How it's Done

[John Tice]

Never get in a hurry to buy the first boring equipment that pops up. If you’re a patient person you’ll find a cycle shop in financial trouble; I’ve purchased cylinder machines for ½ of what their really worth. You need to be able to wave $100 dollar bills under their noses, cash is KING. Many times your shop is bare of equipment; the next week you might wonder where to put all of the wonderful stuff.

My new boring machine bench came back from the surface grinder yesterday. It’s 20” by 60”; there’s enough width so 2 machines can swap ends without worrying if 1 will fall off the table. Pictures will follow after the weekend. 1 of the older tables will go to shop #2 & I’m going to put the other for sale with an extra FWS machine. This will be a good opportunity for a fair price. My problem is my 2 extra machines are missing the tool kit especially the sets of centering fingers. CRAP

Special tables aren’t difficult to build for yourself. If you have a standard triangular boring stand; you will probably wish it was a little larger after you bore a couple dozen cylinders. It seems like they always get larger as the space becomes available.









One key is finding a shop which has a surface grinder to finish the tops & bottoms.









The small double table; A friend burned the top for free, surface grind top & bottom = $100.00. 1-1/2" square tubing $150.00 for base. A friend put together the fab work & the custom table is complete. If you're clever things can be put together for less than an ARM & a LEG. With this Old Dog's bad back; I can only do the sit down projects.

Stay Tuned
JT

[John Tice]

I’m new at this fire ring machining; what would the rest of you recommend for the wire material?
It seems like just about any type of metal would work?

[bkm]

Whats a fire ring groove John??

Cutting a groove in the cylinder or head for a wire gasket or O-ring.

[onformula1]

I’m new at this fire ring machining; what would the rest of you recommend for the wire material?
It seems like just about any type of metal would work?

I like copper for high PSI, if you are eliminating the gaskets go with o-rings (Or a combo) or you will have to use Barr's leak or ground black pepper to stop coolant leaks without o-rings and no gaskets.

I have never used mild steel, I prefer something more malleable, less rust too.

[John Tice]

Where in the world did you find out about ground black pepper?

[onformula1]

Where in the world did you find out about ground black pepper?

Old trick Mickey Thompson shared with my father, they were friends. Past down to me, it does work and doesn't hurt seals.

[onformula1]

If memory serves, it was a tip from one the Spice Girls. Feel free to cyber slap me. Repeatedly.

Funny, but you may be surprised at how many kitchen items work in/on our machines.

[tripledog]

Funny, but you may be surprised at how many kitchen items work in/on our machines.

And demanding equal pay at that...

[Dirtcrasher]

Yeah, Ricky Johnson ran vegetable oil in his lower end,

[Mickey Dunlap]

Well it's good to hear from you John, I didn't know what happen to NW Sleeve when I called to place a order so I had to go with Advance sleeve, but I still use your mouse pad every day! lol. And I have to say I learned something new about striping the plated cylinders. All this time I just bored the plating out, but you go through a lot of cutters that way too, thanks. See you can teach a old dog new tricks!

[John Tice]

Mickey; With Nitric acid, NiCaSil strips as fast as you can drop your trousers. Hard Chrome as Yamaha uses is a real problem to strip. Some goes away after soaking for 8 hours & some won’t strip with the chemicals that I use. Adding an electrical current would probably start the chrome to move.

For the cylinders which I can’t strip; I take a .100” deep cut i.e. .050” per side. This gets under the plating & doesn’t harm my cutters much.

It’s nice to hear from someone who’s a little more scientific about his projects.


NWSleeve & Small Engine are now one in the same; I’m now retired & am unable to keep up with my work load. I’m still around & do high quality custom work for those who can wait a while.

John Tice
503-593-2908 Alternate 541-508-3944
www.smallenginemachineworks.com & www.nwsleeve.com
Turning Custom Cylinder Sleeves Since 1971
Division of Tice Industries Inc.
http://forums.everything2stroke.com/...d-the-Shop.com

[John Tice]

I’m mentoring a cycle shop owner who lives in Romania; Cristi sent me an Email asking about our Chinese vertical hone. This is my reply which I thought may be of interest to the rest of the readership.



Cristi; Just finishing my morning coffee. Pictures to follow. If you log onto www.alibaba.com & enter vertical hone, some suppliers & info should come up. I’m starting to change my “How it’s Done 2015” page into a more educational page which may be of interest to you.
I’m glad to hear from you; got more work than I can handle.


I put a hardware store ammeter on the power cord to show the load & when the cutting is complete. I've been told that it will work better while tapping into the power input only.



Changed the supplied clamping mechanism with this heavy duty contraption; When the supplied clamp finally arrived, I found that it works well.



I purchased a heavy duty deluxe Sunnen hone head which opens & expands many times faster than the supplied heads. The supplied heads have such a limited range that I was always changing stone sets with misc other problems.



This is the first big bore quad cylinder which uses the supplied clamping set up. I'm going to change the clamping screrws from metric to my standard mill clamping set.



Supplied with the hone was a Micky Mouse U joint hooking the drive to the head. The screws were so small & clumsy that the head changes were almost impossible to change.
With my new joint all that is needed to change the head is pulling the lower screw & swapping the heads.





A Honda 50 using a small head



The large Quad cylinder with the Sunnen head retracted



Harley cylinder with a torque plate attached to the head gasket surface



175 cylinder using a Chinese head



The basic hone comes with the 3 RH heads, the extra head on the left goes to +120mm



Blaster cylinder using our Sunnen head



Smallest head using a new small U joint



I'm sitting at the hone adjusting



Machine as it was being uncrated



Complete hone after uncrateing

Adjusting the stone stroke height takes a few turns on the crank handle at the top of the machine. Since Chinese people are rather short in stature the tallness of the machine surprised me.
I had the crew make a new base which is 6" shorter so I can reach the stroke height crank.

The machine cost is only $2200.00 USC. With freight & Duty total cost is around $5000.00.
Send me another email for more questions.

For you people who are familiar with the Sunnen hone set up, you will notice the different stone configurations.
We most always use the double stone set which is designed for honing splinded bores..
The set hones twice as fast & doesn’t catch in 2 stroke ports.




John Tice
503-593-2908 Alternate 541-508-3944
www.smallenginemachineworks.com & www.nwsleeve.com
Turning Custom Cylinder Sleeves Since 1971
http://forums.everything2stroke.com/...d-the-Shop.com

[atc007]

I really appreciate the message John,and Thank you. It was a real privilege talking with you. You are truly one of the greats left from years gone by. The world needs a whole lot more like you. I will stay in touch,good luck getting that thing in place today/this week. Hopefully you get all the bugs out of her and smooth as a whistle sooner than later. You're definitely off to a great start!

[John Tice]

Thank You
JT

[John Tice]

New Boring bar table
Most of you readers are hooked on one kind of cycle or another. I’ve been stuck on one kind of machine tool or another; where we all meet in the middle is the power plant. The common denominator is the cylinder in that little old gasoline engine.
Recently I’ve been improving on my cylinder boring stands. The newest model is 20” deep by 60” long. This new model is 1-3/4” thick, ¼” thicker than the smaller ones used in my shop. It’s easier to slide around the 150 pound boring machines without as much worry of pushing one off on the floor or a foot in the way. As you all have made cycle friendships; I’ve got many friends in the machine shop & fabricating business. My Portland Oregon area is large enough that we have many small & large companies in different kinds of machine & metal cutting businesses. The new boring table stand needed a substantial amount of Water Jet cutting. One of our acquaintances is equipped with just the machine that we needed. The table was still a rather spendy item; $700 for the metal cut to size & another $300 for surface grinding the top & bottom sides. $100 for the lengths of 2” square tube for the base.

The new table will hold 3 machines with ease & plenty of room for tools & such

Weight is around 500 lbs so handling with the fork lift is necessary

We are using 3 Kwik Way machines on this particular table with a 4”wide slot for boring multi cylinder blocks & an assortment of smaller round holes for single cylinders.
The base is the same height as earlier models so I can work with while sitting & taking it easy on my bad back.


The new table has nearly full length ½” slots for sliding the hold down’s back & forth


Vincent is on the Fork Lift moving the table across the shop


Out the loading door & into the cylinder boring room



Off & running; left side is our largest machine, Kwik Way #FN, 2-3/4” & up. Center; Kwik Way #FW 2-1/4” & up. Right side; Kwik Way #FWS 1-3/4” & up.



First job; CR500 cylinder, plenty of room to slide around for positioning

We have an extra FWS machine which will be mounted on one of the smaller stands for sale. The other small stand is in Shop #2 (the garage at the house); this is where I can work on the weekends with no interruptions.