Crankcase machining ???

[Ruairidh Dunford]

I have seen several of these castings, some of which came through Tony Betts when he bought the mouldings and residual castings from Flake Engineering.

I would expect this to be from Tony's stock or direct from Flake and not completed, due to the reasons Charles highlights above.

[Ruairidh Dunford]

I believe the ebay vendor was at one time a regular contributor to this forum, often on matters sports related, so presumably there is a story behind his acquisition/ disposal of the crankcase.

Who is the vendor?

[bystander]

Zetomagneto I think, but I stand to be corrected

[Bluebird7]

I believe the ebay vendor was at one time a regular contributor to this forum, often on matters sports related, so presumably there is a story behind his acquisition/ disposal of the crankcase.

Sadly ongoing login problems have locked him out of this forum as a contributor

I also got locked out so had to gain re-entry ( Very NASA ) by re-registering  with a new U/name

I am/are "flywheel1935" so until I can resolve a new password I'll use "Bluebird7"

[Ruairidh Dunford]

Good news that you got back in, we try to help as much as we can, but even that doesn't always work.

[Austin in the Shed]

It isn't just the casting ,the machining of the casting correctly is another issue.
Years ago Richard  Hutchings ? sold a lot of machined engine kits for blown ulsters among other bits,one I knew of the owner took 13 years to get a running engine,another bought secondhand took 9 years to complete .Another was found to have not been machined for the gearbox register and a oil gallery missing I remember.
So it is a case on many repro bits that haven't been used is why ?

[Charles P]

Good points Dave, but beware unmarried marriage counsellors too.
More than one person, none of whom had ever machined a Dave Flake blown crankcase, told me of pattern faults that would prevent a blower fitting. Needless to say they were wrong and had just repeated BS emanating from elsewhere, such is the modern way.

Charles

[Tony Griffiths]

I wish I could find the video that shows what appeared to be a V-twin crankcase being CNC machined in its entirety - but I can't. The case was picked up by an arm from a conveyer belt and automatically clamped down to a tilting and rotating plate. The "miller" (it must have cost a fortune) had 4 heads set front, back, left and right each holding, in a rotating ring, 12 tools of various kinds. The floor-to-floor time was 50 seconds - when previously, using a series of conventional machine tools, it had taken (from memory) over two hours.

[JoeRowing]

I suspect it belonged to my father. There are reasons it was not machined, but capacity to do so was not one of them. We were partly concerned by factors such as porosity and part of it was the fact that a few crankcases were lost in the pursuit of more horsepower and with a number of them to choose from, including a few nippy etc, there was no need. There were race projects that would have required a new machined crankcase - the planned engine with the intruder pistons was one - but they were never needed in the end.

[Austin in the Shed]

I've just cut up a scrap crankcase as I want to see if I can match a 7 gearbox to a different engine.
It's amazing how good the casting quality (Die cast case)and accuracy of the machining of the original cases was.
While a new casting may have a little bit more metal here and there,the long oil gallery for instance can go badly wrong .There are the oil gallery holes marked too which go from the oil pump to the top of the case,not a lot of spare metal there either.