Category Archives: Metalworking

Hodgson Part 046, Main Rod Bearing

This entry is part 2 of 4 in the series Hodgson Rods

The main rod bearing was a purchased SAE660 bronze sleeve bearing p/n 6381K528 available from McMaster-Carr. It has the correct I.D., but the O.D. is larger and the length is a little long as well.

rodbrng01First step is to make a little 9/16″ expansion arbor to hold the bushing for machining. This was a scrap piece of aluminum tapped with a 1/8″ pipe thread and then split with a hacksaw while still chucked in the collet.

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Hodgson Part 028/031, Sump Body & Cap

This entry is part 1 of 2 in the series Hodgson Oil Sump Assembly

body14If built according to the plans, the engine sump becomes a permanent part of the crankcase once the tubes are screwed into the crankcase and then silver soldered to the sump body. I know this has worked fine for many builders in the past, but I was uncomfortable doing this. What if the threaded connections leaked oil? What would happen if the sump were damaged? To avoid these and other potential problems with a permanently attached sump, I decided to make it removable.

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Hodgson Part 027, Tappet

This entry is part 4 of 4 in the series Hodgson Crankcase

tappet09Finding high quality materials here in China is a problem so I’m always looking outside-the-box to find materials for my parts. For these tappets, I ended up killing three birds with one stone. By using some hardened dowel pins from McMaster-Carr, I ended up with quality steel, a ground surface finish to ride against the bronze tappet bushings, and a hard material to ride against the cam ring.

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