Speaking of wrenching and being a cheap Esso Bee...

[Downeaster]

Needed some steel plate to make the engine mount adapter for the Binford 6000 Hydraulic Bender Project.

Didn't have anything suitable laying around. A neighbor who's every bit as much of a packrat as I am mentioned the other day that he had a YUGE stash of steel (He was on the State bridge maintenance crew for 25+ years) and I was free to come get anything I needed.

Drove up and...well...his definition of YUGE and mine are an order of magnitude or two apart, but he did have a good variety and I was able to dig out a suitable piece of 1/4 inch plate. Nasty, cratered (as opposed to pitted) and whoever torched it off was at about the same skill level as me when it comes to using a smoke ax. Ugly, in other words.

But hey, the price was right so...I lugged it home and fired up the plasma cutter and hacked out a piece big enough to make a finished piece 10x12. (My plasma skills are only marginally better than my torch skills...) Then I ground off the slag and marked out a piece with more-or-less square corners and trimmed it to size on my homey-made metal bandsaw. Makes a nice cut but I think I need to speed the blade up a tad. Slower than an IRS refund.

Then I wirebrushed the worst of the scale and rust off it and deburred the edges and corners on my homey-made belt sander.

Flopped it up on the table to mark out the shaft hole location and it did a pretty good imitation of a rocking chair, so I spent half an hour on the shop press flattening it as best as I could, then hole-sawed the 2-1/2 inch shaft hole on location.

All in all, I have about half a day of shop time invested to save myself the price of less than a square foot of plate. Good thing I'm retired...

 

[Mikey]

Busy hands are happy hands

 

[Downeaster]

Even a blind hog finds an acorn now and then...

Working on the adapter plate to mount the 11 horse engine on the splitter frame. Locating the center of the shaft hole was no big deal. Locating the holes for the mounting bolts for the engine, OTOH, is a bit more fussy. They have to be located in relation to the center hole as well as aligned with the non-symmetrical threaded mounting bosses on the crankcase.

Between bad technique, bad eyes and bad luck, my track record for getting mounting holes to line up makes your average weather forecaster look positively prescient. Plus, this engine is a HEAVY sumbitch and flopping it downside up to lay out the holes was a non starter.

So, after putting it off for a few days because it usually winds up with 1/2" holes for 3/8ths bolts and some of them "adjusted" with a rat tail file, blood, foul language and airborne tools, I decided I had to tackle it today. Plan "A" was to use CAD...Cardboard Aided Design.

Cut the cereal box pasteboard to match the mounting plate and clip it in place, grease up the bottom of the engine, use my overhead winch to set it on the pasteboard and get an outline of the bottom of the engine, complete with mounting locations. Howsumever, as I was greasing up the bottom of the engine, it became apparent that there was a lip around the perimeter of the case and the actual holes were recessed about 1/8th of an inch and wouldn't be leaving an impression on the pasteboard. Hmmmmmmmm...

Plan "B" was to thread mounting bolts into the bottom of the engine, set the engine down on the pasteboard covered mounting plate, center up the shaft, bump the engine around the shaft axis until it was square with the world and then trace around the bolt heads with a pencil.

Then remove engine and with the pasteboard still in place on the adapter plate, eyeball the center of the bolt head outline and center punch through the pasteboard and onto the adapter. Eyeball it, give the punch a little pat, remove it, look at where the punch mark wound up, adjust as necessary and give it a whack.

Then marked the punch locations by kissing them with a 1/8 drill so I can see them against the rusty, pitted plate, clamp it down on the drill press and drill the holes out one oversize for luck.

When I first set the engine back down on the drilled plate, I thought my usual luck was holding. Lined one hole up with a drift and started a bolt. Tried bumping the engine around by hand but couldn't see any of the other holes. This was not helped by the fact that various bits of engine overhang 3 of the 4 mounting holes. Thought for a moment that I had the plate downside up but no, the starboard holes are about an inch closer fore and aft than the port holes, and that looked right.

After a bit of tweaking and nudging the engine around with the drift, I got three of the four bolts started. "Huzzah!" says I, "it doesn't really matter if I can't get the last bolt in, 75% is well within Farmer Tolerance!"

Well, just for gits and shiggles, I tried the 4th bolt and damned if it didn't line up and thread in with a bit of wiggling!

4 for 4, no fudging, no ridiculously oversized holes hidden with fender washers, no cross threaded holes, no serious blood (drill shavings are SHARP!) and the only non-parochial language was a gentle "Well, I'll be damned..."

That may never happen again, but I'll have fond memories of this once.

 

[Downeaster]

Still working on this project in odd moments. Need a spacer between the engine mounting plate and the pump bracket to account for shaft length.

This time, I was able to use transfer punches and once again drilled the holes (exact size this time as they needed to be threaded...) and everything lined up and screwed together.

I'ma buy me a lottery ticket...

 

[Downeaster]

Here's where I am so far on the

bender.

11 horse Briggs and Scrapiron from 1985-ish. Cleaned the carb, put a new foam element in the air cleaner, changed the oil. Started right up and ran good. MAY have an oil leak around the bottom crank seal, not sure as there's been plenty of oil slung around in the process.

Pump mount worked out well, pretty much in the same location as the original pump judging by how well the suction hose lined up.

Now I need to set the beam/ram/valve assembly back on it and see where I'm going to mount the battery, throttle, kill switch, starter solenoid and start button. Clearance between the beam latch (vertical/horizontal positions) and the muffler is pretty tight. Can't see why I'd want to use it in the vertical position but will need to re-think the exhaust if that becomes an issue.

Don't foresee having to buy anything else unless the pressure fitting that came off the old pump doesn't fit. Into it for right at $200 for a new pump and mount. Also bought a Lovejoy coupler half but couldn't use it as it didn't match the one for the pump side. Just bored out the old one from the motor side to fit the 1" shaft on the replacement motor.

 

[Mikey]