Some questions for anyone who has built the Howell V-2. I am having a problem getting the gear case working properly. Does anyone know the reasoning behind having the cam drive gear assembly being .005 off from center? This is hole B on the drawing sheet 15. I am running into problems with gears being too tight in some places and too loose in others. The C/C between the gear assembly and the gears on the cams calculate out as being .006 too far apart and that looks to be what is actually happening. The gears are too far apart and jam trying to climb the next tooth. The other gear centers calculate out correctly and they seem to mesh OK.
I am going to remake the gear case and would like to change it to what I think it should be but before I do I would like to know if I am missing something. I originally made the gears using a M .5 cutter and thought that was where my fit problems were coming from so I remade them using a home made hob but the results were the same.
How is the spline gear held into the crank shaft? I assume that it is loctited in place but it is not really specified.
A note for anyone else building this engine. The cavity for the gears in the case should be made oversize. There is no reason for a tight fit and it just makes things harder to make it run freely. I find the drawings somewhat difficult to follow because operations are shown on separate sheets and in the notes so when I think I have everything done I come to another sheet and find that I have another operation to go. I also find it confusing when dimensions are to three decimal places which do not translate out to any common measurement and then I find that it could have been .020 different without any problem I am used to seeing different tolerances on fractional, two place and three place dimensions and rounder off to a standard measurement when possible. Oh well onward and upward.
