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RE:Valve Spring Failure on Massey 25

Tom

Thanks for sharing. It is nice to see photos of rebuilds. I haven't got a 25 but it is still interesting to see. Please keep posting the photos.

Alan

RE:Valve Spring Failure on Massey 25

I have been making more really slow progress on the 25 this week. Hopefully Saturday on our way to Crosby we can get the new rings and new valves picked up. 

After work I managed to get some machining done on the J pipe and a bearing fixture for pouring new Babbitt. The bearing fixture will hopefully be used to pour new Babbitt into the original rod bearing shells. I was planning on having somebody repour these for us but I had a friend keep telling me I had to do them myself. So he finally convinced me to repour them and machine it to size with out sending them away. Worst case we re-melt the Babbitt and try again.

Next was the J pipe from Rosewood. Originally they would have used a 2.5" exhaust stack    but the new casting was very sloppy with a piece of 2.5" tubing so I searched for a piece of 2.625" tubing and only one place I could find was selling it. After shipping it was pretty spendy but will make for a good piece. The J pipe had to be setup in the mill again to bore out the top for this new 2.625" tube. Not a very rigid setup but it worked pretty good. Didn't have to take much out to fit the tube. Just a few more items on this J pipe and it will finally be finished. So in the next few weeks I should have more pictures of it.
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RE:Valve Spring Failure on Massey 25

Hi Tom,
 It must be the season for pouring babbitt. I really like the look of your fixture, that’s first class.  I poured both halves together assembled in the rod which worked OK after a few false starts.  This is for a 1929 Wallis 20-30 I am working on. See photos below. 

 

 I found that I had to have the bronze shells nicely tinned and then after the fixture was heated up and just before pouring the babbitt I melted some flux onto the tinned surface to make sure the babbitt stuck to the bronze. Even then I had a few small bubbles in the babbitt which left a hole or two after machining to size. I don’t think that will matter , just another small oil reservoir in the bearing surface.

 

For the mains I tried using wooden plugs to close the oil holes in the shells but they just popped out and spilled the babbitt all over.  I put a hose clamp and some  “babbittrite” ( grey putty) around the wood plugs to hold them in place.

 I used No. 2 babbitt, so called “hard” babbitt with no lead in it that I purchased from  www.rotometals.com

 

My machining setup is shown below.  The knurled knob below the wrist pin is threaded so that the pin can be raised up or down to make the axis of the pin parallel to the milling spindle before boring the babbitt.  I checked the alignment of the wrist pin in both directions using a dial indicator in the mill.  The machining went easier than I expected.

 

I still have the front main to pour. It has the thrust surface on each side and I am still pondering how best to fixture that.  I haven’t machined the main bearing halves, I think I will do that in a fixture fastened to a lathe faceplate rather than on the mill.
Last picture, new shims, brass stock is laminated, five laminations of .002 inch.

Best wishes, Alan Painter, Brownsville, Oregon

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RE:Valve Spring Failure on Massey 25

Hi Alan, thanks for posting your bearing pictures too! Looks like we had the same idea for the machining fixture. I had mine drawn up last week ready to machine but got too late. The adjustable height for the wrist pin is a good idea, I was just going to cut a shoulder on mine and use shims to get the rod flat so I may have to borrow your plan. 

Also how did you cut your shims out? They look very very nice. Mine had no thin shims left just one big multi layered shim that didn't look designed to be separated. I want to add 2-3 shims .002-.003 thick just in case I need to do some adjusting. My original shim pack was .150-.155 thick and seemed to make the rod halves round without the insert so I was going to stay close to that thickness.

I didn't get any work done on the 25 this weekend. We took a trip for a different kind of fun. Some may recognize this shop....
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RE:Valve Spring Failure on Massey 25

One more thing Alan, how much machining stock did you leave on your Babbitt?

I left plenty extra at .125" per side. May have to change that to use less Babbitt and prevent the shells from pulling in when the Babbitt cools.

RE:Valve Spring Failure on Massey 25

Hi Tom,
On the rod bearings the thickness of babbitt I poured was approx .090 and after machining the finished thickness was .040. On the mains I poured approx .125 thickness and after machining it will be approx .050 thick.  I noticed some pull in particularly on the mains and don't know quite what to do about that if anything.  It tends to be slightly proud of the bearing caps so I presume that will get pulled back into shape when bolted up.

My rod shims were a mess but I was able to re-use most of the steel ones.  I needed to make up two .034 steel shims so I made those first, combination of machining and hand filing then used tinsnips to cut out the .010 brass shims.  I sandwiched the brass between the steel and filed the periphery then clamped the pack on a sacrificial plate to first drill and then end mill the hole to size. The end mill left a nice clean edge on the thin brass shims.
I thought that a drill would have left a ragged edge. See photo.
My final shim pack consisted of .063 steel, .034 steel and two .010 brass for a total thickness of approx  .120  That makes the bronze shells close to round.

When I picked up the reground crank from the machine shop the machinist said ” Oh you might need this, it came out of the flywheel end of the crankshaft” . He handed me a steel dowel pin 0. 235 inch diameter and about 1 1/2 inches long.  Sure enough it slipped easily into a 1/4 inch hole in the end of the crankshaft that is about three inches deep and intersects with another  .128 inch diameter cross hole leading to the rear main bearing.   See photo.  
I couldn't see any reference to this in the Wallis manual but 
I see from the MH 25 manual that this is intended to lubricate the pilot bearing which according to the Parts book is an SKF bearing( presumably ball bearing).   In my case the pilot bearing is shielded on both sides so that wouldn’t do much good but I could remove one of the shields.  I cannot find this dowel pin in the parts manual but presume that the previous owner put that in the end of the crank to shut off that flow of oil.  I think I will do the same, it seems to me the "lubricated for life" sealed bearing should work just fine without that oilflow from the rear main.  Any thoughts?

   

Also what is a reasonable torque value for the rod bolts?   Basic torque tables suggest that for 5/8 x 18, 102 ft. lbs for Grade 5 and 144 ft.lbs for Grade 8.  It seems whoever put my engine together just kept on torqueing till the split pin lined up.  It took my big pneumatic wrench to get them undone.  I am thinking I might use some washers under the nuts and grind them to a thickness to line up the split pin holes at a reasonable torque value.  Probably overkill for an old tractor but I don't like the way it was.

Best wishes,  Alan Painter  Brownsville, Oregon.

 



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RE:Valve Spring Failure on Massey 25

All your work looks good Alan! I honestly have not dug into a newer 20-30 to see how the oiling system works. On the rod bearings I think I'm running around 75 ft lbs. I don't use the cotter pins, I just replace to original nuts with locking nuts. Then you can torque it and not have to worry about orientation. All the newer motors I've worked on don't even use that much. Head bolts I run at 50 ft lbs because the block deck thickness and head is really thin. Have not had a leak yet.

We finished pouring my 25 rods tonight. I made a whole new fixture after the first test. I made the usual machinist mistake of having all the clearances too tight. Took much longer than expected to have all 8 shells good. That's usually how all of my projects go. We learned something on nearly every pour. The shells will require a lot of cleaning before I can start machining. 
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RE:Valve Spring Failure on Massey 25

Dug into the governor last weekend too. It's a little rusty so hopefully it can be saved but I'm looking for a replacement or good parts.

the rusty chunk in the pictures started life as a ball thrust bearing.
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RE:Valve Spring Failure on Massey 25

Hi Tom,      That's a good idea to dispense with the cotter pins and use new lock nuts.  I really like the look of your babbitt pours, mine had some surface bubbles which did machine out for the most part.
My governor had problems too, maybe not quite as bad as yours looks.  The assembly of weights and springs was worn but useable.   I am not close to a bearing supplier so I ordered some parts from MSC Industrial Supply Co.    For that bottom bearing I replaced it with MSC cat #03379849, .563x1.219x0.563 Thrust-Ball-Banded Medium. For the top bearing my races were severely pitted and the balls missing probably down in the pan, so I opted to use a three piece thrust needle bearing also from MSC  cat#03380912  0.625x1.125x.078 thrust cage needle assembly and two thrust washers Cat# 03381084.  I faced off the pitted surface of the piece just under the spring and also made a small bushing to keep the three piece bearing centered.  I don't think my spring is original and it doesn't look as heavy wire diameter as yours in the photo.  When you get to working on the governor would you mind measuring the wire diameter for me. Don't know how critical that is for the correct working of the governor.

How is the small helical gear that drives the governor?  Mine was very worn, one broken tooth and cracked on the end.  I opted to try making it from a piece of Stressproof and not harden it.  I have a mill and dividing head but no gears to connect the table motion to the rotation so I milled it incrementally, sort of manual CNC.  Of course it leaves a slightly scalloped surface which I did some hand work on . I figure it will wear in, I think it will work just fine.  The copper oil line from the filter should keep all the governor parts well lubricated.
Best wishes, Alan
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RE:Valve Spring Failure on Massey 25

Interesting machining Alan.

I happen to have the governor all taken apart in my pickup so I went out and measured it.
now this is for the 25. They used at least 6 different style Kingston governors for the 12-20, 20-30, 25, and pacemaker-challengers so no guarantee this will work on all of them.
OD is ~.985
Overall length is 1.85
Wire diameter is .100


In searching for governor bearing Ervin just happened to remember what the number was for the correct bearing so I ordered them and got them in the mail Friday. INA GT-1 is the bearing. According to the parts book they all used the same bearing top and bottom. The top of course is missing one race.

My top race was a little rough but after I buffed it off it seems to roll pretty good. I thought worst case I could take a ball mill and cut .005-.010" off the race area.

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