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The chance of new crankshafts and rod etc
#51
I'm in the Good Companion school, along with Ruairidh. That or a 'Palomine'. I then migrated to a Vango Force Ten. Now that *was* the best tent I ever owned..

Oops.. thread drift...
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#52
Not only power tools Tony!
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#53
(18-09-2019, 10:47 AM)Ruairidh Dunford Wrote: I had the very similar "Good Companion" when I was at school.

We’re still using a Good Companions tent that went up the Thames from Teddington to Lechlade in 1969 — it was in my wife to be’s canoe. She thought it would be  good way to get to her first teaching job at Lechlade Primary. 
I like the external pole arrangement— went to Beaulieu sometime ago now with my son who had to climb up an oak tree to drop a piece of rope  — I had forgotten to pack the poles. Probably thought, at the time, that it could serve another more sinister purpose but he never shared such a thought with me!
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#54
Hi Tony,
You are to be commended for even considering this project.
All of us rely so heavily on suppliers such as you being willing to invest time and money in some of the more commercially marginal lines but none the less vitaly important ones.
FWIW I would suggest going the whole hog, metric sized to accept commercially available high quality shells, c/balanced billet, treated. L/w flywheel/clutch assembly to suit, rods to match, little ends to suit the best quality pistons currently available, rod lenghth matched for piston pin to deck heigh etc. The flywheel assembly could be an option if not wanted as part of the 'kit' of parts.
Many vintage engines are rebuilt with these sort of internals, discreet modern oil filters being the only external sign of any possible change. The long term reliability gain, whether for years of road driving and more so for competition, gives some welcome mental reassurance.
For those that realy insist in keeping the internals 'original' then that is fine. Any new replacement crank is no longer original but at least they can stick to white metal etc. I think your proposed offering is apealing to a different market anyway.

I hope there is enough positive feed back to take it to the next stage.
I wish you the best of luck.

Paul N-M
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#55
Having just read all of this old thread from start to finish, and even being a mean Yorkshireman who never likes to spend money, I have to think that the expensive answer is the one to go for.

"FWIW I would suggest going the whole hog, metric sized to accept commercially available high quality shells, c/balanced billet, treated. L/w flywheel/clutch assembly to suit, rods to match, little ends to suit the best quality pistons currently available, rod lenghth matched for piston pin to deck heigh etc. The flywheel assembly could be an option if not wanted as part of the 'kit' of parts."

Anything less would be an expensive second best.

Is the project progressing Tony?
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#56
Hi,

Thank you for bringing this one up as I could do with bringing things up to date.

Having things made in the uk, in batches, has gotten harder and harder over the last 10 years.

Here is what I got to in the uk.

Most places dont want to make from billet, purely because of the time it takes up on the machine aprox 4 1/2 hour run time. They can make far more money working on other expensive jobs.

So it got to forging cranks at a run time of 1 1/2 hours. Here are the prices for making a batch run of of 50.

Forging tool with the same company as JB and phoenix £5,500
Each forging £130.00 plus vat.
Labour including intruding £450 plus vat. But this company is no longer available.
I had a second company, one if not the best crank manufacturers in the country. Offered to help me get going with the following prices.
£1,000 services for patterns etc etc. And matching £500.00 + vat per crank for a batch of 50. These would then be supplied with a full spec sheet.

The outcome was I could do this job in the uk at this price, and cover the risk of anything going wrong.

So I took everything to a uk company, that manufacturrs overseas.

This came out completely different.

I had to have a batch of 300, (yikes). But the price was low enough it was more than worth investigating.

We had agreed the following.

The company we were going to use already manufactures cranks for Toyota, 5,000 a year.
Forged crank.
Crack tested and an individual test certificate supplied. Nobody offers this in the uk, so we take the risk of new cranks having faults 
before we fit them.
Nitrided to 40thou so it would take 2 regrinds, the only other cranks I know that are done to this is the hardly counterbalanced.
Stress relieved.
They would be supplied with a full spec sheet. (which all cranks should be, so you know what you are getting) rearly done in the uk.
I could have sold these cranks at a price of £750.00 to £800.00 and still make what I need to as a company.

But here is were it all got let down?

The overseas manufacturer could not get a supply of EN40b. As it is an old material used in crank manufacture.
We were offered the high spec chrome Mollie they use in modern day materials. Which is likely to be as good or better than EN40b. Which all the people I spoke the came to the same conclusion.

But, but, but. It all comes down to the ignorance of the lack of knowledge. And the chinese whispers of the internet.

Everyone expects cranks to be made of EN40b, so with they buy cranks made in new materials???? So will I be left with a pile of cranks and in large debts.

Two years ago, one of the new crank manufacturers had a crank break very quickly in a race engine. Those of you above will know all about this, I've seen the pictures of the engine, and my opinion only. There is no proof if the timing gear caused the crank to break. Or the crank broke and bust the timing gears. I understand there was alot of anger over it. And as the cranks were not crack tested from new. The forging company paid for the engine rebuild.

So were would I stand if this happend to me? Answer, YOU USED THE WRONG MATERIAL? Austin seven cranks should be EN40b. Even though the average owner is not well equipped to fit his own crank. He will do so. And blame the manufacturer for his mistakes.

The result i havent put an order in.

Tony.
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#57
There is nothing special about EN40B. It’s simply a medium tensile chromium steel that nitrides well and has good wear and fatigue properties. In the past cranks were advertised as EN40B to persuade people they were getting something special, they weren’t but it stuck in their mindset. It’s simply the European way of describing a particular specification. Other countries describe it differently. There are viable alternatives. 722M24 if I remember is identical. I think it’s a great shame that this project won’t go ahead because of ill informed public opinion. But, Tony, thanks for trying.
Alan Fairless
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#58
A brave try Tony.
About 10 years ago I set out to build an "unburstable" engine in a "cleaned out" crankcase with a Pheonix 11/2" splash fed crank, bored out oil pump with camshaft oiling restrictions, Renault 4 rods and pistons purely as a hard driven road car. I haven't ( I hesitate to say it) bust it yet. I regularly take it to 5000 revs in 2nd (3 speed box) and when I last looked the BE shells were as good as new.
    If I was starting again now, I would seek to do the same thing but, would I still find good Renault rods and pistons?
If not I would probably look for similar spec components at an affordable price. I wouldn't go 15/16". The original engine to the car, which is still under the bench was 11/8" crank that I knew I would break sooner or later and probably destroy the crankcase, which is why I went for the "unburstable", as I saw it at the time, option.
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#59
(21-05-2021, 02:24 PM)Alan Wrote: There is nothing special about EN40B. It’s simply a medium tensile chromium steel that nitrides well and has good wear and fatigue properties. In the past cranks were advertised as EN40B to persuade people they were getting something special, they weren’t but it stuck in their mindset. It’s simply the European way of describing a particular specification. Other countries describe it differently.  There are viable alternatives. 722M24 if I remember is identical. I think it’s a great shame that this project won’t go ahead because of ill informed public opinion. But, Tony, thanks for trying.

Quite right Alan.
I don't think that the PR issue is insurmountable but I fully understand your reticence at laying down your own cash.

I bet that if you looked at the material used to make many cranks sold as "EN40B" the material certification would be dual labelled EN40B/ 722M24.  Actually in strength terms there's little difference between EN40B and EN24T but the nitriding capacity gives better wear and fatigue, not that either is much of a benefit in most old car use cases.

Ignorance is a big problem in the modern world.

Charles
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#60
thank you all,

i wont say ive given up on them totally,

but as alan says, people stuck in there mindset.

id love to do them, but even at a good low price x 300 is "ALOT" of money. and i meen alot.  just to risk the ignorance of those who dont know what they are talking about. repeating the hearsay of the web.

many thanks to those engine builders who were prepared to back me by buying on pre orders. it always helps if some on the investment can be recooped straight away. rather than waiting for a slow turn around.

if im honest, now things are slowing towards hopefully the end of covid. i think we will see many parts production slow as well. which doesnt help small production old car movements like the austin seven.

tony
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