I seen this auction, have any of you used a grinder like this? http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ANTI...010QQitemZ200221527352QQrdZ1QQsspagenameZWDVW
Wow, I always thought my dad was B.S. me about this. He used to be a hack mechanic at his local Sinclair while he was in H.S. He always told me this was done quite often during an ecomony rebuild. He also used old cut up toothpaste tubes for cranks that used babbit bearings when they became "loose". Imgine today a line mechanic cutting a crank while it was still in the block. Pretty neat stuff.
Was used quite often in the 40s -50s..There weren't that many machine shops around..Just call up "Bills Portable Crankgrinding" he would come to you. You did have to have the car up on stands and the pan and heads off for him. It was not a "do it your self " type machine... Have seen it done many times
Ever seen small sheets of brass "shim stock" ? I remember my dad dropping the pan on his '46 Pontiac Six in order to "shim up the bearings". Took down the mains and added shims behind bearing inserts to close up clearances. Did I mention he was cheap ?
Hey hlfuzzball, that was SOP in those days. I have seen about a 46 Plymouth with one bad rod bearing, they took off the head, pushed out one piston, and ground one throw .030, and screwed it all back together again. The owner was happy.
The grinder certainly can't go around the journal. How would you turn the crank for this to work? Is there a belt drive accesory that turns the engine over?
Yep, Seen them , Admitt used them a few times in a bind,, Winona, tool AKA as Kwikway.... I also had luck with the 2 piece type that had abrasive halfs that you removed the bearing and put the abrasives in its place ..pulled all the plugs and spun the heck out of the motor with the starter and polished the mains and rod journels.......ykes... before we got high tech and sent all our stuff to the pro's It worked
I polished up a rough crank in a 1939 IHC pickup. Took the cap off, put a strip of emery in place of the shell, and started her up! No plug in that cylinder, of course. It idled for a minute, then I tore it down again and shimmed some old shells to fit, ran it for a whole summer after that. Bucks were scarce around here in the '60's!
I'm guessing that the "toothpaste tube" bearing material was soft enough that any stray grit would embed into it, thus keeping it from circulating thru the rest of the engine. And any toothpaste residue would act like a fine abrasive and help to polish the journal.
The drive for it drove the flywheel.....flywheel rotates crank..the grinding head was sorta like a tubing cutter design with the grind stone where the wheel is on a tubing cutter...grinding stone was powered by electric motor which also turned the flywheel... grind stone was turned in against crank like you turn in the tool post on a lathe..had .degreed indicator so you would know how much you were grinding...
I remember my dad having one of his brothers tow the car to the shop to have this done(yep i'm pushing 60) I also remember as a pup him using razor blades to take the slop out of a bearing(he must of cut the edges off)sure wish he was still here to ask him. Russ
Ok, I'm 70, and back when I was 18 or so I worked at a local parts store which also had a half ass machine shop. We had one of those portable crank grinders and once I went out as the machinist's helper to do a throw on a pre '49 Buick straight 8. AS has been said the car had to be WAY UP on stands. IIRC 24"+ from rod throw at it's lowest point to the floor(dirt in this case). The grinder had a hook that hung over the throw being ground, and a cup wheel on a shaft directed straight at the throw from below. Another electric motor and reduction setup drove the crank via the crank pulley and a v-belt. The machinist worked with a knob that adjusted the distance between the hook over the top and the cup wheel below. With skill, prior experience, and just plain old seat of the pants feel, a good man could get a fair approximation of a straight, ungrooved, round and properly sized rod journal. Many of these old engines such as the Chevy "stovebolt six" and the Buick "Valve in Head Eight" had enough internal room to pull the piston down low, loosen a cinch bolt on the con rod, slide the wrist pin to one side, and R&R the con rod with one which had a poured babbit bearing of the approiate under size for the newly ground journal or "throw". Final clearance was set by placing a single layer of brown paper bag paper on the throw surface, and with a trial fit after each adjustment of removing one shim at a time till the assembly locked up. Then remove the brown paper bag piece add back one shim and button it down. You mopped out the dirt and grinding dust as best you could with rags and solvent and hoped like hell that the soft babbit in that resized rod would embedd anything you missed. Dave
Wellwhatdoyouknow! I ought to get at least partial credit for my "Theory Of Embedability Of Foreign Materials In Toothpaste Tube Bearings".
I used to work for a crook truck dealer. we would take a deisel that was locked up from seized bearings and use a file ,die grinder and emery cloth to turn journals and by trial and error fit bearings. He would haul them to auctions and sell them. Some didnt last as long as it took to get them running.Suprisingly some lasted for many thousands of miles!OldWolf
I am the proud owner of one of these, in car crank grinders, that belonged to my father and am wondering what it would be worth?
I have no idea what it's worth, but a dollar to a doughnut, put it on E-Bay and somebody will bid on it! Dave
sold my in car grinder think i got about $3.00 for it, it had a wheel turning reduction set of rollers to put under a rear wheel, not exactally a precision job and a few failures proabbly ensued
When I was a kid There was a tractor company in Nashville called EL Giestman. They had a mechanic that would come out and rebuild a tractor engine with it sitting in the field with a plow still hooked to it. I watched him regrind the crank in the middle of a corn field, put it all back together and my dad fired that old Farmall up and finished plowing the field. he kept that old tractor 4 or 5 years until he traded it for a Massey ferguson with a three point hitch. Never had a minutes trouble out of it. Hadn't thought about it in years until I saw this thread. His name was Charles Boaz. One Hellova mechanic. Worked on tractors for a living but built hot rods for fun. Always told us kids "Break it in like you're going to drive it. Might as well prove it or break it quick."
Here in the New Orleans area, Genuine Parts (now NAPA) used to come to the station where I worked. They would mic the crank and use a portable grinder device to re size the rod journal I really do not remember how it was done. The service mechanic carried an assortment of over size bearings and would use plasti guage to ensure adequate tolerances.
My machinist, one of my best friends , mentor, and the former owner of the Ms Rebel funny car and the Cyclops funny car ( at one time named Satans chariot) , and countless gassers from Hamilton MS stiil has the one he had when he worked as the head mechanic at the chevy dealership.His name is Marion Fairchild. He said it worked pretty well. I thought he was pulling my leg until a few years ago he had it out patching up an old massy harrison tractor he still uses. Looked kinda neat, but Uncle Marion can run over a dime in the road and tell if its on heads or tails to. Gotta love how we used to really be in to fixing what we had , rather than going to buy a new one every time. Mitch
A lot of expedient repairs are possible without $$$$ in ultra-sophisticated and specialized equipment. When I was a kid I was driving my 49 Dodge (fluid drive) in the mountains when it developed a bad rod knock. I parked the car over a ditch by the side of the road so I could get underneath. Dropped the pan and it was easy to see which rod was knocking as that one had plenty of slop. Opened the cap and removed the bearing insert from the cap. Ate my sandwich (thanks, mom) and saved the aluminum foil. Flattened the foil on the trunk of the car with my thumb. Folded a quadruple thickness and placed it between the cap and the insert. Bolted it back up, reused the pan gasket, poured in the same oil. The motor was too tight to spin with the starter. No problem, this was a fluid drive. Gave it a little push as it was pointing downhill and then used the forward motion of the car with the tranny in third and the starter - the motor spun and fired. After idling a while it would restart - I guess the foil got pounded a little flatter. Drove that motor that way for a long long time. Today that would be a tow, a hotel, a rental car, and a rebuilt or crate motor all for great sums of money and a lot of time. I lost two or three hours and 'recycled' some foil.
Worked in a Standard Chevron Dealer Station all through high school. My best friends dad (retired USAF) sold real estate and insurance. He brought a bunch of mechanics tools home with him one day from one of his listings; a boring bar, valve grinder setup, and an in-the-vehicle crank grinder. He wound up selling everything for a few dollars, despite me wanting to buy the stuff from him. Had'nt thought about that in many years; this thread brought it back. Butch/56sedandelivery.
I would add that the cylinders were also bored "in the car" with a deck-mounted/hand operated portable boring bar! Use's special blades and shims to get to the desired size (in small increments), the holes would be bored, and then finished by hand-honing. Thanks, Gary in N.Y. P.S. I'm fortunate enough to own one of these bars today. It's a "Rottler" and it's old enough, circa 1928, to have 4 digits in the phone number. It is in "mint" cond. Photo's here!
The Jalopy Journal
