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All right not sure if this belongs here or if I should start an engine building thread but Ive got a Sprint ST with a sludgy Cylinder 2. I plan on decking the head and cylinder mating surface on my cnc, figured if it doesnt work or I screw up not a huge deal I can buy some good used ones for relatively cheap. The goal here is to learn. What are the gotchas when setting this up? The biggest one I see is the setup and making sure that surface is parallel. The engine is an open deck design the pic below still has the head gasket on so there isnt much material for that upper surface so I may leave that alone and just do the head if it is flat enough. Will probably be porting and polishing the heads while i'm at it just because I can:ricky

_nc_ohc=y0vHK8PDZRoAX8iVWfy&_nc_ht=scontent-den4-1.jpg
_nc_ohc=TA_OY9RydJ4AX9y6520&_nc_ht=scontent-den4-1.jpg
 
As far as getting it setup, you just have to wing it and be mindful not to clamp it in such a way to twist/distort any surfaces in the process.

The guy who used to machine my race engines told me something I hadn't thought of before since I grew up on pushrod V8's, but you can't just mill the bottom of a head to flatten it if carries a camshaft in the head.

Imagine a warped head that id bellied and you mill the belly off it. The rest of the head is still bent, including the cam journals. So if you flatten one surface be mindful of all other machined features of the part and come up with a game plan. He'd clamp warped aluminum heads to fixture plates to fix them. He'd shuffle shims around in different spots and heat the head in different areas until he got it back in shape. Pretty cool stuff.
 
Interesting I hadnt even thought of that! I will definitely keep an eye out for it!

Follow up question, will cutting the aluminum release any internal stresses that may induce warping that wasnt there before?

Near as I can tell this head does not appear to be warped so this is really a do it just to do it and get comfortable job, should be a very light cut.
 
Yes, cutting any material can release internal stress's, rendering it useless, for decking you should not need to cut deep enough to effect it. Do you have an actual straight edge to measure the block and head with? How far out are you? Your block setup typically must be parallell to crankshaft center and sturdy, as you probably already know cutting down the deck height will decrease piston to valve clearance, how much room do you have to play with? Have you measured this yet? If I'm not mistaken is'nt the ST a wet sleeve engine? If so the cylinder head provides clamping and sealing force on your sleeves, so your cutting things here will also effect all this?? Good luck, post some more pictures.
 
Not a proper straight edge but a freshly machined bar, I havent gotten all the leftover headgasket bits off the head yet but from a quick look it appears to be flat, My weekend starts monday so I'll have more info then!
and yes its a wet sleeve, Im hoping that the rusty sludge hasnt pitted the sleeve to much in the middle cylinder but I think either way I may be resleeving it
 
I picked up a Taig micro mill shortly after the pandemic started and recently got myself a 1957 SB 10k lathe. I have no idea what I should make with the lathe, but just seemed like I need one, so there it is. I got it cheap from an estate sale and don't know the history, so I bought a manual and new felts and took it apart to clean and replace felts before I used it. There doesn't seem to be much wear, so I suspect it lived an easy life. Cleaning/rebuild kept me busy for a few afternoons. Now I've turned a few things, but with no goal in mind. I periodically look around my garage and at my bikes to see if something square should be round instead, lol. I'm lurking around the hobby machinist forums to see what ideas I come up with.

I used my mill to create a mount for a cheap quick-change tool post that came with the lathe. It took a whole lot of tiny passes to remove steel. That takes a lot of patience with a micro mill. I'd like to upgrade that someday, but there's not much available between mine (80lbs) and Bridgeport/clones that are several hundred or over 1k lbs. Precision Matthews seems to sell some nice stuff, so that's what's on my radar for now. I'll keep my eye on estate sales and the local CL, but I've yet to see a bench top mill.
 

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I've been searching for a decent used lather for about 18 months.
No Luck.
I'd rather have an old 10k than an new Bolton/Grizzly for example.
 
MVI said:
I've been searching for a decent used lather for about 18 months.
No Luck.
I'd rather have an old 10k than an new Bolton/Grizzly for example.
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I just got lucky that the family priced the lathe I found below market and that I found it first. It came with at least $1k worth of tooling and measuring tools too. There's a similar one on the local CL now and they're asking over twice as much.

I'd like to find a US-made benchtop mill too, but I don't know if those exist. I don't want a full-sized bridgeport - there's no room for it in my garage.
 
yes, you need to buy some lottery tickets, lucky dude

my little HF Benchtop Mill does a lot of stuff great, just not fast.

If and when I have the space, an old full size mill will be procured.
 
palada said:
I just got lucky that the family priced the lathe I found below market and that I found it first. It came with at least $1k worth of tooling and measuring tools too. There's a similar one on the local CL now and they're asking over twice as much.

I'd like to find a US-made benchtop mill too, but I don't know if those exist. I don't want a full-sized bridgeport - there's no room for it in my garage.
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There are some intermediate size machines, but mostly older and fairly obscure- Clausing for one made a quite nice mill-drill scale machine back in the day, but they're not super common. Sometimes those sorts of machines have idiosyncratic or equally obscure tooling. An import mill-drill with R8 spindle is quite capable, though some care in selection is needed.
 
gpounce said:
There are some intermediate size machines, but mostly older and fairly obscure- Clausing for one made a quite nice mill-drill scale machine back in the day, but they're not super common. Sometimes those sorts of machines have idiosyncratic or equally obscure tooling. An import mill-drill with R8 spindle is quite capable, though some care in selection is needed.
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I didn't know Clausing made one. Gives me something to look for.

I'm hoping to find a used Precision Matthews mill eventually. I've never seen one on the local CL though and I've been looking for about 9 mo. Maybe I get lucky at another estate sale. Otherwise, PM is the brand that seems to always be recommended for hobbyists so even if I buy new, it will likely be one of those.
 
palada said:
I didn't know Clausing made one. Gives me something to look for.

I'm hoping to find a used Precision Matthews mill eventually. I've never seen one on the local CL though and I've been looking for about 9 mo. Maybe I get lucky at another estate sale. Otherwise, PM is the brand that seems to always be recommended for hobbyists so even if I buy new, it will likely be one of those.
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Clausing Millers Models 8520 & 8525

Machine Tool Archive, lathes.co.uk, Tony Griffiths
www.lathes.co.uk

I've only seen 2 in person in quite a few years, one in an aerospace shop the other came thru an architectural salvage joint. The latter sold quickly for about $2k on ebay. Though of a similar size to analagous modern import mill-drills, the quality of materials and construction was considerably better. There are other examples of mills of similar size.. some smaller though probably the production style horizontal mills are more common (Burke, Nichols, etc). Having a quill instead of a fixed vertical spindle is a big win.. my Bridgeport is often used as a drill press.
 
Man my HF mill was fine to start with and definitly proved to me that I could justify a nice mill, but I cant say I've even thought about it since it was sold. the Tormach is so much easier to "manually" cut with just with the jog pendant its made everything so much easier. Just finished up a couple of new AR lowers half milled by program and half "hand" milled. Time to run t o the range!
 
I am happy with my little HF Mill, so far, for doing small alum parts it is fine, compact, etc. Lots of backlash though.
I guess I am now thinking if I should do some of the simple littlemachineshop upgrades, belt drive and the air lift, etc.
Just ordered a halo light for it.

Issue is not so much the price tag for real mill, but I do love the small footprint and portability of the X2 / HF
If I had the space, I'd prefer an used full sized mill
 
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I did like the fact the little HF was R8 capable, and yes I will keep my tooling and collets when it is time to upgrade to a REAL MANS MILL :queenie
 
gpounce said:

Clausing Millers Models 8520 & 8525

Machine Tool Archive, lathes.co.uk, Tony Griffiths
www.lathes.co.uk

I've only seen 2 in person in quite a few years, one in an aerospace shop the other came thru an architectural salvage joint. The latter sold quickly for about $2k on ebay. Though of a similar size to analagous modern import mill-drills, the quality of materials and construction was considerably better. There are other examples of mills of similar size.. some smaller though probably the production style horizontal mills are more common (Burke, Nichols, etc). Having a quill instead of a fixed vertical spindle is a big win.. my Bridgeport is often used as a drill press.
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There was a Clausing 8520 on the local CL this weekend for $1k. I wouldn't have paid attention except for this exchange last week. I emailed the guy in the morning and it took 8 hours for him to reply that someone just picked it up :-( Would have been nice had he answered me sooner. I don't recall ever seeing one of those on CL before, so I'm guessing it'll be a while before I see the next one.

I'll be keeping my eye out for a similar one or a Millrite or Rockwell in that size range. I don't have 220v or the space in my garage for a bigger mill so those 1/2 size look perfect for me. I generally prefer US-made stuff, so I'm not seriously looking at imports at the moment. I will consider a Grizzly if I find a decent used one.
 
palada said:
There was a Clausing 8520 on the local CL this weekend for $1k. I wouldn't have paid attention except for this exchange last week. I emailed the guy in the morning and it took 8 hours for him to reply that someone just picked it up :-( Would have been nice had he answered me sooner. I don't recall ever seeing one of those on CL before, so I'm guessing it'll be a while before I see the next one.

I'll be keeping my eye out for a similar one or a Millrite or Rockwell in that size range. I don't have 220v or the space in my garage for a bigger mill so those 1/2 size look perfect for me. I generally prefer US-made stuff, so I'm not seriously looking at imports at the moment. I will consider a Grizzly if I find a decent used one.
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IIRC Iv'e seen one Rockwell at a swapmeet but didn't look at it in detail, though folks say they are well worth obtaining- same with the Rockwell lathes. European machines would be a good move, though they will tend to expensive unless you get lucky.
 
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