Re- babbitting a barring.

[madsam]

I looked at the main bearings before I sent the rods out. They look good. About a 4 inch journal.

 

[Stretch44875]

That's a really neat engine up close. 1200 ci, 1000 rpm. What was the horsepower? The mine at cripple creek had a large gas. Should of took a pic of the tag, I think it was 600 hp!

 

[madsam]

To be honest, I have found no real info on the HP. My guess is about 500??? The torque is probably the impressive thing with a 7 inch stroke. But I can't find any info on those specks. I just wish I could find more time to work on it lately where it is not raining. We got 6 inches of rain in 1 hour yesterday. We needed the watter, but I think we got full yesterday.

 

[gbooth]

Any more info or a update on this I really enjoy therads on big engines. When I wore a younger mans clothes I worked on some natural gas pipeline compressor you would take off a side plate and crawl in side the motor to work on it.

 

[madsam]

Well,, it is funny you asked. 2 days ago I got the rods back after getting them re-babbitted, and the babbitt was done correctly, but the shipping department only put a piece of paper between the barrings and the rods weigh 18lbs a piece. Well the thrust barring in one side on both of the rods was messed up. So I called them and told them I was not pleased. The babbitting job was good, but their shipping was not adequate. So they said they would fix and the rods are back on their way to Kansas city. I think next time there will be at least a piece of cardboard between the rods.


This is why you should be careful who you hire for simple jobs. If they don't care, it costs the company a lot.

 

[madsam]

I planned to work on this this weekend as the snow will be here soon. But I guess it will be delayed a couple of weeks. (The truck, not the snow.)

 

[madsam]

I have finally gotten a chance to work on this truck. I got the rods back and they are good now. I installed them into the pistons. The next step is to compress the rings to insert them back into the cylinders. The problem is where do you find a 6" ring compressor.. The answer is try to make on out of 2. We will see if this works.

 

[EZFEED]

Awesome job Madsam!!!!
I rebabbitted my 1923 Model T engine also. I have a question though, how is this engine lubricated? Is it a splash lube or pressurized system with pump?
If it is a splash lube like my little T then you might try and fashion some oil dips for the rod caps and drill a hole in the cap and X the babbitt. This really helps with the rod lubrication.

 

[madsam]

Nice pics.

My engine has a oil pump - pressure system. With the size of journals, it needs a lot of oil.

 

[EZFEED]

I do have 2 problems with the design of this engine.

1. There is no air filter. The intake runs over to the exhaust for warm air then out the top holes. I know it is supposed to be run when it is snowing, but I would feel better if it had even a simple cloth filter. I cant change it to much without re adjusting carbs. (I did that on an old Honda motorcycle. Put a better filter and had to adjust all the carbs again. )

2. There is no oil filter. There is just a strainer with 1/32 inch holes. Especially with this engine meltdown, I think it needs a filter.. Don't know what that means.
quote]

This is the same situation as the 22hp 4 cyl in my Model T. Really its perfectly fine in this setup. You have to think about the air and what it does when it gets heated by the exhaust manifild. Once it gets hot it expands and thins out, rising and whatever is in it drops out. This is how it was explained to me and theoretically that is how its supposed to work. Dirty air as a contributor to engine wear was not overlooked back in those days, this was supposed to be the way to go. My little car has an accessory heater exhaust manifold on it and the standard air tube does not hook into my exhaust manifold like regular T's but instead gets ducted in from another tube which I have eliminated. You should not have to replace or even adjust much on your carb to compensate for a little restriction. If it does make some little difference to your idle then back the fuel screw out a little more till it catches up. I assume this is a governor controlled engine and if it is working properly it should compensate. For an air cleaner, if you can graft an old tractor oil bath cleaner on there then that is the numero uno way to go. If not then you can make one with some pipe, steel wool, and a jar. You can also make a cotton gauze one by just forming a basket out of brass screening (fine screen like screen door screen) and wrapping it with gauze.

For the oil filter, if this engine is a splash lube setup then all is cool and its not really a problem AS LONG AS YOU DO NOT USE A DETERGERENT OIL Repeat, do not use an oil with a detergerent in these engines. If you do the sludge will clog up your oil ports.

If the engine has a pump and is force lubricated (I just saw the ports in the crank so I assume it is) then you need to tie into one of the oil galleys and find out how much pressure is being delivered to the bearings. I would wager it is low like maybe 10 psi. In such a case just clean the screen when you do an oil change.

There is a way to add a filteration system but it is slow and must be bypassed. The tolerances in these old engines are not tight and do not require to be pressure fed absolutely clean oil. Best thing to do is check around on the Model T and A forums and look at how folks are doing this with their outside oil lines. Basically the oik gets splashed up to the top of the hogs head by the flywheel and the oil is fed via outside line to the front main bearing where the flow of lubricating oil delivered by the inside oil line is at its least. We tap into this line, add a spin on oil filter and then redirect the clean oil to the pan. The outside oil line functions as normal but part of the flow is fed to the spin on filter and that oil is gravity filtered to the pan.

The biggest killer on your engine is the cast iron pistons. That is where these old engines suffer. With T's and A's we chunk the original pistons and replace them with aluminum pistons which all parts suppliers to this hobby carry. This gives the engine a little more snap by lightening it up and gets the load off the bearings. You never have to take the bearings up again after that and it makes it just as efficient as a modern engine.

 

[JasonS]

No offense intended to the above poster but I have a different philosophy. I don't know what vintage your engine is, but a lot was learned from the time the Model T was designed up to the fifties. Also keep in mind that the big 3 built as cheaply as possible and customer expectations were lower. I wouldn't base my requirements and decisions on what was done by them.

Read the SAE papers of the early fifties and what it said about the benefit of full flow oil filters and PAPER filters. Yes, they knew back then that oil bath was not as good as paper air filters. They also determined that chrome top rings were of benefit. I had a discussion with a GM powertrain engineer several years ago who echoed the exact same things.

How and if you modify this engine depends on your expectations and value that you feel it provides. Yes, tolerances are larger in larger engines. A good rule of thumb is one thousandth of clearance per inch of journal diameter. However, this is not the running clearance. The running clearance of a plain bearing is determined by the oil film thickness. Yes, that means a bearing runs off center in operation. I don't think that the larger clearances mean that you can run dirty oil. A bypass oil filter will remove some contamination but will not remove engine damaging debris. Most engines can be converted to a full flow oil filter. You need to put it between the the oil pump and main galley. It is up to you to weigh the value.

I have never had sludge loosened up in an engine by using detergent oil (no matter how hard I tried). In the end, I always had to pull the oil pans off and clean them out.

 

[madsam]

Thanks for all the info. This engine was designed in the 20s, but this exact engine was built maybe in the 50s. (The truck is a 62. ) So I think they had updated some things. The pistons are aluminum. They are large. There is 4 rings and they look chrome. Lucky this engine does not have a lot of hours as engines go. The clock has 100 hours on it. (Whether that is accurate I don't know, but there is almost no sludge. I think the thing would have lasted for ever if the guy running it had not run it with ice/water blocking the oil intake. (Still wonder how so much watter got into the engine...?? It was not antifreeze. (Make me think someone got mad at the county an did it intentionally)

The oil filter thig is a bit of a worry only because there will be junk floating around the oil for a while because I can't clean it good enough. I will try to clean it as good as I can, but there will be junk floating in the new oil.

I don't want to put a filter on the intake of the pump because of cavitation. then it might loose pressure.

My idea is to drill and tap the cast iron oil pipe in 2 places that is the mount too. then take brass fittings and drill a hole in one side at the end. Screw them in where the hole would be on way on on and the other way on the other. fill the pipe between the holes with epoxy. Then hoses from the brass fittings to a screw on filter base. My worry on this is whether drilling the holed would make the cast iron to week and crack.

 

[madsam]

After looking at that pic, I would not have to drill the pipe. I could drill into the pump itself. Then the shaft would still be strong enough... Hmmm.

I think I need to get the oil pump off to look at it.

 

[Stan]

What about a pump that draws from the oil pan and feeds the filter then returns it back to a differant area of the pan or somewhere ? Less modifaction to the unique parts.

 

[madsam]

I have thought about that, but it does not stop junk from going to the barrings now. It would eventualy clean the oil, but what happens in the mean time...

 

[JasonS]

Does the oil pump line go directly to the oil galley or does it go out to an oil cooler?

I'd be hesitant to modify the oil pump; especially if you didn't have a spare.

Check out how the 302 GMC is modified for full flow. Maybe you can do something similar. Go to www.inliners.org then to "tech tips" then to "full flow conversion" then to "GMC full flow".

 

[madsam]

The pump goes directly into the gally/block to the main barrings.

I do hesitate modifying anything, I just don't want an oil passage to clock up wit old babbit or get into a good barring.

 

[nf6x]

This is a fascinating thread! I vaguely recall reading about babbitt bearings in some old engineering book that I bought in a used book store. As I recall, the bearings described there were for large stationary equipment, and the babbitt metal would be poured in place right around the shaft... none of this new-fangled removable bearing shell stuff!

 

[madsam]

"You have to think about the air and what it does when it gets heated by the exhaust manifild. Once it gets hot it expands and thins out, rising and whatever is in it drops out."

I was thinking about this. If the air is heated up a lot, it thins out the air. Now at 10,000 feet altitude, maybe I don't want the air any thinner. It will loose even more power.

 

[madsam]

This weekend I will be trying to insert the pistons. I have made a big ring compressor out of 2, 4 inch ones that I took apart and ran the end of one into the tightener of the other. Thank God for Harbor freight and cheap tools. Now I have a 6 to 8 inch ring compressor. I think I need to pull out the plug on each cylinder to relieve any compression while putting the piston in. Maybe put a little oil in the cylinder too. ( wish I did not have to stand under a truck to do this... )