I have just rebuilt the crankshaft for a Greeves Essex and thought that I would share the experience with you.
When I purchased a 32DD Essex some 3 years ago I thought about restoring it, but ended up just replacing tyres, brakes and cables with a view to sorting out the bugs then pulling it apart reconditioning the motor and then painting it, well that didn’t happen, I just kept riding.
In the end the rattles from down below just got louder and the bike got slower, time for action.
I was determined to collect all the bits before I dismantled the motor, some +0.010” pistons from JP, didn’t really like those (very heavy) so I sourced some +0.015”’ Villiers pistons from VS along with some seals.
VS would only supply reconditioned rods and not just crankpins, so I made a batch of crankpins and centre shafts from EN36A (case hardening nickel chrome steel) and dispatched them to be heat treated and the ground to 0.001” oversize.
While I was waiting my thoughts turned to improving my horrible Chinese 20 ton press, I dismantled the bottle jack, remachined the base and ram, then converted it to work upside down, much better!
I down loaded an Alpha bearing PDF file about crankshaft reconditioning and machined up all the press plates and a large tube to accommodate the crankshaft.
Rebored the cylinders on the lathe, they didn’t clean up at +10 so I ended up using the genuine Villiers pistons, a friend returned a favour and honed them to size.
When I had all the parts ready I dismantled the motor and the first job was to check the crank between centres for run out, turned out it had 0.004” thou woof in the right hand shaft, this was quickly corrected with a large dead blow hammer. (to be continued).
Pete from the Antipodes
When I purchased a 32DD Essex some 3 years ago I thought about restoring it, but ended up just replacing tyres, brakes and cables with a view to sorting out the bugs then pulling it apart reconditioning the motor and then painting it, well that didn’t happen, I just kept riding.
In the end the rattles from down below just got louder and the bike got slower, time for action.
I was determined to collect all the bits before I dismantled the motor, some +0.010” pistons from JP, didn’t really like those (very heavy) so I sourced some +0.015”’ Villiers pistons from VS along with some seals.
VS would only supply reconditioned rods and not just crankpins, so I made a batch of crankpins and centre shafts from EN36A (case hardening nickel chrome steel) and dispatched them to be heat treated and the ground to 0.001” oversize.
While I was waiting my thoughts turned to improving my horrible Chinese 20 ton press, I dismantled the bottle jack, remachined the base and ram, then converted it to work upside down, much better!
I down loaded an Alpha bearing PDF file about crankshaft reconditioning and machined up all the press plates and a large tube to accommodate the crankshaft.
Rebored the cylinders on the lathe, they didn’t clean up at +10 so I ended up using the genuine Villiers pistons, a friend returned a favour and honed them to size.
When I had all the parts ready I dismantled the motor and the first job was to check the crank between centres for run out, turned out it had 0.004” thou woof in the right hand shaft, this was quickly corrected with a large dead blow hammer. (to be continued).
Pete from the Antipodes
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