DIY Engine Machining

[CTX-SLPR]

Howdy,

What kind of engine machine work is really with in the realm of people at home? Obviously if you have your own machine shop and 2 Snap-On rolling chests full of tools you can do more than the average guy assuming you know how to use them.

Some of us have lathes, others mills, most of us have grinders and welders and a decent battery of measuring equipment.

Think someone can surface a block and heads at home?
What about machining valve spring pockets and turning down guides?

What do ya'll feel comfortable with at home?

[squirrel]

I don't really have facilities for doing much of anything, besides polishing a crankshaft with the lathe. But a friend has some valve grinding equipment and has done several valve jobs.

Most automotive machining equipment is very specialized. When I worked at the machine shop, we very seldom used the lathe or vertical mill.

[Barry Donovan]

I was thinking of a small one, the lathes.. I have seen them.

I only have ported, cleansed into thousands of an inch difference on pistons.

porting is for anyone. I have done that at home, or carb holes on an intake, custom mount.

A cool thing to learn is sometimes perpendiculars and straight shots are not the best. For the monojet I leave one bolt splayed by a few degrees, becomes the locker for the 6 inch deep barrel rumbling away...

a drill press is awesome, gained my imagination for odd chores.

I am aware of how tight that stuff is..frustrating.

I want to do it myself.

I would love to trial and error camshafts for a 3 main boxer.

[oletrux4evr]

Uuuhhhhh, I grind down parting lines on block and head exteriors with a die grinder.....does that count??

[BigBlockMopar]

I think most valve-work could be done at home with the right tools.

While surfacing an engine block-deck might be do-able if you just want a fresh surface for the gasket to seal on. It gets trickier when you want to make sure the front and rear deckheight is the same everywhere.

I've got some used valveseat-tools in the garage, but never used them because it's easier for me to go over to a friends fully equipped machineshop then it is to fight around with worn grind-stones and such.

[Bamfster]

Cut/weld/grind ... full arsenal .... all tubing bending is done up at a friends shop as well as anything that needs tig welding.

True machine work is farmed out and I do all of the stress relieving/grinding myself. A little shy to jump in on anything other than port matching still.

I can't tell you how many times I've dingle balled a block and thrown in fresh rings/bearings at home. The saturn I re-ringed 2 summers ago is still going smoke free after 16k ....

[dave storlien]

Hello
That is a great Question. I work at home , and I don,t have much for auto shop equipment. I have a Tree mill ( made n wisc. ) and fixtures to deck blocks , heads , piston work, main caps, if you have the fixtures you can do the work. I have a boring bar, I hand hone my blocks in a tank I build myself. I have Pratt Whinity Lathe ( made n the U.S.A. ) I do piston work in the lathe w fixtures I made myself, crankshaft work, custom valve work, . I have a wet flow bench I designed and build myself , and a SF600 serial# 11 had a sf100 before that. I think a 15yr old kid w a vacum and a piece of string can learn as much as you can on a flow bench. I think I may have done 30,000 flow tests.
So to answer your question YES you can

Dave

[Bob Holmes]

I think its like anyting else, you got to jump in there and get some experience on the equipment that you have (experience = making many mistakes).

Goodson makes a lot of tools and fixtures that I believe you can use in a mill or lathe. Of been rifling through their catalog for a while, we've got a bunch of shop equipment that we need to install and get tuned up, and tooling is important.

[milner351]

Like anything else - you have to have the right tools to do precision work - unless you're going to do a lot of it - it's a big investment in the machines, then the tooling and fixtures, then the space and electrical service to make it all run - a poor investment to build a handful of engines per year IMHO.

I'm all for doing it yourself, but for some things - you're better off paying someone with the right stuff that knows how to use it.

[groucho]

To have that kind of machinery at home for most engine machine work would take a LONG time to pay for itself. Cylinder head stuff might make sense, but you still have to have someone surface/hot tank them. It all adds up if you're gonna do it right.

.............

[BOSSMAN]

Where would you draw the line between average enthusiast from a small professional machine shop? How about the quality of work and the ease to do it properly? What about the investment costs in the equipment? Space requirements? Knowledge base to know if things are being done properly? These questions here tell me that there is two groups of people vs a full fledged professional machine shop.

Reason I ask some of these things is because alot of people work from home and could surely fit in this group (I myself would be one of them). Some of the operations are relatively easy to do if you are setup properly or could be done poorly trying to save a buck with the lack of know how or correct means to do it. The investment is never cheap and could take many years to pay off. I have a home based shop as a secondary means of income and have a fair amount of equipment. It seems I bought 5 or 6 new pieces in the past 6-8 months to continue my growth after building a new shop in the back yard of the property (40X63). I think of it as the snowball effect, where does a guy stop LOL!

I guess what are you really after with your question cause to me it could go a few ways from a few basics to the extreme end.

[Thumpin455]

If I have the equipment to do the work, I have the training to use it. I dont see a reason to invest in the equipment to rework blocks and cranks, so it gets farmed out. I have been thinking about getting some valve grinding and guide stuff, but havent needed to. The fun thing about automotive machine work is the tolerances are freakin HUGE compared to aerospace stuff. +/- .002 is easy. +/- .00004 takes some knowledge, and tighter than that is a whole new world of oh crap another expensive red part.

Since I only build an engine every few years, I dont want to have the stuff to do it here.

[Beagle]

There seems to be a common thread in the responses to this thread

a) COO / ROI
b) Tolerance

When I say tolerance I mean both your ability to keep tolerances with the hardware available, and your tolerance for producing (s)crap.

If I'm building crap for myself for fun, I'm pretty tolerant. If I'm fixing crap for something I drive to work every day and need to depend on I become less tolerant. If I'm building something for somebody else AND charging money for the work, I'm not very tolerant.

[CTX-SLPR]

Biggest frame I have for the question is doing stuff for yourself and maybe a buddy or two. If you are getting paid in more than pizza and beverage money or bartering for parts or other similar services... you're a business.

One of the reasons I ask is because I keep glancing between my budget and the equipment I have in the garage. Paying for machine work when I have most of the equipment to atleast try it is very atractive considering how limited my budget is.

[Bob Holmes]

Now ask yourself the follow up question, can you afford to scrap the stuff you intend to machine yourself?

I am all for DIY approaches, I think you have to try these things to become more accomplished. If all it does is give you a better appreciation for the work that a good shop does, that's a great learning experience.

Sometimes the least expensive way to do things is to pay for an expert to do it. Now, that's not always true, and I could tell you a bunch of stories about the 10s of thousands of dollars I spent working with experts and getting nothing. But, machine work is not one of the things that I expect that you'd have problems with from a shop.