After weeks of looking around for a machine shop, I returned with hat in hand to BH&P to see Dave and plead with him to do the work. Alas, he still said NO, (rather quickly?) but he did point me to Tenk Machine on Third St in London. So off I went (in my new Honda daily driver...yes I said Honda) to Tenk with the crank and flywheel.
The New Daily...the first chink in the VW armour
I went to the office door and it was locked, so I went around the corner to the main rollup door and saw all the machines toiling away in the shop. There were pallets of yokes, jigs and grapple grommets all around making this place look VERY busy so I set my expectations low that they could help lil old me.
So I stood there (in the 30+ degree heat...props to the dudes working in there!) for 5 mins or so until someone approached me. I explained my dilemma with the mating of the Chinese 8 doweled crank to the 8 doweled flywheel, and this older bald fella overheard and said "OOOOH a challenge!" and took my stuff to take a look and get back to me.
I followed up by popping in a week later where (I didn't catch the bald guys name....D'Oh!!) he said "I can press these together with the press right now" and I said "um, no a 2 piece crank seal ain't a good idea" so he laughed and said he could ream them so I can shimmy them off as I wasn't concerned with a wedge fit on a 60hp car. A couple days later I picked them up with a glove-like fit! Only $60 to boot!
FINALLY!
So I went ahead with finishing the rotating assembly. I tried heating up the cam gear and it was too tight on the snout so I popped it off before it cooled. I thought I had a good idea to put the crank in the freezer, and heat the cam gear on the stove and it did still go on tight (but went on) but the crank started to sweat profusely afterwards and I was frantically trying to stop all the water forming on the surface as it came back up to room temp. Good idea? nope. Like trying to keep an ice cold glass of ice tea from forming water on the outside of the glass!! Uggh
I wanted to finish the connecting rods this weekend as well, but the weather wasn't cooperating. So I found a bin, and assembled the rotating assembly on the kitchen table ala Rube! M'eh, it works. Its all really tight (tolerance) and rotates freely in the case, so stoked!!! Now to install the cam, and close the case up!
