Heart Transplant

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Pretty obvious you've never done any welding ..
I have done welding, but not aluminum. As I stated previously, I take it to a guy that has been in business 40 years, 3 brothers who got the business from their father many years ago.
 
Heart Transplant


This is a teaser. Normally you don't want to see your pistons at different heights on a Norton engine, unless it's got a 270˚ crank... which this one doesn't.

Video of the first part of the disassembly of the bike coming Sunday...

There is some good news and there is some bad news. You mostly know what the bad news is.
 
Heart Transplant


Is this salvageable? Is it worth saving? Despite the mess this is the only thing wrong with the barrel, everything else, including the bores are dirty but nice.
 
Heart Transplant


There's a bit of damage on the inside with a pretty deep gouge.

Heart Transplant


And something tried to come through here. Minor compared to the hole in the bottom.
 
Oh well, I guess it’s not too unexpected though eh?

The barrel can only be salvaged by putting a liner in it. Even then, I would get it properly crack tested, AFTER boring it out to take the liner and BEFORE fitting it, to check cracks do not propagated further into the casting (thus allowing the liner to come loose, and drop, and put you back here again).

The crank journal looks unlikely it’ll clean up with a grind, but it’s not easy to tell until you strip it and clean off the detritus with emery, you might be lucky. It could be welded up. But probably cheaper to buy a replacement crank half.

The cases have clearly suffered massive trauma. The hole on the bottom is only evidence of the final exit point of the escaping rod. You’ve now found evidence of further trauma.

As mentioned in previous posts, if it were a Vincent then yes, it’d be different because new cases are over £3,000, and much money is at stake regarding originality and provenance. But it’s not. And your best way of having good, strong cases is to find some good undamaged replacements. If you buy new ones you even get to keep your engine number !

All only IMHO of course.
 
The big end with the aluminium shell lining bonded to it can be cleaned using Hydrochloric acid, this will remove the shell lining but leave the steel big end untouched. Done it a few times to recover cranks in Briggs engines. Also called muriatic acid and concrete cleaner. You drip it on and it will fizzle, carry on dripping it on until the aluminium is all gone.
 
The big end with the aluminium shell lining bonded to it can be cleaned using Hydrochloric acid, this will remove the shell lining but leave the steel big end untouched. Done it a few times to recover cranks in Briggs engines. Also called muriatic acid and concrete cleaner. You drip it on and it will fizzle, carry on dripping it on until the aluminium is all gone.

I was hoping that is it. There are some marks that look like gouges in the journal but I'm hoping it's just in the bearing material.

Sadly not my biggest concern right now.

I really was hoping the barrel was unscathed, as unrealistic as that was. Very glad there was no damage to the head.
 
As long as those gouges are not in the steel but the aluminium the acid will remove it to reveal the steel which hopefully is untouched, did 3 briggs cranks and all were reused with no regrind needed but their con rod runs directly on the crank and the con rod is made from a bearing aluminium alloy but it does only need to cope with 3500 rpm max.
 
I don't think those gouges will clean up at max undersize, but hope for the best!

That is one sloppy mess, dude.
 
What was the cause of the engine throwing a rod?
 
That engine looks like it was taken apart once before. Letter Stamps on the flywheel. T and D. Plus the way the lock-wiring was done on the cam follower retainer screws. Too bad about the barrels but that is typical when a rod lets go. The cam followers and the cam still look good. Swoosh how is the gear on the cam? Did it survive?
Cheers,
Thomas
 
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