Done for the season ?

[vdubnut62]

If the solution was going to attack iron, your tank would be the first to know.
Ron.

[elnav]

"So, how long does it take to replace valve guides on two heads ?"

REPLY
AS a DIY'er I often ask the same question  but  back when I was a production shop manager  I know ther are constant overhead costs to be covered.  Around Victoria and Vancouver the cost of running a business  means a shop rate of $80 - $100 per hour is needed to cover rent, light and  wages including  insurance mandated by  government etc.   Not to mention which if you are going to do a job and warrant it free of workmanship defects  you have to take care to do  it right the first time. So part of the job is to ensure  nothing goes wrong  ... goes wrong ... goes wrong.
No point in press fitting a new guide if it goes in crooked  because the original install was crooked.  Threading in a new  one  means you have to scrupelously clean the  whole casting to ensure  dirt doesn't get  in there to cause  a problem. 

It all takes time and  likely you will not have time enough left over to switch to the next paying job  before a shop hour is used up.   
Which is why some of us DIY  if we can buy the machine tooling cheap enough  and can afford the  shop space or whole building to house all of it not to mention heat and power for the shop.  But if you  total up the cost of  having your own machine shop then divide it by the number of hours in actual use the cost per hour is often shocking.

[mobile_bob]

from a practical viewpoint

have them clean the heads, and check the guides

unless they are so completely wornout, have them left well enough alone

if they have expandable pilots for their seat grinder, they can simply do the seats with the sloppy
guides, and if they do the three angle with interference angle included, then because of the engine being
a relatively slow speed engine there will be no problem.

where you have to have very good guides is with the original wide single angle seats, there everything has
to be pretty damn close to perfect or there will be a leak,

with the 3angle and interference angle job, the valve will find its center on the seats wire edge and seat just fine

as for press in guides, most are driven out and back in with a hammer and a suitable driver, it takes about 5 minutes tops
to do the two drive in guides, and maybe 10 minutes to remove and install the screw in guides.

their charges are legit as elnav points out, and this is the problem with DIY'er projects having to use production shops to get
their work done, one would be well served to approach a small shop or a retired guy with the proper equipment and offer to work
out a trade for services,,

failing that one can find used valve and seat machines pretty cheap these days on craigslist and ebay.

about a year ago i bought a complete setup for around 300bucks,

the upside to buying something like a SIOUX machine is if you look you will find one with the attachments to rework rocker pads
to proper geometry, and also have the ability to grind the tappets dead nuts flat and true as well.

if i had the space to set the machine up, i would just have you send me the heads and i would do them for you for far far less than
what a production shop would have to have for doing so.

perhaps one day in the future after i get moved and resettled i will order in some heads and do an exchange program for folks that
want to ship in theirs for reconditioned heads?

with the right equipment head works is very straight forward and it is not rocket science, and takes little time.

bob g

[billswan]

Jens

Here is a link to CMD new valve guides for an indian listeroid are only 12.95, and I believe only the original lister had 1 guide that screwed in and 1 that pressed in. I usually am wrong so use this info with with care.

http://www.generatorsales.com/order/inlet_exhaust_valve_guide.asp?page=Inlet_Exhaust_Valve_Guide

A whole new head with valves and springs is 140$ so be careful with these premium priced machine shops, you could spend that much on an old used head. Of course it would probably then be fit to run a long time the new head would be an assembled under a shade tree type of indian piece of................................well................better stop here.

http://www.generatorsales.com/order/lister-parts.asp

Billswan

[potter]

You sound like me Jens im always saying when I bought one thirty years ago it was only ?? 

    Potter

[rl71459]

Jens

What size "GUBBER HONE" do you need? we have some... maybe If there is one the needed size I could
co-borrow it for you.

Rob

[Westcliffe01]

Jens, just to give an example:  I recently (april) hit a piece of rope while snowblowing part of my driveway.  Rope wrapped itself around the auger and jammed it.   The drive system on the sears blower used a multi rib belt drive with no shear pin in it anywhere, so it bent the shaft (mild steel) where the pulley was attached.

So I go to remove the pulley and retaining nut and of course it is seized and the shaft torques off before the nut turns...  So now since the pulley end is free, I removed the rest of the auger to think how to solve this problem.  Finally I decided to make a new shaft end with the thread and shoulder to accept the drive pulley and a larger diameter on the inside of the bearing into which I put a drilling that the old auger shaft could be pressed into and welded on.  A short piece of the old auger shaft had to be cut off to keep the overall length the same.

The new piece of shaft was only 3" in length, with a step in the diameter after the thread and a short hole drilled in the end opposite the thread.  Outside diameter 1".   When I came in to the machine shop to pick it up (the machine shop owner does so much business with us at work that he added a new huge extension on his shop) they said that they had over $180 into it.  A new snow blower goes for about $500.  To add insult to injury, he shop foreman brought in a deceased snow blower of his own. It turned out to be the exact same model, except his engine had thrown a rod, so everything else was virtually new.  I paid him $50 for the deceased blower, which had a perfectly good auger in it and finally negotiated the price on the shaft down to $90 and the only material used was a piece of mild steel.

So I can see how rebuilding a cylinder head can sometimes not be financially viable.  When I rebuilt my Toyota 22RE engine a brand new head with valves and springs etc was $250.   If I started adding up 4x inlet valves + 4x exhaust valves + 8 valve springs, retainers, guides etc etc I would never arrive at $250 and that is parts only, no labor....

Sometimes buying new and disassembling and then doing the 3 angle valve job on unworn parts is a better idea.

[vdubnut62]

Knowing Indian tolerances, a new head and set of valves would be out of the usual tolerances modern machine shop guys work with.
They would still want to replace the guides. When I had my head surfaced and 3 angle valve job done on my truck, I was out $600 before it was over.
(yes the guides were gone on it too)
Ron

[rl71459]

quote]What the heck is a Gubber Hone ?  The sleeve is around 4.75 inches ID (haven't measured it exactly.[/quote]

Its a very simple cylinder honing tool... Think of a bottle brush that has a abrasive ball (Gubber)at the end of every bristle. They create an excellent ring seating surface in all types of engines... They have an added benefit in 2 cycle engines as they effectively chamfer the ports while the honing is performed.

anyhow... My largest one is 4.375" max dia. Sorry

Rob

[billswan]

What is the best way to determine if the mess that used to be called a crankshaft has scoring on it or if it is metal transfer from the bearing shells ? All I can think of is to use a sharp knife to try and cut off the high bits. If it is crankshaft it won't cut but if it is bearing metal it 'should' cut. The danger of course is scoring the crank with the knife by accident .....
I will also mic the good journal and compare it to the dud to see if the dud is larger or not. If it is larger on the high spots I would think my chances of recovering a good journal are much higher.

Jens
Get it out in the open and use your mic to compare the good and bad journal. I would be careful if there is metal transfer I would think that the crank grinder would be the best tool to remove it with. In other words don't go making a bad situation worse with a scraping tool.

Billswan

[vdubnut62]

If the hot tank will eat the bearing material, as Bob says, then your problem is solved. Just dunk it for a couple days.
Ron

[Westcliffe01]

use a strip of 600 grit waterpaper over the journal, working it by wrapping it around and pulling each end alternatively.  This should have alumina based grit which tends to stay put and not come off all over the place.  If the buildup starts vanishing, it is clearly soft and it should clean up nice.  It takes an awfull long time to make an impression on cast iron with fine paper.

[Crofter]

I don't have much faith that the journal will have remained serviceable and standard, but in any case to find out you will have to selectively remove material only from the high spots. The abrasive paper will have to have a quite firm backing to keep from removing also from the low areas. You cant shine a crank with shoeshine methods. A crank can live for a while with some circumference grooves but anything much more than half a thou. on out of round or taper and you only have a temporary patch job.

Back when babitted rods were common and shimming standard procedure, as long as you could restore the journal to round, smooth and not tapered, it did not matter if it was a bit undersized. My father used to use an old connecting rod with sandpaper clamped and adjust the nuts so it would just start to contact while the engine was cranked over. It was not unusual to spend a day at it. Back in depression days time meant nothing. There were actually patent devices made for doing this in the vehicle.

[Crumpite]

Just a follow up on my parts washer. I was curious how much lye crystals it takes to get a saturated solution. I took 750 ml of water and started adding lye. At around 328 grams of lye I gave up as there was no end in sight.
I measured ph on occasion. The meter I was using was a sub $100 ph/TSD meter and I was not a happy camper about the readings. They seemed to suggest that the ph goes to 10.0 early on and stays there but the readings were all over the map and I can't say I have any confidence in them.
I do not know if there is a relationship between lye concentration and rate of cleanup but there is most certainly a huge difference between using a given solution at room temperature and at boiling temperature. Hot solution cleans MUCH faster.
So far the materials coming out of the tank will have lost all their paint but for reasons unknown there still remains a slight coat of oil.
For my next batch I have added some dishwashing detergent to see if that improves on the final cleanliness.

Jens,

Lye is like that - it's infinitely soluble in water.
In industry the concentration is most conveniently measured by it's density or titration with an acid and an indicator.


As for the Ph - Sodium Hydroxide is such a strong base that at very low concentrations it maxes out the Ph meter.
Most Ph probes, cheap or expensive don't measure well at the high Ph end of the scale.
Special purpose probes are used if you want accuracy at that end of the scale.
One of the reasons for the measurement problem is that the special glass used as the Ph sensor starts to dissolve in caustic solutions. 

The usual rule is that reaction rates double for every 10 Deg. C., so a boiling solution is a *lot* more active than something at room temperature.
Many detergents aren't stable at low Ph, but then again some are, so if it doesn't seem "soapy" try a different active ingredient or a bar of soap.
Caustic solutions form their own soap with any type of animal or vegetable oil but not most mineral oils.
The best that can happen is that the mineral oils will go into suspension, so any type of agitation will help, i.e. boiling or scrubbing (with a full rubber suit or a ten foot pole, IMHO...)

Be very careful, hot caustic is one of the nastiest, most dangerous things you can play with !!!
Stay safe,
Crumpite

[AdeV]

I am told that caustic solutions feel "soapy" if you get them on your skin, the reason is the fats are being dissolved out of your skin.... so if you ever feel a soapy sensation on your hands, get them under the cold running water without delay! Don't wait for it to start hurting...