Before Allyssia and I bought our property in Farmington the only way for me to get my hit and miss fix was watching YouTube videos or going over to Grampa's. With that said, over a year ago, the whole family was at Gramie and Grampas and being a nice day I went out to the garage to start an engine just for fun. My engine of choice on this particular day was a Gray engine. Now Gray is the brand of the engine not the color.
This engine has accompanied Grampa and I to many shows and earlier in the summer I had taken it to a show and ran it. It has always been such a fine running engine and an easy starter so I was shocked when trying to start it the flywheels would not spin all the way over. What we found was a pin had slipped out and got caught in the governor weight bending the half inch pin.
The bent pin is in the blue square on my picture. It was hard to get a decent picture of the pin but you can see it is sticking out and the bracket it is holding on is not flush against the main casting because of the bent pin. The pin is not bent severely but just enough to stop full rotation. Fast forward a year or so and it was time for the chain fall and some proper disassembly!
With the spreader hooked on to pull straight up on both flywheels we started going up. At about half an inch off from the engine when we realized that the timing gear would also have to come out. So with careful checking and marking we removed the timing gear.
We so carefully checked and rechecked the timing gear because it is imperative that the teeth match up exactly as they originally were or the engine wont run right or it wont run at all. With the timing gear safely out we were free to raise the flywheels and crankshaft off from the engine block.
Rather than work under the flywheels we rolled the engine away while we got the bent pin removed. We were extremely lucky that the pin only bent in one spot and was able to be pulled right out of the bracket without any trouble.
It was at this point that we were able to work in the warmth as we retreated to the machine shop in the basement. In the basement we chased down a short piece of 1/2" cold rolled round stock to make our new pin. We started with drilling the hole in it for a cotter pin and then set it up on the milling machine to cut a flat spot for the keeper bolt to rest. None of my shop pictures came out well but I did get a picture of the finished product before it was installed.
As you can see nothing super special just a two and a half inch long pin. I enjoyed making it and getting to work in the machine shop. Every time I have the chance to work in the machine shop it is a learning experience and I absolutely love it. We then moved on to reassembly which went just as smoothly as could be and thanks to our well marked gears the timing was exactly as we started.
According to the pictures here it looks like Grampa is doing all the work but I swear I was helping and not just taking pictures. Now for what we have all been waiting for, the sweet sound of this engine starting up after having been torn apart for repairs.
The Gray engine in Action
Overall it was a great day well spent. At the end of the day we had one more running engine and Grampa sent me home with my next Hit and Miss project but that is a story for another day. Stay tuned and leave a comment I love hearing everyone's input.
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