Thanks for all the kind words! I agree with several replies that the casters are the weak link. I think they are rated for something like 375 pounds each. They are cast iron with rubber tires. The rubber I'm sure will make it hard to roll when there is some real weight on it. The stand is probably close to 300 pounds by itself fully dressed with all the tooling. So far it rolls pretty smooth with just the block. I will keep my eyes open for some good steel casters in the 500+ range. Casters with brakes would be nice too. Thanks again everyone, David
Thanks so much for sharing that step-by-step build with us. Excellent photos and full explanations. I believe we have finally seen something that actually has enough COWBELL. dj
Amazing.... simply amazing. The talent of some people on this board are beyond words. Thank you very much for sharing. Ed
I would think you can trade machining services on just about any part of your car build you need help with. Find a painter that races and you'll be in good shape.
more like shooting flys with a Howitzer! Awesome work on the stand. People ask what it would sell for. We had one like it for Catapiller engines when I worked at a GM medium duty dealer. It was $3499 bare, no adapters. It was made with a huge cast iron base but the head unit was a lot like yours. we made adapters to hold Allison transmissions, Duramax motors, rear end housings and hubs for it. it was awesome. Probably could have bolted a frame to it and used it for a rotissery!
Wow, what an amazing piece of fab work and an even more amazing step by step pictoral how-to. I am a High School Metal Shop teacher and I just bought an indexing head with plates. I am NOT a trained machinist and I am trying to see how I can fit this tool into what we do. Your splines seem like something very do-able. Can you show me the tool you used to measure the depth of the splines as you broached?
BashingTin Man, if I COULD/did build something like that I wouldn't want to use it..I would just want to look at it.. THAT IS PRETTY/REALLY TUFF boooooob
I use the help of gauge pins to measure the contact diameter of the spline. Because the spline I cut for this project had an odd number of teeth, I had to use three small equally sized pins placed in between the teeth of the internal spline I'm cutting. I sized them to something close to touching the contact diameter, with the outer pins all held in place by a larger diameter pin in the middle. It helps if you use a jewelers loop to get in and see what's happening. As I cut each tooth deeper, the middle pin gets bigger. Hench, my ability to measure a change in diameter. There was some fussing and guessing that I needed to do. This was because I did not have a drawing of the original spline of the gearbox input shaft. It helps if you've cut a few internal splines before. But if you're careful and sneak up on it, you will usually hit your target without going over.
I took careful measurements of the locations of each hole in the block. If a part is not too big, I will carefully place it up on the milling machine table, and insert pins in the holes to find the locations of each. I use the glass scale (DRO) to take my measurements. There is some guessing that happens too. I may find a half dozen holes that seem to follow a pattern, but one hole is off by only a few thou. On closer inspection I may find that the hole it'self is warn or damaged a little. If that's the case, I will adjust my dimension to follow the pattern. If the hole is off by more than 10 thou, I will study it more carefully and determine what's really going on. Not having original prints of a part as complex as an engine block can be challenging when you're trying to figure out where stuff is supposed to be.
The Jalopy Journal
