SERVING THE MECHANICAL NEEDS OF THE MODEL T or MODEL A OWNER
I provide quality custom engine, transmission, and drive-train rebuilding for Model A's and Model T's.
I have been in the machine shop business for over thirty years. I’ve been rebuilding Model T Ford engines and transmissions for over twenty years. I offer quality service with uncompromising accuracy and attention to detail. No short-cuts are taken. No “out of the box” assembling is done. A complete machine and tool and cutter grinding shop are here to serve your needs.
Rebuilding Service
Every rebuild is treated as a unique and individual assembly. When originally assembled at the Ford factory; each of the parts of an engine, transmission, or differential assembly was matched by workers to its mating part for optimal fit-up within their individual tolerance ranges. Parts were stacked in separate assembly bins according to their measurements within the tolerance granted by the engineering dept. Thus parts were matched quickly for the best possible result. Almost one-hundred years later we no longer have that luxury.
We, the Model T owners of today, must deal with the best of the old and mismatched parts that we find at the swap meets. Most Model T engines have been rebuilt at least once in their lifetime and seldom are the parts the same ones that left the factory.
As a re-builder, I have seen newly rebabbitted sets of rods come from the suppliers with the rods so bent and the wrist pin and crank end rod holes so out of alignment (some as much as .024” out of parallelism) as to be unusable for use without precision straightening. The unsuspecting at-home re-builder, who orders rods and puts them on new pistons and reinstalls them, usually does not have the precision equipment to inspect for these types of irregularities. When his engine starts smoking and pumping oil because of a cocked piston from a misaligned rod, he seldom understands why.
At KMW each engine is regarded as a “custom job”. All machining is done to precision tolerances and proper micro-finish. Each part, new or rebuild, is checked on precision fixtures to assure proper fit-up. Engine main bearings are align-bored and then align-reamed on precision fixtures to guarantee perfect alignment of the crank shaft journals in the bearings and perfect perpendicularity to the cylinder bores. Cylinders are bored in a fixture that supports the boring bar at both ends to assure parallelism of the cylinders. This is not possible with the more modern cylinder boring machines which support the bar at one end only. Ford never aged or normalized the blocks before machining. This will spring the unsupported end of most boring systems each time the tool hits a hard spot. The boring bar takes the path of least resistance and so the cylinders are not parallel. The piston then travels up and down on an angular path in relation to the crankshaft whilst attempting to carve a strait path for itself in the cylinder and wearing out both the wrist pin and large end bearing surfaces of the rod. Disaster? Possibly, but at least shorter engine life. I check the location of previously re-bored cylinders and if the location is not correct to factory print the cylinder are re-located and re-bored on heavy milling equipment to insure straightness,parallelism and locational accuracy.
I guarantee quality workmanship. Careful, thoughtful, and experienced engineering and machine practice on an individual basis. This is, I believe, a method of doing business befitting the regard that we all have for our Model T’s and A's. Your engine is regarded as an individual and unique project. You, as a customer, are treated the same as your engine; Individually. I will discuss every aspect and option with you. I make no profit on parts. After we discuss the scope of work, I will give you a list of parts and you will choose a vendor (items like pistons, lifters, valves etc.) and deal with them direct.
In my shop I have an original K.R. Wilson pan-straightening fixture for checking the alignment of and straightening the T pan. No engine/transmission combination should ever be assembled without first checking the straightness and alignment of the pan. More crankshafts are broken from misaligned fourth main-bearings (ball cap bearing) than from any other reason. Warped, bent, and crooked pans are one of the chief, but not only, reason.
Also offered are newly cast and machined heavy duty cast iron main bearing caps. These caps are used for several applications; the chief of which is the installation of Model A or other crankshaft in a Model T engine. They are cast from hi-tensile iron and are of heavy cross-section, bolt holes are drilled and reamed for custom installation. Oil holes are drilled or milled according to individual requirements. Even without the addition of a heavier crank shaft, these are an excellent addition to any rebuild due to their added strength. ( note: with the supply by SCAT and other vendors of newly manufactured crankshafts for model T's and A's there is no longer any practical reason for putting an altered Mod. A crankshaft in a Mod. T engine. The price of the labor to modify the Mod. A crankshaft, the fact that #'s one and four journals will always be 1/8th inch out of alignment with their respective Mod.T cylinders, and the reality that when all modifications are done to the best machine quality possible you still have a crankshaft that is at least 80 yrs. old and has been subjected to an unknown number and degree of stress-cycles; make the wisdom and economy of the new crankshaft an obvious choice.
.
Contact: 775-883-3324, [email protected]
I have been in the machine shop business for over thirty years. I’ve been rebuilding Model T Ford engines and transmissions for over twenty years. I offer quality service with uncompromising accuracy and attention to detail. No short-cuts are taken. No “out of the box” assembling is done. A complete machine and tool and cutter grinding shop are here to serve your needs.
Rebuilding Service
Every rebuild is treated as a unique and individual assembly. When originally assembled at the Ford factory; each of the parts of an engine, transmission, or differential assembly was matched by workers to its mating part for optimal fit-up within their individual tolerance ranges. Parts were stacked in separate assembly bins according to their measurements within the tolerance granted by the engineering dept. Thus parts were matched quickly for the best possible result. Almost one-hundred years later we no longer have that luxury.
We, the Model T owners of today, must deal with the best of the old and mismatched parts that we find at the swap meets. Most Model T engines have been rebuilt at least once in their lifetime and seldom are the parts the same ones that left the factory.
As a re-builder, I have seen newly rebabbitted sets of rods come from the suppliers with the rods so bent and the wrist pin and crank end rod holes so out of alignment (some as much as .024” out of parallelism) as to be unusable for use without precision straightening. The unsuspecting at-home re-builder, who orders rods and puts them on new pistons and reinstalls them, usually does not have the precision equipment to inspect for these types of irregularities. When his engine starts smoking and pumping oil because of a cocked piston from a misaligned rod, he seldom understands why.
At KMW each engine is regarded as a “custom job”. All machining is done to precision tolerances and proper micro-finish. Each part, new or rebuild, is checked on precision fixtures to assure proper fit-up. Engine main bearings are align-bored and then align-reamed on precision fixtures to guarantee perfect alignment of the crank shaft journals in the bearings and perfect perpendicularity to the cylinder bores. Cylinders are bored in a fixture that supports the boring bar at both ends to assure parallelism of the cylinders. This is not possible with the more modern cylinder boring machines which support the bar at one end only. Ford never aged or normalized the blocks before machining. This will spring the unsupported end of most boring systems each time the tool hits a hard spot. The boring bar takes the path of least resistance and so the cylinders are not parallel. The piston then travels up and down on an angular path in relation to the crankshaft whilst attempting to carve a strait path for itself in the cylinder and wearing out both the wrist pin and large end bearing surfaces of the rod. Disaster? Possibly, but at least shorter engine life. I check the location of previously re-bored cylinders and if the location is not correct to factory print the cylinder are re-located and re-bored on heavy milling equipment to insure straightness,parallelism and locational accuracy.
I guarantee quality workmanship. Careful, thoughtful, and experienced engineering and machine practice on an individual basis. This is, I believe, a method of doing business befitting the regard that we all have for our Model T’s and A's. Your engine is regarded as an individual and unique project. You, as a customer, are treated the same as your engine; Individually. I will discuss every aspect and option with you. I make no profit on parts. After we discuss the scope of work, I will give you a list of parts and you will choose a vendor (items like pistons, lifters, valves etc.) and deal with them direct.
In my shop I have an original K.R. Wilson pan-straightening fixture for checking the alignment of and straightening the T pan. No engine/transmission combination should ever be assembled without first checking the straightness and alignment of the pan. More crankshafts are broken from misaligned fourth main-bearings (ball cap bearing) than from any other reason. Warped, bent, and crooked pans are one of the chief, but not only, reason.
Also offered are newly cast and machined heavy duty cast iron main bearing caps. These caps are used for several applications; the chief of which is the installation of Model A or other crankshaft in a Model T engine. They are cast from hi-tensile iron and are of heavy cross-section, bolt holes are drilled and reamed for custom installation. Oil holes are drilled or milled according to individual requirements. Even without the addition of a heavier crank shaft, these are an excellent addition to any rebuild due to their added strength. ( note: with the supply by SCAT and other vendors of newly manufactured crankshafts for model T's and A's there is no longer any practical reason for putting an altered Mod. A crankshaft in a Mod. T engine. The price of the labor to modify the Mod. A crankshaft, the fact that #'s one and four journals will always be 1/8th inch out of alignment with their respective Mod.T cylinders, and the reality that when all modifications are done to the best machine quality possible you still have a crankshaft that is at least 80 yrs. old and has been subjected to an unknown number and degree of stress-cycles; make the wisdom and economy of the new crankshaft an obvious choice.
.
Contact: 775-883-3324, [email protected]
