we were finished - the teeth on the pinions will be made next week by another buddy of Bernhard. Good to have mechanical wizzards all around that have the tools and ability to use them to make this all happen! I have sent here the first 5 pics - another 5 come in the next mail.
(of course it will take a couple of posts to see them)
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continued...
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More from Hartmut
See the wall full of cams - all of them are Bernhards design and were extensively tested in all sorts of bike and car engines. The dyno - this is where I test my Norton engines. Very accurate and much better than those wheeldriven things - this one is calibrated twice a year and many 300 hp engines that were made elsewhere have had 20 hp less on this dyno. No wonder that Bernhards engines have won more than 100 german championships in all different classes and over 15 european championships as well.... the man is a genius!
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Hartmut impresses me! :cheers:
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Hartmut impresses me! :cheers:
Having friends with skills is a good thing
from Hartmut June 12
Here are the first pics of the rear chain tensioner. I made a bracket that is bolted into the case with 5 screws. On this bracket is a platform welded that rests on the bottom of the case, it will take the tensioner screw as well. The outer cover will be connected to the platform as well to spread the load. Then I milled the tensioner blade to get the chain to ride on the rollers and made a spacer for the bolt. The bolt will be stepped with a bigger thread on the outside so there is no weak point on the bolt where it supports the blade. The blade is formed to tension the chain almost without a screw - so if that screw fails or whatever we can still run;-)
Yesterday evening Bernhard and me did the trip to the teeth cutter (100 miles to and fro but well worth it). He makes all the gears for Bernhard's race gearboxes. We explained to him what we want to do and he immediately started on the gears. I phoned him tonight and told him we are in a hurry - in case he forgot ;-)
His reply was that the lose gearwheels are done already and he works on the half-shaft and the layshaft - so I hope to have the stuff back soon.
from Max
Looks like the secondary primary is coming along just fine. I appears that the main work left are the two new one piece sprockets, and the transmission appears to be moving along at lightning speed as well. That really has been my most concern about getting the lump and the transmission back to home base in a timely manner. I'll have to tell you, Hartmut, it's getting a bit scary. As of today I have only 69 days left until I drive out of the driveway heading for Wendover.
Yesterday I did come up with a brainstorm that'll speed things up on this end. Figured out a way to position the blower and the fuel injector in the frame. This will allow me to do the fiberglass injector scoop work that will seal off the injector intake from the innards of the cocoon to the atmosphere. This should help a bunch in keeping salt out of the intake tract. One other thing. I'll be able to position the external fuel shut off valve. After that's done, Stainless can get a picture to send off to Bub for the necessary paperwork.
We had one part missing on the new data collecting system, the ignition sensor to tell the magic boxes the rpm of the engines. Stainless will be tying this pick up from the spark plug high tension wire into the data collection system. When the engines get back the first thing we'll have to do is get the engines installed in the frame so I can locate and position the two probes in the exhaust pipes that will give us our fuel/air ratio and our exhaust temperature. There's not much room between the skin and the exhaust pipes, so I have to get this right.
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13 June from Hartmut
As you can see - the engines are almost finished. I only need to grind and paint the rear primary cover and shorten the screws that hold the tensioner assembly in there .... that's it.
Tomorrow I will get a weighting hook for my chain lift - will hang the engine and wooden box and take the weights to see where we are. Man - I am exhausted but happy that the motors are done.
From Max
Great job, Hartmut! The Supporters of the Black Lightning Project, and I, say THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!
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Just to keep things going, Max is working over here to get the scooter ready to go.
As mentioned Max is putting a scoop on the toilet bowl to eliminate the salt intake into the intake... so the first picture it the scoop.... some assenbly required...
To protect the motors that Hartmut has been working so hard on, Max will be preheating the oil. Max found some magnetic heaters that the truckers use... don't seem to stick to the aluminum tank, so probably a bracket will be made and shown later
Here's the photo of the new aluminum side straps, they're wider and thicker. Kim, Max's daughter and her friend from work, Clive, are doing a bang up job doing all of the fixes necessary to hang the body without the loss of fasteners during the run. Planning self locking nut plates....Did I mention that both of them are professional sheet metal mechanics, and that Clive is a professional machinist? Great workmanship, wish I took better pictures.
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Those magnetic heaters get HOT, they will work well.
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max,
the best of luck to you, don and hartmut.
I hope that this will be your year.
will miss not being there to see the vincent(s) run.
franey
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A bit of Vincent streamliner transmission history is in order. When I first built the liner, I used a standard four speed Vincent transmission, and employed a mechanical shifter. Next came a Surtees five speed transmission, which employed an air shifter. Next I discarded the transmission and utilized the transmission cavity to support a jackshaft, which went back to a modified Muncie transmission. Originally the transmission was built for the Easy Rider machine. Bob George, the principle person behind the design of the Muncie transmission, had reversed the input, Dave Campos told me that he believed this was the reason that the transmission never shifted well. The transmission wound up in Don Vesco's shop. I had been enquiring around for a whole Muncie M21 transmission to modify for use in the liner, using second, third, and fourth. Don said if I could use the Bob George transmission he would send it on to me, and he did. Had to modify the transmission quite a bit to make it work for the liner. I changed the input of the transmission, made outboard carrier bearings for the input and output shafts, and built an air actuated mechanical shifter. The transmission gears weren't the famed "rock crusher" type. They had more of a helical angle than the rock crusher gears. Sometimes the transmission worked well, other times it didn't, due to shift linkage adjustment. While in the pits one year the engines running at rather a high rpm, the transmission was engaged inadvertantly. This blew all the teeth off the gears in the transmission. We did continue to make a couple of runs by locking the transmission in high gear. When I got the bike back to Wichita, I located a firm in Chicago that dealt with the Muncie transmission and was having their gears made in Italy. I bought the gears I needed, changed the ratios a bit, also changed it to a 'rock crusher'. This transmission I've utilized up until this year. This year a one off transmission is being built as we speak by a group of four Germans. More on that later.
Max
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A very important piece of the puzzle, i.e., the one off transmission gears are finished. Hartmut made the 170 mile round trip to pick up the gears from the gear cutter guy. Don't know his name. The four principle players who put together their knowledge and skills in the transmission build are Hartmut, Bernard, Mike, and the gear cutter guy. Anyway I'll get Hartmut's pictures of to my streamliner group, and perhaps Stainless will post the photos for me to this site. I must apologize for not posting them myself, but my WebTv doesn't have that ability.
My daughter Kim and her friend Clyde worked Friday and Saturday on the body fasteners. She took pictures, and hopefully Stainless will post them too.
I spent the day making the female plug for the new injector air scoop. Tomorrow I'll glass it up and pull a part off of it. I managed to get the shape I wanted, and it might give us a few extra ponies on the big end. One thing for sure, it's design should keep the salt out of the intake.
Max
It's a miracle.... I should have thought of doing this a long time ago.... :-o Stainless
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Max, your friends build the prettiest stuff! :-D :-D :-D :cheers: :cheers: :cheers:
Pete
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Best wishes to you and all your helpers from down under Max, you deserve a run of good luck this year. :cheers: :cheers: :cheers:
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OK, here are the Pics of the body refit work going on, couldn't shrink them any more, so they are the next 4 posts from me.
Max's daughter Kim and her friend Clyde drilling lots of holes
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Top all drilled jig on to start bottom
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Max mentioned Clyde is a machinist and sheetmetal guy.... he built a couple of jigs to make sure everything was drilled perfectly, and the same.... no eyeballing locations for the holes. here is a pic of the jig
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And the last, how it works
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Got a favorable report from Hartmut today on the transmission. Some of the needle bearings haven't arrived yet, so Hartmut whittled out some bushings so the transmission can be assembled in the case. All went well and the measurements were all correct. The transmission has been disassembled and the parts are headed toward heat treat. Hartmut says that the heat treat will be done by Thursday evening. Next step is to grind to size. Hartmut will assume some of the grinding that his shop is capable of doing, but he has another friend who has a grinding shop to finish the pieces that he can't do. So I guess Hartmut has increased the size of the German team to five guys.
Max
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Looking good Max, thanks for sharing
Good Luck
jon
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In post 124 I showed you Max's new air scoop prior to assembly.... :roll:
well here is the solid piece that Max carved for the mold
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and here is where it is headed... the transmission that is being built goes where the plastic box is, blower on top of that.
The scoop will be molded to the top body and sealed to the toilet bowl.
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And through the miracle of time lapse photography....
of course it is divided in half to get it off the mold, will be a single piece when you and I see it again.
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18 Jun from Hartmut
Made a lot of swarf today to turn the needed sprockets for the rear primary front sprocket. Tomorrow I make the other two (rear sprocket and output) and take them to Bernhard to get the splined center broached. Then they all get their teeth at Mike's shop and go for hardening.
I have a hell of crap going on with the shipping documents - seems I need to let a professional shipper handle it. They won't let me do the electronic documents without handling the whole plot. Benny tries to find out if we can do all the documenting at Lufthansa - if that works I will be sleeping much better.
19 Jun
all sprockets finished - tomorrow they will get teeth. The other stuff for gearbox should be ready for pick-up at the hardening shop - keep finger crossed. Benny is still investigating the Air Cargo stuff but I might have a lead to a shipper willing to do the paperwork - again - keep fingers and toes crossed!!!
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20 Jun from Hartmut
All sprockets finished. Tomorrow morning I get my hardened stuff and get these hardened as well - then its "grinding" for the next day. On Saturday or Sunday Mike and I plan to modify the gearbox case for the new bearings and assemble the box completely and test it on a lathe.
from Max
The picture Hartmut sent shows six sprockets. The one piece sprockets obviously are the ones Hartmut and friends whittled out. Far better and more precision than the three sprockets I made in my garage. For instance, I had no ability to brooch, so I got a clutch from a Chevy, machined the spline on it's outer diameter and bought a universal sixty sprocket, machined a hole in it, pressed the spline in it and welded it. Pretty much did the same thing on the other two sprockets. Anyway it's very difficult to fab up a sprocket and weld it to where there is zero run out in it's rotation. I'm having four rear sprockets manufactured for the rear wheel. If any of these four are used with the sprockets that Hartmut made there will be zero run out on all sprockets, and zero run out on the five Hillabrand quick change rear end gears. Hartmut re-punched the holes and got them dead on. All should make for a very reliable gear train, and should have quite a few extra ponies due to a much more precision unit. Less friction, more horsepower.
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More progress on the scoop. One of the elves made an interface piece to go on top of the toilet bowl to give the scoop a sealing surface, that was delivered yesterday morning, progress continues... the scoop is now positioned, mounted and ready to be glassed in.
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Snuck by while Max was taking his afternoon nap and snapped these today
Scoop almost ready for paint
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Just a rookie observer here..................is the scoop the only source of air? Will sufficient air be available at that point along the body when at or near desired speed?
I hope you get this beautiful craft into the record books and surpass your speed goals 8-) 8-) 8-) 8-) 8-) 8-) 8-)
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Wouldn't a submerged NACA inlet have far less drag than that scoop?
Regards, Neil Tucson, AZ
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I know Stainless likes the NACA inlets but I do not see enough room for one there.
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Yes to all,
the previous edition just drew air from a hole in the top above the toilet bowl... and Max usually quotes Don Vesco, "you don't need a scoop, don't worry, the blower will find air and suck it in"
There is no room for a NACA, yes there will be a little drag associated with the scoop. All who follow what Max has tried over the last 20 or so years through his 8 streamliners know he is willing to just try something. We have been fighting salt ingestion, Max has built multiple wheel covers to try to keep the salt out, last year the motel donated a plastic ice bucket to isolate the intake to the top of the bike, it worked.
This is just the next step and a way to help the blower do its work. Everything in LSR is a trade off.... Success involves trying everything, the things that work you keep, the others make you try something else.
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In regard to the blower scoop, the trade off is questionable, whether it be positive or negative. My theory is that it will be a positive effect, no trade off. I'll try to explain in the simplist way. If you were to take a piece of tubing and point it in the direction you're going, air going through and by would have little or no drag. The air scoop, in my case, has a negative pressure lower than atmospheric pressure. This is due to the square inches of the duct work intake, which is a mere 20% larger than the blower intake. At speed, say 300 mph, would be the only time that the scoop's atmospheric pressure would begin to increase. The trade off would be additional, or more than atmospheric pressure to the intake of the blower. This pressure increase would increase the boost pressure to the engines. The engines would actually increase in power at the big end, where power is needed. When the pressure in the intake duct work exceeds atmospheric pressure, this is the only time that drag is increased. The horsepower increase, in my humble opinion, far exceeds drag increase. I believe without a doubt the streamliner will be faster with the scoop than without the scoop, or any other air intake to the blower.
Had a big day at the house. Workforce included Kim Stuever (my daughter), Max Re' (my son), Clyde Varner, Ellio Gil, and yours truly. Side car and body was the plan of the day. Side car wheel scraper 80% complete. Blower duct plug design and mock up made. Kim will make the finish one at work. Belly pan of side car well on it's way. Quick removal side panel to clean salt from side car wheel 50% complete. It's all looking pretty good, and my kids promised to be here next weekend as well. Kim and her friend Clyde come over each evening at the end of their work day and put in a couple or three hours. Today we have 58 days left until I have to load up.
Max
P.S. Thank you all for the kudos on the 2012 build. The Black Lightning crew really appreciates it.
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Boy are you guys going to be in for a treat. I just received five e-mails from Hartmut. It seems the grinding job was completed ahead of time. Hartmut took all of the pieces to his friends Mike, and from six this morning until seven at night, they finished up the transmission, and tested the transmission. A gargantuan undertaking. This attests to two highly dedicated and talented individuals. There ain't nobody in the LSR community that wouldn't love to have my team, and they're all working for free, and even helping a bunch on the financing of the project. I'm terribly humbled. No words can express my appreciation.
Max
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:cheers:
Sorry. Make that seven e-mails.
Just a bit of trivia. If I would've had the work that went on in Germany done in the U.S. by others, the cost would've been around $50,000. So all of you who are Black Lightning supporters, let's give Hartmut and team a big hoorah!
Max
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Max......ya got what was coming to you.
Dedication and assistance that your crew has extended to you only occurs when the recipient deserves that support.
And they won't be quitting on you. Their assistance to you will only quit when you do.
God on Ya, you B A D M A N.
FREUD
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Okay boys and girls
As Max said - the liner needs a lot of food to produce the results we are all hoping for. My friends and I gave the best that I could afford. I cleared the customs crap today and am good to go. On wednesday morning I will drive the big box to Frankfurt airport and deliver it to Lufthansa Aircargo to send it back home. 310 kg of hard work, much ingenuity of my friends ( a bit from me too :-) and a lot of begging for material and working help - all of this pain in the neck and laying awake at nights to find a solution for a problem - all of this will leave me now. It has been four months of work that I could not have done in that time on my own. So the big hooraah goes to all my buddies as well. They are real friends - everyone that was asked for parts or labour did it free or for a much smaller charge.
Now its another couple weeks of nightshifts to get me afloat again - have to order a flight soon. If you enjoyed the rebuild pics here and bump into me on the salt this year - buy me a beer - Cheers
Hartmut
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Hartmut, I'll extend our thanks to you - just like I betcha a hundred others will do. You and we have met on the salt once or twice - but that doesn't matter as much as it does for me to let you know how much we appreciate your work for and with Max. I'll thank you for the fine photos you've been supplying (and Stainless has been posting) - they've made it far easier for the folks here on Landracing.com to follow the build and to enjoy seeing how much you have done.
Thanks - and best wishes to you and the entire team.
Jon a/k/a Seldom Seen Slim
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OK folks, Max announced he had a bunch of stuff from Hartmut, here it comes
From Hartmut 23 June
Got the ground stuff a bit earlier so called Mike and met at his shop this morning. We put the case on the mill and milled the bores for the spindles. The lousy output bearing hole was opened up until we had the recesses removed. This turned out to be 4mm larger than the new, much bigger bearing that I wanted to fit in there. So I went to the lathe and produced a stepped bearing holder. For the first time the gears were now assembled in the box. Had to remove some material from the spacers of the layshaft - not much. The box spins freely. Tomorrow morning I will assemble the selector stuff completely. I am too tired now - was working on the box for 12 hours - time for a break.
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And a few more pics just to keep us all entertained
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More tranny pics
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Remember Hartmut was at this for a really long day...
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24 June
gear selectors....
pic 18 is neutral - the spring plungers push the selectors in the middle.
pic 19 is low
pic 20 is 2nd
pic 21 is high gear
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More from Hartmut 24 Jun
final assembly...I started smearing sealer on the output bearing holder and assembled the first few pieces
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smearing ultra lube on all bearings, assembled the layshaft. Mainshaft gets inserted in the other half with the selector ring "off" and as soon as the shaft slips in the bearing, the selector ring has to be put on. Then it all slips home
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couple more
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yes, still 24 June....
it's together... here you see the engaged gears, low, second and high. all spins free and easy.
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gearbox on the lathe. Tested it in all three gears. The air shifter works down to 6 bar - whatever that is in your funny psi. Gears "snap" in instantly - super fast shifting possible. The selector pic shows the plungers that are under spring pressure. The springs have a tension of 20 kg, the air cylinder makes 40. So he overrides the spring and puts the box in gear. As soon as the air pressure is off, the springs bring the selector back to neutral position. This is necessary to make the safety pin work. In each of the selector shafts is a grove. The pin slides into the grove and the other shaft is free to move. Should you put the air into two cylinders accidentally, the box is not able to shift. Very good safety feature as the box goes instantly into neutral if pressure is off
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24 June... it's late in Germany
We started to load the lump - I am missing a couple screws. 2 1/4" about 3/4 " long for the gearbox case and one or two for the rear primary case. And I'm missing a couple feet of the water hose. The metric screws in the gearbox case are all with a 4mm key - you have the same size so no problem for your tools.
Tomorrow morning I get the sprockets from hardening - then its loading everything up, get the customs crap squared away. Probably on Wednesday I will travel to Frankfurt airport and deliver the box. Man - I am tired, got up at 6 as I was not sure if this prototype gearbox works as desired - now its 7.30 pm and everything is fine. I fitted a new bearing in the outboard carrier of the drive sprocket and while I was at it I put two dowels in as well - just as you requested. The bearings in the case are all much bigger and stronger than before so I guess there should be no problem.
Nice work there Hartmut.... OK folks, looks like the lump will be back soon...
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that 682 pounds is a nice piece of work.
that is a helluva 3 speed trans.
I won't be sending much, but would like to donate to the project.
franey
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that 682 pounds is a nice piece of work.
that is a helluva 3 speed trans.
I won't be sending much, but would like to donate to the project.
franey
will call max on that. ( $ ).
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25 June from Hartmut.... some editing by stainless
Got the sprockets this morning from the hardening shop - promised to put stickers on the bike. The did a spot-on job as all my parts were handled perfectly and no matter how soon I needed them - they did it! The sprockets are just barely sliding on the shafts. I guess you can sandblast them a little more - on the other hand a little warmth would make them slide onto the shafts - that's what Bernhard says - he made them to his gearbox tolerances so I guess he is right.
The box is completely loaded - I had it on a weight scale - 308,5 kg - I guess the motor and gearbox should be around 250kg.
I have put in all spares that we might need, a couple bearings for the outrigger plate and clutch axial bearings and the good pistons that you sent.
The special PTFE seals have arrived this morning - no time to fit them so they are included in one of the boxes. Have to ask them for a sticker or two - they forgot to send them. They deserve it. I have to go and have some stickers made too - haven't got any...
Will send all the stickers in an envelope in the next couple weeks.
There are several things going on in my mind what I need to tell you but here is the biggest issue:
I do think that compression will be much higher now in the cylinders due to the earlier opening of the inlet. If it were my engine I would go and get a smaller pulley for the crank and drive the blower about 25% slower. If it doesn't give way over 500 hp on the dyno you could always go back to the bigger pulley. My fear is that the blower load will be so high in the chambers that the thing will grenade. I might be wrong but I just wanted to tell you my thinking.... I will sleep better if you tell me you have a pulley laying around and will try it before using the big pulley.
Max's reply
Your concern about the blower pressure increase by cam timing change is unnecessary. Cam timing before was 60o before TDC, .020 off the seat. You said that you achieved a 4o on the rear engine, and a 6o on the front engine advance before TDC using 70o before TDC opening. The difference between 60o at .020 off the seat and 70o opening doesn't affect static compression pressures that much. The static compression ratio of the engine with the dished piston design, even though the stroke has been increased by one inch, the static compression ratio is about 7 to 1. Using a compression gauge, removing all spark plugs except for one cylinder, and spinning the engines to 600 rpm with the starter, blower belt on, injector hat butterfly open, the compression gauge reads between 110 lbs. pressure, and 120 lbs. pressure. To get pressure to a minimum of 150 lbs. pressure static at 6500 rpm, which is the minimum amount of pressure for an alcohol motor to make power, the boost required is two atmospheres. The 180 cu. in. engine requires a 1.6 to 1 ratio to achieve the equal of a normal aspirated engine running alcohol, showing a pounds pressure of 150 to 175 on the gauge, which is very much the equal of our engines running the size of blower we have at the ratio we have. A 25% reduction in the blower ratio would probably reduce the horsepower to maybe 350. That's just a guess, but it would definitely kill the horsepower needed to meet our goal of 322 mph with the car attached. If it seems that the blower pressure is too high at 6500, we can simply reduce our at speed rpm to 5500, and equalize by putting a taller gear on the bike. We can do this to the extent that the bike will no longer pull at the lower rpms.
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all spares boxed, engine and gearbox bolted down. Urs, the son of one of my friends came to help. The boy is 18 and started racing sidecar this year. I told him all my tricks and now he beats me - what a talent!
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Andy came to help load the box. We weighted the whole box with all the spares - close to 310 kg - hopefully we get a good price at Lufthansa !!!! I am nearly broke now and need to do some customer stuff to get afloat again, so probably some more night shifts needed the next couple weeks - have to order my flight soon...
I guess that the box will be around 60 kg, spares maybe 20kg - so that leaves around 230 kg for the monster engine. Anyway - we got it in my van, I finally got the millions of papers sorted and by 4pm I was at the local custom office. The guy was nice and after studying the paperwork and having a look at the engines he declared I am good to go, handed me two more papers. Phoned Benny this evening and told him that we are ready to rock n roll. I told him that my permit ends on the 30th of June - so the engine has to leave Germany before that date - otherwise I may get problems with the local tax office. Anyhow - he talks tomorrow morning to the man in charge at Lufthansa air cargo to book a flight. So on Wednesday I drive to Frankfurt, pick up Benny when his night shift ends and we both deliver the engines to the airport customs and Air Cargo terminal. As soon as I know the flight number and delivery date to Kansas City I send you another mail with all the details.
So that's it from this side of the pond - lets hope the engine gets safely back to your end.
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OK, we will know soon when the lump gets back to Kansas. :-D
On this side of the pond Max has been working the scoop, off to paint already, working the new sidecar cover. Here is work in progress
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26 June from Hartmut
First the news: the box will fly out on Friday morning. I don't know yet any numbers or other details but the flight is ordered. Tomorrow afternoon I can give you more information. Transport cost is a very favourable 1200 Euros - that's what Benny got to know so far. Usually those 300+ Kilos would be around 3000 bucks!
Now the valve timing: I know that the static compression will not be much different BUT I have almost 8 thou (2mm) more lift on the inlet. That should make a lot of difference to the incoming charge. Those 60 o with off the seat pre-tension gave 3,5mm lift (without that pre-tension it is even less) and the exhaust was 5mm open. Now the engine has 5,5mm inlet and 5mm exhaust lift on TDC. On my blown Trumpet it makes a lot of difference so I guess we should at least try to read compression. The Triumph needed a lot larger jetting and I had to reduce the blower output a bit to avoid detonation. Now you know why I am worrying.
I will sit down over the weekend and write all the helpers down. Also have to design a sticker for myself - never had the chance to put my sticker on a streamliner!!!
27 June from Max
I'm planning to give the engines a compression check by spinning the starter and all of that. If there's excessive pressure over what I've designed into the engines by static compression and blower speed and so on, instead of going through the expense of making new pulleys, (this particular pulley in alloy isn't available) the simplest and least expensive way to reduce air to the engines is to put a restrictor plate below the injector hat.
Just got back from the bank. Had a 500 Euro bank draft made out in your name. Cost: $886 U.S. dollars. Kim had a 50 Euro note which she is donating to the cause. I'll send that on as well. If you haven't opened up my son Max's Norton cylinder head box yet, do it, because Max told me the other day that he'd sent you a $100 donation towards the work you've done on the engines and transmission. The U.S. dollar exchange nowadays is quite hurtful when buying Euros. If somewhere along the line the tooth fairy leaves some change under my pillow (I think I'm owed some) I'll get some more cash off to you. You well deserve it and much more.
Tell Benny thanks a bunch for his pull on getting a reduced rate for the engines return. Every little bit helps, but that was way more than a little bit.
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27 June from Hartmut
Here is the latest news: I went to Frankfurt this morning, arrived at Benny's place at 12.30 and we drove out to the air cargo. The customs officer told us that we need another document - so we went to the other side of FRA airport to get one. 1 hour and a cheap 35 Euros later we had what we needed, drove back to the customs and were permitted to go to unload the box. Went into the export office and talked to a nice lady who was willing to help with all issues. Got an unload-passport and went to the ramp. Unloading was done and the workers tried to x-ray the box. Of course it was showing various "blacks" in the box so they came back and said the box has to be opened and the lady in charge should be present as well. So we notified her and went back to the store. As I was thinking about someone wanting to look in the box I had my electric drill with me. Turned out that only Benny was allowed to go in the store (he has access to most Lufthansa areas) whereas I had to wait outside. Half an hour later the box was opened, checked and closed again, all parts boxes x-rayed as well and we had to go back to the office to fill the freight papers. The box flies out on Friday evening (9pm) - one day before my permit ends - and will be in Kansas City on Monday around 10am. I put your telephone number on the freight documents and they noted "Call upon arrival" - so you should get a call on Monday.
Best of it all was that I only paid 764.90 Euros - Benny must have pulled a couple arms and legs to make Lufthansa offer me that price!
Now the pressure is off my shoulders - that was the last piece in my part of the puzzle !!!
Max says Hey gang
STAND BY FOR A NEWS FLASH!
785's HEART IS COMING HOME!!!!!!!!
We'll be at the airport Monday with bells on. The 500 mile trek to and from Kansas City will pretty much fill all the hours of Monday, but come Tuesday the Mad doctor Max will commence Black Lightning's heart transplant surgery. Hopefully assisting nurses will include Stainless and Little Max. Clyde, Kim, and Ellio will be standing by, ready to suture her up, and Stainless, with our donated laptop, will check her vital signs.
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While all that was happening, things continued move over here.
Max received the sprockets from Sproket Specialists, everything we need from 290 mph to 400+mph at 6500 RPM. The four bottom sprockets are aluminum, the rest are steel. The four bottom ones for slower speeds are new. Lots of gearing choices.
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check post 170, that is the sidecar, upside down of course.... fast forward after a little work from Little Max.... (he's not really that little) and the sidecover is finished... except for paint
OK thought the scoop went to paint, nope, it was just getting more repair, a little left to do yet.
Here is the cover modified for the pushbar, external fire extinguishers and master switches.
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28 June from Hartmut
Unloading and leaving the box with the air cargo people - that was it!
Cheers :cheers:
Hartmut
Looks like it arrives in KC Monday morning, but Max and I are going to make sure it is there before we make the trip, we will know if it is ready to be picked up Monday at 9 when the lady "that know what's going on" is back to work. Max and I are know headed to KC on Tuesday unless Max changes his mind after he talks to the lady.
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:-D
Stainless and I got word that the lump was in Kansas City. Picked it up yesterday. The lump got to my house about noon today. It all went smooth until we tried to align the bolt holes, engine to chassis. After about a half hour of fighting the thing, my daughter Kim noticed where the interference was. A little sanding and grinding allowed the engine to find it's position, and the twelve fastening bolts went in pretty easy. When I built the chassis I designed the engine to be a structural member. Stainless took some pictures, so you'll see some work in progress.
Max
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Hooorah! :cheers:
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GREAT NEWS!!!!! :cheers: :cheers: :cheers:
Pete
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As you heard, the motors are not only back home, they are nested back in the scooter. Unpacking and they are in, with just a little trouble as Max mentioned. I was late getting there, had to fix the neighbors old John Deere 70 tractor so he could start preparing for next years "mowing."
I have a few more pictures that were taken with too many pixels, I will reduce them and get a few more posted.... sooner or later
The saga continues...
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I can only say "Wow!". Thanks for sharing this build in words and photos.
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Man are those things pretty!!!!!
Rex
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Well guys, it's been a pretty productive day here at 'home on the range'. Work day started about 8:30 with Kim, Clyde and I. First I'll go over the shopping list. I picked up the stainless steel hinge at Grangers, that would be the hinge that will be attached to the rear of the side car with an 18"X6" flap which will be employed to cause down force as needed. Next, I'm increasing my engines' breathers by double. Bought the breathers at the local auto parts store. Gave the two brand new valve cover caps to Stainless to bore a couple of holes. When I had Hartmut make the outboard carrier bearing on the right side of the tranny, I asked him to make it to size, or exactly like the old one, except for the obvious, the over size bearings that he made to fit nicely inside the bearing holder. There was one operation that he couldn't do, due to the chassis being here in Kansas. Anyway there were 8 1/4-20 holes that had to be drilled and tapped after fitting the transmission in the chassis and locating the holes. That was done and the transmission is installed and looking good. Stainless showed up, brought all of his magic boxes, and installed same. He's got the exhaust pipes bolted up to the engines. Tomorrow we will locate the position of the sensors, punch the holes, weld up the sensor holders, then after that wrap the pipes and we can finish the wiring required. I asked Stainless to pull the clutch so I could get to the seal. Tomorrow I'll install a one off high temperature seal that cost $400. Well, the guy made two of them, so I have a spare.
Best,
Max
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:-D
Well, well. Another productive day. Stainless got out of the sack early evidently, cause he was here bright eyed and bushy tailed at the crack of 9:00 a.m. :)
Anyway he brought his handy dandy step drill. We decided where the sensor should be in the exhaust pipes, punched the pilot holes. It looks like even though this is a very tight envelope, I think we've missed everything of import, and we'll still be able to get the lid on and perform routine maintenance on the engines. So Stainless has the exhaust pipes at his place and says he'll be here tomorrow with the bungs welded in.
I pulled the low temperature seals and installed the two new high dollar high temp seals. Tomorrow I'll put all of Hartmut's and my home made slider clutch together, add a little weight for lock up, as we are pushing the liner up to about forty mph this year. Daughter Kim installed the low gear solenoid, which is new for this year. She also spent the day in 105o heat underneath my pecan tree working on the cocoon. I'll have to say the body parts are getting a lot of attention from both Kim and Clyde. It's a quarter to four and she's still out there heaving around.
We had a malfuegaly yesterday with the transmission. A couple of the aluminum threaded holes stripped out. Clyde just showed up, even though he had to work today. He's planning to helicoil the stripped threads and make them mo betta.
Talk again tomorrow.
Keepin' At It,
Max
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:-D
Another day beatin' and hammerin' and everything went well. Stainless spent yesterday evening welding the bungs to the pipes. This morning he brought all of the data stuff over with the pipes. The preliminary fitting of the pipes proved that everything was pointing in the right direction. He was pleased, and I was exhuberant! Good Job Stainless. Thanks a bunch!
Stainless brought his half brother over and I put him to work cleaning and painting the clutch parts before assembly. I had to go to Hups Hardware and find some thousand degree high heat paint. You all know what bare steel looks like after a couple of days on the salt.
Yesterday my son Max Re', after 11 hours on the job, made some gaskets for me so I can install the blower, hat, and plenum. There's a whole bunch of small jobs however very time consuming. In the Navy we say "To get it done it takes all hands." I'm proud to say that there are no shirkers on the Black Lightning team. Thanks Little Max.
This sounds like old hat, but Kim's still out there under the Pecan tree drilling holes and riveting nut plates. Both of her grandmas worked at Boeing, building bombers during WWII, but I digress.
#:^)#
Forgot. It's 106o today here in Wichita.
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OK, I cheated... I had to resize a bunch of pics so I just added them to Max's posts.... So look back 3 posts and see the pics Kim has been taking
here is an ad
Max is running a smaller fuel pump that was flowed by Rons' and sized to is system, sometimes bigger is not better
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That is a great Machine, the sound of 2 Vincents will be quiet an experience :cheers:
Pete
DLRA#866
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Assembly of the bike continues in Kansas. I've caught Max in the shop working every time I've dropped by in the last week :-D
Max found the fittings he needed for the transmission shifters at Granger... 7mm X 1/4 inch I think
Has the plenumn installed and the intake manifold pipes attached
And the clutch all set up and ready to run
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After a couple of test fits and bung welding for the AEM EGT and AFR sensors Max wrapped the pipes and we installed the sensors and strung a few wires
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Sidecar bodywork also continues,
Kim and Clyde have been working on the bodywork as well. An ongoing problem with the fiberglass body is the screw holes out in the skins. Clyde made a few pieces to cure the problem...
Did I mention they are all different, Max failed to make the body a uniform thickness :roll: so each one is custom for it's hole. These are for the bottom, matching set for the top
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:-D
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agrn40WY_QA&feature=em-share_video_user
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Yippiee Yahooo!
IT starts and runs! Sounds great! Hartmut should be proud and a bonus - no leaks! :cheers:
Great job all. Best of luck!
Geo
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:roll:
I've rebuilt the engines something like 12 times, but admittedly never with the precision and strengthening as with Hartmut's rebuild. The engines have never failed to start right up except for one time, when I leased it to the Canadians in 2001-2002.
My son's oil leak assessment was a bit premature. Black Lightning has always leaked a little oil, still does. Proves she's a Vincent.
#:^)#
Max
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Awesome Max!
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Good to see Max, thanks for sharing and for your help.
Best of luck on the salt.
jon
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:cheers:
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Congratulations, Max and Hartmut.
There is quality in this build.
FREUD
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:-D
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agrn40WY_QA&feature=em-share_video_user
This is fantastic - congratulations! Looking forward to seeing all of you on the salt.
Kurt - Vincent Vikings
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One helleva job Max and Team..........
2012 is will be a mind blower for sure.
Go Faster than ever...
Ray c wheeler
(ElDorado, KS.)
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All we lack is finishing up. Ha Ha
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Almost time to try again so here is a reminder of last year’s attempt.
BUB , Bonneville 2012
Part 1 https://vimeo.com/46166755
Part 2 https://vimeo.com/46312504 (https://vimeo.com/46312504)
Part 3 https://vimeo.com/46327894 (https://vimeo.com/46327894)
Hope you enjoy it, if you do click the “like” heart symbol top right.
See you out there.
Gerry Jenkinson
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Any news?
Go Max and team, GO!
!
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I talked to Stainless, I think Sat Morn. and he said they were at the Salt and should be inspected by that night. that the inspectors would inspect Bike 'Liners at their pit-- but it usually was pretty late before that got around to everyone.
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Re: Rain Delay
« Reply #7 on: Today at 03:00:42 PM »
Quote
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Still a lot of standing water on the way in. I don't like the slow drain and no wind, but I'll check tonight.
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Allright Paul Harvey,where's the rest of the story?
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:-(
Hey guys. Gotta get a new life. Selling the liner. Bidding will start at $150,000. If interested send me an email.
Max
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Very sad to see this Max, best of luck with the sale.
Thankyou for the help you have given me.
jon
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Sorry to see the era end.
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From Max sent to his supporter email list, from a few days ago, posted here with his permission:
Just walked in the door from my three day trip back. Here's a quick run down of our four race days at Bonneville.
Most all crew and supporters arrived on tech day, Barrie Howell, Richard Vanderwell, Bill Easter, Doris Endo, Eddie Saxton, Marty Dickerson, John Ulver, Irene Ulver, John Caraway, Don Angel, Sal ..., Hartmut Weidelich and his cousin Benny..., Max Re' Lambky, Kim Stuever, Robert Steele, Clyde..., Steve Williams, John and Carolyn McDougall, and others.
Tech day went smoothly. No problems. After tech day in the evening we did a trial push up with a dead plant. That all went quite well.
The next morning we planned to make a run early in the day. We found an electrical problem pertaining to the parachutes. This took the better part of the morning to trouble shoot. I decided to make only a two mile short run and turn out at the three mile to get a handle on the tune, using the new telemetry systems, exhaust gas temperatures and fuel/air ratio. As the engines run on straight alcohol we were looking for around a 5 to 1 ratio. Wind was a bit of a problem, but we did manage to get in two test runs to determine where we were at with the fuel/air ratio. No full passes were made on the first day of racing. About 5 pm a cloud full of rain decided to dump a bunch, and I do mean a bunch, of rain on the salt.
The second day of racing was a wash. We weren't allowed on the salt. Two racing days and we had only accomplished two two mile short bursts.
The third racing day, due to conditions, we weren't allowed on the salt until around 10 a.m. We did manage to get in two more two mile short bursts. On the first push up after the rain the course was so rough that the mercury switches fired the parachutes. We thought at first it was just the vibration, but on the second push up there was no doubt that the roughness of the salt was bouncing the back of the liner up and down quite viciously and indeed the mercury switches were firing the parachutes. I decided to undo the electrical of the mercury switches and go without them. As this is a safety feature I asked Hartmut if he would agree, and he did. We couldn't have made any more runs without the disconnect of the rollover switch.
The fourth racing day was designated for our first full pass. Servicing of the engines and doing a full service of the bike took an hour and fifteen minutes. I suppose we got it to the line about 9 a.m. There were eight bikes in front of us, and four bikes making return runs on the long course. That plus the wind, made it something like five p.m. before we made our first full pass of the Meet. The bike was pushed up and barely had enough power to move away from the push bumper. BL had no power, not anywhere close to past performance on full power runs. (She had once gone 275 mph unofficially, and officially holds an AMA and a SCTA record. Fastest timing slip 222+ mph, and the second fastest Vincent ever.) After spending a great deal of money on telemetry, sending injector components off for flow testing, and following Steve William's input, it all proved for naught.
I had always made three or four times the amount of horsepower than we were making now, just going by sound, plug readings, and a laser heat gun on the exhaust pipes.
Hartmut took BL through the traps in low gear at 130 mph. After the traps he didn't realize that the rough course would slow him down so quickly, and they wanted the liner to exit the course at the 10 mile, so Hartmut put it in second gear and motored on down to the 8 or 9 mile. When Stainless and I arrived in my F150 Ford chase vehicle, Hartmut was out of the bike, and the fire crew had removed the top bonnet over the engines. The reason for this is that when the fire crews approached he had seen flame escaping from the right hand seam where the top bonnet meets the lower belly pan. Hartmut didn't detect any smell or flame. By the time the bonnet was removed the minor flame was already out. It had extinguished itself. No extinguishing agents were used. The cause of the fire was that a breather line on number two cylinder had burnt a hole in it. The high heat causing the breather line to melt, came from extreme exhaust temperatures. The telemetry told us that the four exhaust temperatures ranged from 1400o to 1500o. An extreme amount of fuel was being burnt in the exhaust pipes, causing the high exhaust temperatures. A minor amount of oil from the breather line found it's way on to the exhaust pipe, which ignited and caused the minor fire.
The only fire damage was a burnt telemetry wire, and the melting of the paint job on the bonnet nearest the exhaust pipes. The engines escaped with damage only to the rocker arms. Heat transmitted from the extreme exhaust temperatures to the rockers turned them blue. This isn't the first time this has happened.
We took the liner back to the pits on day four. I went back to the nozzles and pill sizes and guestimated the barrel valve setting pretty much as what had made horsepower in the past. Fifteen minutes of work replaced the melted breather lines. We fired the thing up. It needed the idle to be set, but all in all the liner was ready to make another run.
About that time Hartmut and I had a heart to heart talk. Both of us had agreed prior to the 2012 Bub Meet that this would be the last time the liner would be run under our banner. We came to the conclusion that the tune of the liner wouldn't and couldn't be accomplished before the end of the meet. It was 5 p.m., we had only two hours left of day four, and day five would only give us six hours, as the meet was scheduled to close at noon, (meaning the bike had to be at pre-stage before noon), and at least an hour and a half of that would be used in a full check of the liner the morning of day five. We decided the liner was in good mechanical nick except for the blued rocker arms. Hartmut and I agreed that it would be best we leave the salt with the engines, transmission, all running gear and clutch, in good condition, as we both thought the tune was highly suspect, and could cause serious damage to the power plant.
Max
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Max, I feel for you and your team, the liner pas been part of your life for a l o n g time .
I imagine the hole left in your heart would feel like if you had lost a loved one, but relief the pain had ended.
Tiny
PS thanks for sharing the love affair with the worldwide LSR community :cheers:
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It's almost like a death in the family.
We can't find words to say that make it any better.
Thanks for EVERYTHING.
FREUD
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Sorry to hear of your decision but I understand fully the choice made.
I really enjoyed chatting with you and a few others out at the shoot out a couple years ago, and was looking forward to seeing the new bike run some good times after all the time and effort invested in the build recently.
Larry
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Max, thank you and your wifes hospitality when I got to visit last spring. I'm glad to see the liner remains intact...it is a mighty fine testament to the years of discovery and inspiration you shared with all of us. Much better this way, I think.
Best regards,
JimL