Flathead V-8

[b.lindsey]

OH nice George!! I can see where the fixture would be a huge help in the process too. How did you cut the holes in the main tube as shown in the last picture?

Bill

[petertha]

*** sorry, the pics arrived while I was typing ***

Nice jig. I'm very interested in your tubing technique & results. My radial design has similar diameter/bend radii & seems like every web link I found on that subject showed a trash bin full of cracked or kinked tubes from more accomplished machinists than me, trying various tube fill media & other metal coaxing sorcery. I pretty much resigned myself to brake line & crossing my fingers at that (88% copper, 9% nickel).

So looking forward to any tips/learning's, particularly SS. Another question (and maybe you'll get to this) if you have to attach flanges what is your solder/braze/weld method?

[gbritnell]

Peter,
I'm using 316 stainless tubing, annealed as delivered. As I mentioned I'm using a .900 radius. How much smaller it would safely go I don't know. I didn't use any fill material this time. When I made the pipes for the V-twin I used the low melting alloy called Cerro. The joints will all be silver soldered/brazed with 56% silver solder.
gbritnell

[gbritnell]

Now I'm really upset. I typed out several paragraphs of explanations with accompanying pictures and when I hit the post button it gave me that damn error message again. 

[gbritnell]

I guess I'll have to resort to Photobucket again.
To make the small tubes I bend up some pieces and then sawed them off so the top of the radius was at right angles to the straight part of the tube. I then used a .312 burr to rough the contour that would fit the main runner. This was followed with a .375 mounted stone and some filing to get a nice fit. There is no way to make a full radius because the outer edges get too thin so there will be a small step where the two pipes meet. It fills with silver solder so it's not that noticeable. Once the radii were fitted I used the assembly jig to give myself a saw line that would match the flange angle. With constant filing and fitting I got a nice match of the pipe to the flange. The only problem is that being as the fit point on the main runner and the flange center are offset the small tubes kept sliding out of place. I certainly didn't want this when soldering so I had to devise a way to hold the pipes in place. I settled on making some small copper rings from a piece of old electrical wire. After the ring was formed it was squeezed closed a tiny bit so it would hold tight on the main pipe. Each of the small pipes were put in place along with the rings and it seemed to work out ok.
The small pipes would be soldered to the flange first so then the copper rings could be slid out of the way to provide access for soldering the pipe to pipe joint.
All the joints were fluxed and the fixture was moved out to the garage for soldering/brazing with 56% silver solder.

[gbritnell]

All of the joints except one came out good. The biggest problem is when the main runner was soldered to it's flange it shifted down a little which caused the small pipes to move outward a little. Not enough to hurt anything but not what I wanted. For the next pipe I'll solder the main runner to it's flange and then fit all the small pipes afterward.
I had to do a little machining before I could boil off the flux and clean up the assembly. Three of the stainless screws got soldered to the flange so they had to have the heads milled off.
Once the part was removed from the soldering fixture I cleaned up all the joints. I then set up my mini oxycetylene torch to touch up the one joint that was shy of solder.
With everything cleaned and polished I then had to fit the flanges to the top of the block and into the pockets between the intake manifold flanges. No matter how meticulous you are with your fixturing and soldering when things are heated and cooled there's going to be some warpage. The flanges stayed flat to each other but the spacing changed a little. With some filing on the edges of the flanges and a slight elongation of the outer sets of holes the manifold dropped into place.
One more to go!
gbritnell

[gbritnell]

As you can see in the one picture I also finished up the water outlets for both heads.

[b.lindsey]

Sorry again for the picture posting problem George so thanks for giving it another go with photobucket. The tubing sure looks perfect from the pictures and the overall pictures are just amazing. What a beautiful engine....wow!!!

Bill

[Don1966]

That engine is really turning out to be a master piece. I am glad I gad a chance to hold it in my hands and get to talk to you in person George. Your my hero and I still want to grow up to be like you. Just some awesome craftsmanship.  did I say .......I like................. 


Don

[petertha]

Looks awesome George.
- if you happen to have a sketch of your bender, I'd love to see it
- can you please brand name spec your solder, I'd like to replicate your recipe as much as possible
- what kind of mini OA torch do you use for jobs like this?
- and to confirm, you didn't need to heat the tubes mid way (anneal?)

[Tennessee Whiskey]

There is just nothing else that can be said of the quality of craftsmanship,  it's pretty much for the lack of a better word : PHENOMENAL.  Just how much would you charge someone,  if they brought their own stool, to watch this magic happen for a half of a day? Hey,  I'll clean the machines  ..

Eric

[gbritnell]

Eric,
If you weren't so far away my friend you could stop in any time and you wouldn't even have to clean the machines. It's too bad a lot of the fellows that I've met over the years are so widely scattered otherwise we could have a get together for talk and some spirits.
Thanks for watching.
gbritnell

[gbritnell]

Peter,
Here's some answers to your questions.
This is the silver solder and flux that I use. The solder is 56% silver.
For soldering this pipe assembly I actually used my regular torch with a small tip because I didn't know if I could get enough heat from the small one. Once I finished soldering I noticed that I had a couple of places where the solder hadn't flowed all the way around so I then used my small torch to touch them up. It did produce enough heat for that job but I was concerned that with all the extra material of the fixture absorbing heat that the little one might not be adequate.
gbritnell

[gbritnell]

Peter,
I thought I had a drawing of the larger tubing bender but I couldn't find it so tomorrow I will measure everything, make a sketch and post it.
As far as bending the tubing, I had no trouble. Here's the link to where I purchased it.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004XN8RP0/ref=s9_psimh_gw_p328_d8_i3?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=desktop-1&pf_rd_r=0G7QQTX4Y2P8ARN11W9M&pf_rd_t=36701&pf_rd_p=2079475242&pf_rd_i=desktop
gbritnell

[gbritnell]

Here are some additional pictures of the process of fitting the small tubes to the main runner.
First a short piece of tubing was bent and cut off.
Using a square I put a line on the tube and sawed it off.
I then used a .312 carbide burr to start the recess and finished it off using a .375 mounted stone in my Dremel grinder. The recess was adjusted until the short pipe sat at right angles to the main runner.
The short tube was then held in place against the main runner and a line was drawn across the tube using the flange as a guide.
The tube was then sawed to the line leaving it a little heavy. Using my disc sander and a file I slowly fitted the small pipe to the mounting flange.
Once all the tubes were fitted I held them in place and drew a line around the outside onto the main runner. The small tube was removed and another line was drawn inside of the first line leaving enough stock for the wall thickness of the tubing. This was opened up with a conical carbide burr. Once the hole was opened I removed the burr from around the inside edge.
The small tubes were then put in place using the copper rings to keep them aligned.
The parts were then soldered together.
gbritell