I just finished a project to help the manual raising/lowering of the big 16” guns on the USS Iowa. It’s an honor to be able to work on historic old iron, be it a train, ship, engine, tractor, whatever. These are the machines that made the modern world and they deserve to be preserved.
I felt your frustration and your joy. I bet all of us that watch your channel have felt the disappointment of having Plans A, B and C fail and the joy of Plan X finally working out!
Making a thin and skinny casting like that with no hard spots might be challenging. And there's nothing worse than machining a chill casting with hard and brittle spots in it. So as counterintuitive as it sounds, it might be easier to buy a commercial piece of cast iron bar and machine it to size. It'd take a lot of drilling and boring, but it's going to be nice and uniform, with no bad spots.
Check to see if you can obtain a standard size case iron engine sleeve that can be machined to fit. When I had my automotive machine shop I had a large supply of standard size sleeves anywhere from 1/8" thick wall to 1/4" wall thickness. David Richards may have a source.
Melling makes cast iron sleeves for engines. Check them out, it might save you a ton of time. Then on the sleeve removal; heat a band red hot up the side if the sleeve. The grains if the the material will slide over themselves and relieve the press fit. The sleeve should almost fall out. Fun stuff.
Check out Melling for a ready made sleeve. They are available in lots of sizes. When we remove blind sleeves we just bore them until they are paper thin and just fall out.
Then he wouldn't have a model of where the ports would go. Also check out Los Angeles sleeve company for raw materials. But a great idea about boring out the sleeve, my initial thought until I saw the complicated placement of the ports
Tricky job. It's going to test you! Always good to see you out at the museum. Reminds me of the old days watching you work on the old Lodge and Shipley.
For a Mung Bean scientist your not a bad machinist. I thought that was going to end up on Brian Blocks table for sure. Well done mate you'll get er done. Cheers from down under.
Make your press tool out of better material. Then just heat the thing, cool it and press it out. I feel certain it will come by that method just can't hurry it. :-) We press water pump bearings out all the time and many times they are very stuck and rusty. A good pressure against them combined with heat to the outside and they always come.
I appreciate you showing this stage of the stoker engine restoration project, especially since it didn't go according to plan. I have lived in the Nashville area since 1980. I remember seeing the locomotive when my grade school class visited Centennial Park. It will be awesome to see the locomotive back in operation after all of these years!
A technique I have used for this application is to (a) appropriately heat the block area then (b) place a thin cloth loaded with dry ice inside a plastic bag. It's necessary to stuff a shop towel or other item to keep the dry ice bag from falling through. Usually the heated block area along with the shrunken cylinder will provide sufficient contact reduction for the press to be successful in removing the sleeve.
As a small child I remember lying in bed at night and hearing the steam locos that were about a mile away. So, of all the videos that you do, the best have to be working on the old 0-4-0 or other steam projects. Thanks, Dee
Nice.. Keith I love watching you. You Mr. Pete Adam, All I can say is THANK YOU guys... you learned me right! Hearing the engine whistle behind ya was great. Seeing you like all the machinsts solving problems is exactly what works. I salute you sir.
Thanks for the content Keith - always like to watch the process and see how you slay the demons. This is not about giving you any advice this is about thanking you for the entertainment and teaching me how to think about different ways to approach a problem.
Hi Keith,here is my tuppence worth. From previous experience I have run a long keyway broach down the inside of stubborn old liners in several passes. This significantly weakens the interference between liner and outer bore making them real easy to push out. Even a block of hardwood and a hammer is sufficient to shift the liner thus treated. The idea is to not go through the wall thickness but merely to gouge a series of partially depthened keyway troughs inside the liner to loosen the liner's grip. Eccentric boring of the liner sleeve is another method I've been witness to. The eccentric boring method was accomplished with a Van Norman portable cylinder boring bar. The cylinder block set horizontally on a shaper table and a keyway cutting tool would also work well to weaken the liners grip whilst maintaining the majority of the liner intact.
Reminds me of the time that Ed Beard (the machinist at Illinois Railway Museum) made cylinder liners for one of the steam locomotives. We heated the cylinders with a torpedo heater. As we slid the liner in, the temperature equalized when the liner was half way in. The following week end, Ed showed up with 200# of dry ice. We heated the cylinder with the torpedo heater and then put the dry ice in and slid the liner the rest of the way in. Also reminds me of putting wrist pins into a Cummins diesel engine. Freeze the wrist pins and they slide in with no problems
Keith, you are approaching this the right way. I have re-sleeved many engines, and for what you are tasked with, your approach is sound. IMHO. The only other thing you can consider is if the clearance permits, you can use a small die grinder with a cone burr. Cut yourself a slit down the middle, and the sleeve will come right out. I cannot tell for sure what the ID is, but I have done that a couple of times on 4" and 5" bores. Great video. Good luck!
On all of the ships I was on we had an oven large enough to put that casting in. We would have heated up the casting so that the gap between the insert(sleeve) and the casting would have grown enough to loosen the rust and allow the sleeve to be pressed out. The one thing we would have made sure of though was to ram molding sand into the sleeve so that the heat wouldn't have reached the sleeve and would have kept the sleeve cooler than the casting (relatively cooler that is). Worked every time. Good luck pressing the last sleeve out!
Good training video to show how to operate equipment in an unsafe manner and without PPE! It also looked like a ghost was in the room with the fan moving and door opening and closing. ( I heard the wind )
Hi Keith! Having some experience with repairing steam locomotives, always heat the thing! Heat is the key. Sometimes heating the part and then trickling water on the part to be removed shrinks it and it will break loose. Good luck and I admire all seek to restore the iron horse running on the rails!
@@LambertZero It is a narrow diameter in this case, that is true, but using an easy striking electrode might be the way to go. We do not need any good looking beads.
Cast iron sleeves can be a bit funny when you do that. I have on more than one occasion done that and had the weld bead break away from the iron. The thing is you cant really weld it properly as if you preheat it it defeats the shrink. When I do that I usually just use the mig as it will shrink the most and you can lay the bead in hot and thick without heating the parent metal to much. . If it was in my workshop I would just put it into the mill and plunge down the side of the bush in a couple of spots to make it thin but not break through. When you do that they virtually fall out. I am wary about putting a cast iron valve into the press as you don't really know how fragile they are.
@Tsunauticus III The thing is it could be given a higher priority. As the first thing to do. It is safer to try to shrink the sleeves wit a couple of weld beads than to use the biggest hydraulic press and pile on the pressure until something gives. Cast iron will crack under pressure. Less force is better.
I have 10 other ideas, probably none that you aren't already considering. So, as usual, I'll just sit back with a cup of coffee and watch you do the work :) Great stuff as always, Keith.
LA Sleeve in CA specializes in custom spun cast iron sleeves and can CNC machine the porting exactly per the originals. I've used their sleeves in motorcycle cylinders for over 30 years. A top notch company, they service many different industries and I wouldn't be surprised if they've made sleeves for this application before.
Hi from the U.K. Keith, something i have had a lot of success withon jobs like this is tap a thread into the sleeve and either press on the tap to push it out or thread a stud to push on.. Great vids great work :)
Sleeve put up a good fight! I think Fenner had a similar situation where there was no access to the back edge of a sleeve. He made a steel puck that fit the bore, then brazed it from the open side. Then pressed it from the blind/narrow side. Its helped me out a few times, maybe it will help you as well.
Check for commercial produced cast iron sleeves used in internal combustion engine rebuilding. Others have suggested this, I just adding another voice to those. Commercial sleeve will have stable metallurgy and controlled grain structure
When you go to push them back in you could turn up a puck to fit the top to support the sleeve all the way around. Squatch253 Senior did this to pull in cam bearings in a tractor engine, worked well.
I see you are using the hydraulic press with the factory release valve setup. I am surprised you haven't made a larger valve setup to make releasing the press a ton easier. I actually bought a typical water valve replacement handle/knob, and fit it to the valve to allow me to very easily release the pressure as slowly as I like, or even wide open without any real hand effort. Does make a huge difference. Thumbs Up!
What a tool you don’t have! 😁. Love your shop it’s amazing how much equipment you do have. Slightly jealous as I am machine shop tool poor. But that’s one reason I love watching your channel. Love this project
One suggestion to possibly prevent a disaster I would encourage using some thick plate steel to take most of the load spanning between the two I-beams so the cast iron is no longer carrying the multiple tonsvof pressure through the casting, something it was not designed to do. Because I kept visualizing the entire casting suddenly snapping in two! Best of luck, I don't think (within reason) you can over-heat the main casting, oh and job well done!
a plan is an idea so that you have something to deviate from if it does not go correctly, completing the objective is a job well done - kind of like the difference between fishing and catching fish
I've heard that no plan lasts longer than contact with the enemy. I guess you could say that no plan lasts longer than contact with the machine. That's been my experience, on the occasions when I'm attempting a task I haven't done before. I still run into those jobs, after 45 years of fixing things.
This looks like something I did to a water pump many years ago. Cast iron sleeves! Who would have thought that cast iron was needed for something like this? Because the sleeves I removed were shorter I used a hack saw blade to cut a slot, then heated the outside and used liquid nitrogen to cool the inside followed by a few taps and the sleeves contracted and fell out. Unlike your pump, I had new, ready made sleeves available to press back in. I used to use a liquid metal filler to patch pitting in water valve seats, darn water is abrasive and wears out water pumps like you wouldn't believe, and my company hated to spend money on replacement if they could avoid it.
Not that this would in any way be applicable in this instance, but I happened upon a method of removing stuck/frozen bearing races. I have an old Jeep and while replacing the rear axle bearings, one was frozen in place. With little way of pulling it out, I decided to try to rapidly cool it. I used a can of compressed air readily available at WalMart, turned it upside down and sprayed the race until it was completely frozen. Put on a glove and pulled the race out by hand. It did take two tries but it came right out. I have since used this method on other stubborn bearing races and it has worked every time.
When machining the sleeve standard practice is to mill those ports. It will be quicker and easier by far. When installing do not heat the casting, warm it to take the chill out, but that is all you would want to do. You keep heat away to not chance cracking the casting. Liquid nitrogen the sleeves and drop them in the holes with the ports lined up and the walk away.
One way i've seen stubborn sleeves get popped out in the past is somewhat tricky, but not out of this world, and it involves heating the casting as the first step. Doesn't need to be much, but enough to get everyone playing. Then, you need a specialized bit of kit, specifically, a tube with many holes drilled through it (kinda like a machine gun sleeve, but with smaller holes, and capped at one end). You put that tube in the sleeve and through the uncapped end, via a tube, you put whatever cool liquid, at pressure, you have. It rapidly cools the sleeve and if all things are kosher, you can even drive that sleeve out by hand, have seen it happen twice now with old CAT engines, the otherwise unwilling sleeve simply fell out. :))
If you can cut a groove in one side of the liner most of the way through, the liner will collapse relieving the tension holding the liner in the cylinder. Good job for a shaper if you can rig it right. Looks like your heating-chilling method is the easiest way.
When I saw your push tool I thought the tangs would bend. Try a straight bar backed up with a disc that is as big around as you can fit. That way you will be working on the shear strength of the metal and it should not bend.
Lots of comments on using dry ice to cool the cylindrical casting, but water will remove heat quickly and a CO2 fire extinguisher will really chill it down. big heating oven would possibly be better for a more even heat up overnight say, then a quick shrink before pushing it out with an improved push plate hopefully. Thanks for an interesting vid though Keith, and good luck with the second sleeve.
There should be better support with press plates on the bottom side so more of the pressing load is applied closer to the liner. That's a wide span there and I was waiting for the entire piece to crack down the middle.
Detroit diesels have the same problems we made a wooden stopper for the bottom and put dry ice in it also any wet sleeved engine has it too before tool companies started making bottom sleeve pullers we made our own
Just get a spot on the sleeve cherry red and run that hot spot the length of the sleeve. The spot expands, crushes itself and then when it cools the crushed spot pulls the circumference down....the sleeve will practically fall out.
Hi Keith, I machine up motorcycle cylinders all the time but use a good cast iron 250 grade from solid billet and machine the ports on a Bridgeport mill, on alloy barrels we do an interference fit after testing how big they expand when heated up but on old cast barrels they are pressed in cold with a lesser interference fit to avoid cracking the cast barrel. If you dont use a good quality cast iron you can end up with the cast been porous on the final cuts which is not good.
Mr. Rucker, this looks like a good job for a shaper. Reach right in and cut a slot down the length of the sleeve and either compress the sleeve or take it out in two peaces.
I would be a bit wary about casting the sleeve with the ports as the pattern and casting of it might take quite a few tries to iron out any issues. Nothing worse than getting it installed then upon finishing the bore finding some inclusions, hard spots or gas holes. For the extra time it takes to make that out of cast iron bar / hollow bar stock it really isn't worth the risk and expense. IMHO
When you said you had a part to press out and that you would use the museum’s press, I flashed in that flat belt pulley for the Vance planer. That extraction was a battle royale and I was hoping this wasn’t round 2. I know you’ve got this, you just need to perfect the pusher. You’re getting advice from some heavy hitters (Brian and Bailey stand out) so you’ll find the right answer. Keep on pressing! 😎👍👏
I really thought those inserts could handle all that force. They were pretty thick. Maybe a setup where the forces are applied to several locations instead of just the two? Keep us up to date, Keith. This stoker project is great.
Loved the way the train whistle blew right on cue as the first broken piece dropped out.
That's what I love about Keith's channel: He shows the good, and the bad.
I just finished a project to help the manual raising/lowering of the big 16” guns on the USS Iowa. It’s an honor to be able to work on historic old iron, be it a train, ship, engine, tractor, whatever. These are the machines that made the modern world and they deserve to be preserved.
Keith, It's good to see old school engineering at it's best.
Hearing that whistle again reminded me of your older videos. The museum's press making violent noises also reminded me of your older videos. :)
I felt your frustration and your joy. I bet all of us that watch your channel have felt the disappointment of having Plans A, B and C fail and the joy of Plan X finally working out!
Talking about “well ventilated area” :)
The door in the background, moving by itself, gives some great “haunted house” vibes :) I like it a lot!
Hydraulic presses are the adult version of the Jack-In-The-Box toy.
Can't wait to see you making the sand mold and machining the finished casting.
I really love your videos because you never give up even in the worst cases untill the job is done.
Making a thin and skinny casting like that with no hard spots might be challenging. And there's nothing worse than machining a chill casting with hard and brittle spots in it. So as counterintuitive as it sounds, it might be easier to buy a commercial piece of cast iron bar and machine it to size. It'd take a lot of drilling and boring, but it's going to be nice and uniform, with no bad spots.
That steam whistle had perfect timing.
It amazes me that some people don't like Keith's videos. I find them very informative. GL with the other sleeve. Waiting for the next installment.
Check to see if you can obtain a standard size case iron engine sleeve that can be machined to fit. When I had my automotive machine shop I had a large supply of standard size sleeves anywhere from 1/8" thick wall to 1/4" wall thickness. David Richards may have a source.
I suggested the same thing in a previous video, use a commercial cast iron sleeve.
Agree... service parts for internal combustion engines are off the shelf, and of tightly controlled metallurgy and grain structure
...or grey cast iron tube from McMaster-Carr.
Melling makes cast iron sleeves for engines. Check them out, it might save you a ton of time. Then on the sleeve removal; heat a band red hot up the side if the sleeve. The grains if the the material will slide over themselves and relieve the press fit. The sleeve should almost fall out. Fun stuff.
Check out Melling for a ready made sleeve. They are available in lots of sizes. When we remove blind sleeves we just bore them until they are paper thin and just fall out.
Then he wouldn't have a model of where the ports would go. Also check out Los Angeles sleeve company for raw materials. But a great idea about boring out the sleeve, my initial thought until I saw the complicated placement of the ports
Rambozo Clown Mellings sleeves sound perfect, centrifugal cast iron has near perfect metallurgy for the job!
Great to see you back at the museum. I enjoyed the series from there.
Tricky job. It's going to test you! Always good to see you out at the museum. Reminds me of the old days watching you work on the old Lodge and Shipley.
For a Mung Bean scientist your not a bad machinist. I thought that was going to end up on Brian Blocks table for sure. Well done mate you'll get er done. Cheers from down under.
Make your press tool out of better material. Then just heat the thing, cool it and press it out. I feel certain it will come by that method just can't hurry it. :-) We press water pump bearings out all the time and many times they are very stuck and rusty. A good pressure against them combined with heat to the outside and they always come.
What kinds of water pumps? The big canned motor pumps used in power plants?
I appreciate you showing this stage of the stoker engine restoration project, especially since it didn't go according to plan. I have lived in the Nashville area since 1980. I remember seeing the locomotive when my grade school class visited Centennial Park. It will be awesome to see the locomotive back in operation after all of these years!
A technique I have used for this application is to (a) appropriately heat the block area then (b) place a thin cloth loaded with dry ice inside a plastic bag. It's necessary to stuff a shop towel or other item to keep the dry ice bag from falling through. Usually the heated block area along with the shrunken cylinder will provide sufficient contact reduction for the press to be successful in removing the sleeve.
As a small child I remember lying in bed at night and hearing the steam locos that were about a mile away. So, of all the videos that you do, the best have to be working on the old 0-4-0 or other steam projects. Thanks, Dee
Nice.. Keith I love watching you. You Mr. Pete Adam, All I can say is THANK YOU guys... you learned me right! Hearing the engine whistle behind ya was great. Seeing you like all the machinsts solving problems is exactly what works. I salute you sir.
You are amazing!!! I hope to visit the museum in the future.
Thanks for the content Keith - always like to watch the process and see how you slay the demons. This is not about giving you any advice this is about thanking you for the entertainment and teaching me how to think about different ways to approach a problem.
The steam whistle at @10:33 was very well timed...
"It's out!" ... whoot!
Hi Keith,here is my tuppence worth. From previous experience I have run a long keyway broach down the inside of stubborn old liners in several passes. This significantly weakens the interference between liner and outer bore making them real easy to push out. Even a block of hardwood and a hammer is sufficient to shift the liner thus treated. The idea is to not go through the wall thickness but merely to gouge a series of partially depthened keyway troughs inside the liner to loosen the liner's grip. Eccentric boring of the liner sleeve is another method I've been witness to. The eccentric boring method was accomplished with a Van Norman portable cylinder boring bar. The cylinder block set horizontally on a shaper table and a keyway cutting tool would also work well to weaken the liners grip whilst maintaining the majority of the liner intact.
Reminds me of the time that Ed Beard (the machinist at Illinois Railway Museum) made cylinder liners for one of the steam locomotives. We heated the cylinders with a torpedo heater. As we slid the liner in, the temperature equalized when the liner was half way in. The following week end, Ed showed up with 200# of dry ice. We heated the cylinder with the torpedo heater and then put the dry ice in and slid the liner the rest of the way in. Also reminds me of putting wrist pins into a Cummins diesel engine. Freeze the wrist pins and they slide in with no problems
These are my favorite types of videos
Heat the main casting by connecting a steam hose. Use dry ice inside the sleeve. It will fall out.
I have no ideas but I think you have a plan! Thanks for including us in the effort so far, Greg.
Keith, you are approaching this the right way. I have re-sleeved many engines, and for what you are tasked with, your approach is sound. IMHO. The only other thing you can consider is if the clearance permits, you can use a small die grinder with a cone burr. Cut yourself a slit down the middle, and the sleeve will come right out. I cannot tell for sure what the ID is, but I have done that a couple of times on 4" and 5" bores. Great video. Good luck!
I love working on stuff like that ,and solving problems
On all of the ships I was on we had an oven large enough to put that casting in. We would have heated up the casting so that the gap between the insert(sleeve) and the casting would have grown enough to loosen the rust and allow the sleeve to be pressed out. The one thing we would have made sure of though was to ram molding sand into the sleeve so that the heat wouldn't have reached the sleeve and would have kept the sleeve cooler than the casting (relatively cooler that is). Worked every time. Good luck pressing the last sleeve out!
Good training video to show how to operate equipment in an unsafe manner and without PPE! It also looked like a ghost was in the room with the fan moving and door opening and closing. ( I heard the wind )
I think it looks stunning
Hi Keith! Having some experience with repairing steam locomotives, always heat the thing! Heat is the key. Sometimes heating the part and then trickling water on the part to be removed shrinks it and it will break loose. Good luck and I admire all seek to restore the iron horse running on the rails!
Great work Keith! Your volunteer work is an inspiration!
Another plan A can be to make a welding bead along the inside of the sleeve with a stick welder. When it cool down the sleeve will come right out.
welding on cast iron inside a hole is a lot of fun.
@@LambertZero
It is a narrow diameter in this case, that is true, but using an easy striking electrode might be the way to go. We do not need any good looking beads.
Cast iron sleeves can be a bit funny when you do that. I have on more than one occasion done that and had the weld bead break away from the iron. The thing is you cant really weld it properly as if you preheat it it defeats the shrink. When I do that I usually just use the mig as it will shrink the most and you can lay the bead in hot and thick without heating the parent metal to much. . If it was in my workshop I would just put it into the mill and plunge down the side of the bush in a couple of spots to make it thin but not break through. When you do that they virtually fall out. I am wary about putting a cast iron valve into the press as you don't really know how fragile they are.
@Tsunauticus III
The thing is it could be given a higher priority. As the first thing to do. It is safer to try to shrink the sleeves wit a couple of weld beads than to use the biggest hydraulic press and pile on the pressure until something gives. Cast iron will crack under pressure. Less force is better.
I have 10 other ideas, probably none that you aren't already considering. So, as usual, I'll just sit back with a cup of coffee and watch you do the work :) Great stuff as always, Keith.
Bit by bit you will get it done. Thanks for sharing.
Wonderful! I love seeing how you deal with problems! I hope you can show us making the pattern and casting process.
10:31 Uncanny timing, w/ the Vulcan whistle in the background.🚂👍😉
LA Sleeve in CA specializes in custom spun cast iron sleeves and can CNC machine the porting exactly per the originals. I've used their sleeves in motorcycle cylinders for over 30 years. A top notch company, they service many different industries and I wouldn't be surprised if they've made sleeves for this application before.
Hi from the U.K. Keith, something i have had a lot of success withon jobs like this is tap a thread into the sleeve and either press on the tap to push it out or thread a stud to push on.. Great vids great work :)
Interesting restoration Keith ~
Sleeve put up a good fight! I think Fenner had a similar situation where there was no access to the back edge of a sleeve. He made a steel puck that fit the bore, then brazed it from the open side. Then pressed it from the blind/narrow side. Its helped me out a few times, maybe it will help you as well.
Thanks for sharing your knowledge
10:32- Perfect timed whistle in the background! 😁
Check for commercial produced cast iron sleeves used in internal combustion engine rebuilding. Others have suggested this, I just adding another voice to those. Commercial sleeve will have stable metallurgy and controlled grain structure
When you go to push them back in you could turn up a puck to fit the top to support the sleeve all the way around. Squatch253 Senior did this to pull in cam bearings in a tractor engine, worked well.
I see you are using the hydraulic press with the factory release valve setup. I am surprised you haven't made a larger valve setup to make releasing the press a ton easier. I actually bought a typical water valve replacement handle/knob, and fit it to the valve to allow me to very easily release the pressure as slowly as I like, or even wide open without any real hand effort. Does make a huge difference. Thumbs Up!
Ace result Keith. Thank you.
What a tool you don’t have! 😁. Love your shop it’s amazing how much equipment you do have. Slightly jealous as I am machine shop tool poor. But that’s one reason I love watching your channel. Love this project
These sleeves seem like a perfect application of CNC or even metal 3D printing.
THANK YOU...for sharing. I watched and as always very much enjoyed.
Great job Keith!!! Really looking forward to the next video on this project. Love it!!! Ahhh, reminds me of the Vance project. Loved that one as well.
I used to run a couple beads of weld on large bearing races the wouldn't come out, when the weld cools it shrinks and usually works pretty well
On engine dry sleeves ( cast iron as well) welding beads worked without a puller
@Tsunauticus III yes I did point was no need 4 puller
welding beads are the way to go on this.
@Tsunauticus III Yes I did, its just a comment on how well it works nothing more.
@Tsunauticus III relax bud, no need to get your shorts in a knot
Thread it, screw in a plug, press on the plug.
I was thinking the same thing- In a locomotive shop they probably have some monster taps
Those are both good ideas either a tap or single point threading
@@scottpecora371 Or put a puck in there and weld it in to push against. Of course if it's not high enough up, it might break in half (again). :)
Great job Keith! Look forward to the next video.
Very interesting Keith thanks for sharing 👍🇦🇺
One suggestion to possibly prevent a disaster I would encourage using some thick plate steel to take most of the load spanning between the two I-beams so the cast iron is no longer carrying the multiple tonsvof pressure through the casting, something it was not designed to do. Because I kept visualizing the entire casting suddenly snapping in two!
Best of luck, I don't think (within reason) you can over-heat the main casting, oh and job well done!
"A good plan that didn't work." Welcome to my world.
a plan is an idea so that you have something to deviate from if it does not go correctly, completing the objective is a job well done - kind of like the difference between fishing and catching fish
I've heard that no plan lasts longer than contact with the enemy. I guess you could say that no plan lasts longer than contact with the machine. That's been my experience, on the occasions when I'm attempting a task I haven't done before.
I still run into those jobs, after 45 years of fixing things.
Plan A fails there are 25 more options
This looks like something I did to a water pump many years ago. Cast iron sleeves! Who would have thought that cast iron was needed for something like this? Because the sleeves I removed were shorter I used a hack saw blade to cut a slot, then heated the outside and used liquid nitrogen to cool the inside followed by a few taps and the sleeves contracted and fell out. Unlike your pump, I had new, ready made sleeves available to press back in. I used to use a liquid metal filler to patch pitting in water valve seats, darn water is abrasive and wears out water pumps like you wouldn't believe, and my company hated to spend money on replacement if they could avoid it.
Great show looking forward to the next one.
Not that this would in any way be applicable in this instance, but I happened upon a method of removing stuck/frozen bearing races. I have an old Jeep and while replacing the rear axle bearings, one was frozen in place. With little way of pulling it out, I decided to try to rapidly cool it. I used a can of compressed air readily available at WalMart, turned it upside down and sprayed the race until it was completely frozen. Put on a glove and pulled the race out by hand. It did take two tries but it came right out. I have since used this method on other stubborn bearing races and it has worked every time.
When machining the sleeve standard practice is to mill those ports. It will be quicker and easier by far. When installing do not heat the casting, warm it to take the chill out, but that is all you would want to do. You keep heat away to not chance cracking the casting. Liquid nitrogen the sleeves and drop them in the holes with the ports lined up and the walk away.
That sleeve was really in there!
Good morning Keith!
A friend of mine had an old pizza oven he used to normalize BMW cylinder heads and change valve guides.
Handy if you can buy one for the right price!
It feels great when a plan works. I'm sure the second cylinder sleeve removal will go more smoothly.
Thank you
Nice video Keith. Hopefully everybody is doing well in Nashville. Matt C.
I use a trick to get some press fit sleeves in. I pack them in dry ice before trying to fit them most times they slide right in.
On dry sleeve motors we used to weld beads up and down the sleeve it would shrink the sleeve a little bit and allow the sleeve to come out
One way i've seen stubborn sleeves get popped out in the past is somewhat tricky, but not out of this world, and it involves heating the casting as the first step. Doesn't need to be much, but enough to get everyone playing. Then, you need a specialized bit of kit, specifically, a tube with many holes drilled through it (kinda like a machine gun sleeve, but with smaller holes, and capped at one end). You put that tube in the sleeve and through the uncapped end, via a tube, you put whatever cool liquid, at pressure, you have. It rapidly cools the sleeve and if all things are kosher, you can even drive that sleeve out by hand, have seen it happen twice now with old CAT engines, the otherwise unwilling sleeve simply fell out. :))
If you can cut a groove in one side of the liner most of the way through, the liner will collapse relieving the tension holding the liner in the cylinder. Good job for a shaper if you can rig it right.
Looks like your heating-chilling method is the easiest way.
Pack the sleeve with dry ice, and gently heat the outside of the main housing while pushing.
When I saw your push tool I thought the tangs would bend. Try a straight bar backed up with a disc that is as big around as you can fit. That way you will be working on the shear strength of the metal and it should not bend.
Loved to watch it. Thank you
Keith set the cylinder in your Carlton Drill with a boring head. Cut most of the sleeve out and the thin wall will not have as much out word force.
Lots of comments on using dry ice to cool the cylindrical casting, but water will remove heat quickly and a CO2 fire extinguisher will really chill it down. big heating oven would possibly be better for a more even heat up overnight say, then a quick shrink before pushing it out with an improved push plate hopefully. Thanks for an interesting vid though Keith, and good luck with the second sleeve.
There should be better support with press plates on the bottom side so more of the pressing load is applied closer to the liner. That's a wide span there and I was waiting for the entire piece to crack down the middle.
dcrahn there’s not a snow ball’s chance in hell that little press is ever going to break that casting in half.
A perfect Bang-Crash-Whistle @ 10:30!
Send it Adam Booth. He can use his shaper to dig furrows on three sides of the inside of the sleeve, weakening it until it can be pulled out.
Keeping us in suspense, eh? Wonderful videos, Keith.
If possible, could you show us your pattern before you send it off?
Detroit diesels have the same problems we made a wooden stopper for the bottom and put dry ice in it also any wet sleeved engine has it too before tool companies started making bottom sleeve pullers we made our own
You may also want to try dry ice in the bore after hearing. Just a thought. I look forward to following the progress of this project!
I like how you have trained the ghost of a fireman, who lost his job when that engine was introduced, to open and close the door behind the press...
Just get a spot on the sleeve cherry red and run that hot spot the length of the sleeve.
The spot expands, crushes itself and then when it cools the crushed spot pulls the circumference down....the sleeve will practically fall out.
If it was easy then they'd let somebody else do it. Cheers. Wish you well.
If it was easy, them sleeves would come out by theirself.
Hi Keith, I machine up motorcycle cylinders all the time but use a good cast iron 250 grade from solid billet and machine the ports on a Bridgeport mill, on alloy barrels we do an interference fit after testing how big they expand when heated up but on old cast barrels they are pressed in cold with a lesser interference fit to avoid cracking the cast barrel. If you dont use a good quality cast iron you can end up with the cast been porous on the final cuts which is not good.
Mr. Rucker, this looks like a good job for a shaper. Reach right in and cut a slot down the length of the sleeve and either compress the sleeve or take it out in two peaces.
Have you looked into getting some automotive cast iron sleeves and then machining the the ports and OD?
I would be a bit wary about casting the sleeve with the ports as the pattern and casting of it might take quite a few tries to iron out any issues. Nothing worse than getting it installed then upon finishing the bore finding some inclusions, hard spots or gas holes. For the extra time it takes to make that out of cast iron bar / hollow bar stock it really isn't worth the risk and expense. IMHO
When you said you had a part to press out and that you would use the museum’s press, I flashed in that flat belt pulley for the Vance planer. That extraction was a battle royale and I was hoping this wasn’t round 2. I know you’ve got this, you just need to perfect the pusher. You’re getting advice from some heavy hitters (Brian and Bailey stand out) so you’ll find the right answer. Keep on pressing! 😎👍👏
I really thought those inserts could handle all that force. They were pretty thick.
Maybe a setup where the forces are applied to several locations instead of just the two?
Keep us up to date, Keith. This stoker project is great.
Heat it red hot, end to end , 1 or 2 inch wide with cutting head.
Cool it, it will fall out, if not, repeat opposite side.