Mine too!
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Mine too!
The OMC 2-bbls can be mounted on 3.500" centers with out modification. With minor mods 3.400" is achievable.
Tim
Well, finally did the dreaded job of welding the front cover. Had spent some time thinking about a way to add enough material to allow machining for the new reeds without destroying it. I knew that I would have to do it with wire feed to deposit that much metal. I also knew in doing that, the metal would become so hot, that it would drop out of the casting. So back to the computer and the laser. Made these parts with 3 things in mind. Positioning the weld, allowing metal to deposit in front of the gasket surface without undercut , and keeping the metal from falling out. The three parts in the pics , one 1/4" thick allowed for the casting thickness and was cut back to allow metal to flow out to the gasket surface area. It also had magnets inserted that ran face to face to hold the thin triangular shaped part for centering in the reed cavity and holding the metal that would drop out and the top piece that was cut to also provide clearance for other parts of the case and had a cavity to fill with weld. Once in position they were clamped with a pair of vise grip pliers. The weld cavity was large enough to allow for the cooling that it would cause. Made the parts months ago, just had to get in the right frame of mind to trust my judgement. Nice when a plan comes together. You can see the metal puddling that the plate held in position. One side of the casting was about 30 thousands thicker and only puddled in the area of the edge for building up the gasket surface.Attachment 51438Attachment 51439Attachment 51440Attachment 51441Attachment 51442Attachment 51443Attachment 51444Attachment 51445Attachment 51446
A few more pics of the welding project and the reed cages that made the modification necessary.
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I love these so much, the sound is just breathtaking. However, I have never seen or heard a video of a 4 or 2 cylinder looper. If anyone has a link or one available let me know. I'd love to see/hear that too. Thanks
Machine work to clean up the welding of the cover and fitting of the reed assemblies. I knew that the welding would distort to case, but I was suprised at how much. It had been preheated to 450 degrees for 3 hours and kept as hot as possible during welding. Meaning that once the welding started, it was pushed as hard as possible to keep hot. The part ended up with a .035 rocker on the case to block surface. That is not a problem as the surface has to be cut back to gain enough material for reboring. When you look at where the weld is deposited and the vertical web between the reed pockets, it is hard to understand. But, thats the nature of welding.
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:cool:
The next step in processing the front cover is install the saddle blocks so that case bore can be done at 3.283. That is the case size for the 60/66 inch deflector series engine. The bearing shells are the same. This will give me more material across the bearing web in the intermediate between it and the block. The saddles were made of 6061 aluminum tube. The wall thickness was just a little smaller than I wanted for cleanup of the bore. When I turned the OD I offset the center of the tube and turned the OD .001 larger than the case and put the heavy offset section in the case. The parts were glued with T88 aircraft epoxy glue and pressed into place with enough pressure to make a .015 deflection in the ring. Each had to be held in place for 24 hours for complete cure. 6 saddles equals 6 days, so I machined the adapter plate for the mating to the Jones tower housing.
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WOW! Looks like fun!
Conrad