'68 BSA Victor Build..... Bloody 'el mate... You 'effin daft or sommat?!?

Jim said:
Did some odds an' ends to the top. Turns out the piston is almost pristine. Reason being it's .040" over, so this engine has had a top recently. Not even long enough ago for the carbon to stick to the crown... it all wiped off with a lacquer thinner wipe. And there is no score marks at all on the skirts. I'd be surprised if it had a hundred miles running on it. Anyway, polished it up with an SOS pad and measured it and the cylinder. Skirt clearance came out to exactly .002", dead on the minimum callout in the book. Being that new, was curious if the rings could be reused. Callout on the top 2 rings is .007" to .015"... pretty standard fare for a bore this size. Second ring gap was .011" about the middle of the tolerance. The top one... well, I don't really know. Threw feeler blades in there and quit adding 'em up at about .050". My guess is prolly about .075 or more end gap.... 10 times the nominal value.

I've seen this rodeo before. A guy that shouldn't own wrenches, decides to do his own top. Gets bigger piston and rings, gets it bored and starts slapping things together. Goes to install the rings and breaks one. Rather than get a new set of rings he jus' slaps an old one on there. "Close enough" he sez to no one in particular... and slaps it all back together. What with that and the wore out valve guides, prolly weren't a mosquito within 50 miles of his house. :rolleyes:

New rings. The book allows for two oversizes, .010" and .020" over. that's it. And yet I hold a .040" over piston in my hands. :umm:
Looking online though, I can buy standard, 20 over, 40, 60 and 80 thou over. Odd huh? Anyway, I've got about 6 or 8 sources for BSA parts now. Everywhere was out of stock. Crap. Found a set of .080" over on Ebay. They'll file down jus' fine. Ordered and supposed to be here today. No joy on 'em today. Shipping now says Monday.


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This is a high compression engine. Iirc, somewhere around 9.5 or 10 to one. Which explains why they were little hot rods back in their day. That's a lot of compression for a big ol' thumper. And that meant they could be a bear to kick. My fake knee doesn't like the sound of that. There is a fix for that however, a compression reducing plate that sits under the cylinder. They're spendy though... a 2mm plate runs about 70 bucks. That gets you down to a hair over 8 to 1 compression. Perfect!
'Cept.... I spent the better part of my life bendin' and cuttin' aluminum on airplanes... I ain't payin' no 70 bucks.
Scrounged around and found some .070" sheet of 2024T3 that comes out to a shade over 2mm... perfect. Used the head gasket to rough it out, and set it on the bottom of the cylinder to mark out the final shape. Cut it, cleaned it up and it'll do just fine. Back to waitin' on the rings.

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Amazing vision and workmanship.

( really not surprised )
 
Raymond said:
Sorry to be behind the curve on this one - Michael Waller mod?
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He's the gent in the video I posted on the last page, Raymond. He modified his Victor to replace the top end in-situ... which is what I've done to mine.
I don't know that he's the one who came up with the idea, but he's the one I learned it from, so I called it the M Waller mod.
 
Well this is odd...

Ordered a set of .080" rings. This is what I got...


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Yeah, 5 sets of 80 over rings. Unbelievable. Even bein' a bit of a scoundrel at times, I can't in good conscious keep 'em. I'll contact the seller and as long as he'll provide a shipping label, I'll send 4 back.

And this is what 80 over rings look like in a 40 over barrel. Got just a tad of filing to do... :cautious:


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One sneaker showed up. Luckily it's the front. Got a call from Cedar Rapids Tire this morning. Apparently the rear has been delivered to shipping purgatory, most likely never to return. They shipped a new one this morning.


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I've a list of honeydo's for today big enough to choke a mule. Any bike work today is questionable. We'll see.
 
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Ground the rings down to the minimum gap using a drill and 4" cutoff wheel. Clamped the drill to the bench and the Overlord (Sue, in case y'all ain't figure that out :rolleyes:) graciously pulled the trigger on the drill for me. Having a grinder purpose made for this would be nice, but it's not really needed, this way works a treat.

**staged photo**
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Installed the rings on the piston and the piston to the connecting rod. This cylinder doesn't have the bevel on the bottom, so you can't push the ring in (compress them) with popsicle sticks like you can on most Japanese engines. There's a ring compressor to do the job... a BSA tool that's pretty spendy. Don't have one. I had a ring compressor that was made for Lycoming and Continental engines that would have been perfect for this job. Don't have it. Sold it when I retired from the airplane business... crap.

So I made one. Took some .032" aluminum sheet and cut a strip about an inch and a half wide, and curled that into a circle 3" in diameter. Wrapped that around the rings and used a 3" hose clamp to snug it all up and compress the rings into their grooves. Liberal amounts of grease to help the process. To be honest, it worked much better than I figured it would. Lined everything up and tapped the cylinder down into place purty as you please.


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Removed the wood strips supporting the piston, applied sealant to the top of the base gasket stackup and tapped the cylinder down into place.


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Was gonna install the head, but I'm bushed. Working in the yard took a fair bit out of me. I'm callin' it a day... a good day. Time for a toke. :smoke:
 
Good head... the cylinder head silly. :wink2:

Got my chores done early. Heated the copper head gasket to a dull red and quenched in water... annealed in other words. Sprayed it with copper gasket spray and set it in place. Installed the rebuilt head and torqued as best I can. No special tools available for a torque wrench so I did it by feel. Good enough.


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Next up, I need to disassemble the rocker box and clean it up. I mentioned the homemade adjusters previously. Check out these adjusters. They're so soft it beat a flat into wherever it was adjusted to. Musta needed frequent adjustments... check out all the facets beat into 'em. On the other end you can see where flats for a wrench was ground into the threads.


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That's it for now.
 
Mailman said:
Ha! You know, you gotta know where to draw the line on home made tools! 😄
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Yeah... funny, there's 8 pages of special tools in the book. Some form of torque wrench adaptor ain't one of 'em. All the book says is to use a "suitable torque wrench." No mention of what that is or how to source it. I'm guessin' the factory used some sort of crows foot. "If" I could find a 1/4" and 5/16" Whitworth crows feet, they'd prolly fetch a kings ransom. Close enough.
I suppose I could hack up a pair of Whitworth wrenches, but they ain't exactly cheap or easy to come by either. Yeah, close enough.


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