[Spridgets] Adventures in race prep (was RE: Blackhawk & Mosport)

[Deikis, John G]

You just can't get that kind of service when you work at a hospital!



-----Original Message-----
From: Ron Soave [mailto:soavero at yahoo.com]
Sent: Saturday, June 09, 2007 3:21 PM
To: Spridgets
Subject: [Spridgets] Adventures in race prep (was RE: Blackhawk &
Mosport)

--- "Wm. Severin Thompson" <wsthompson at thicko.com>
wrote:

> Motor in?

Just about. Long night. Memorable, extremely fun, but
unexpected.

PPP arrives early, around 6-6:30 with motor. We start
going through it, it looks OK. We are finishing some
little stuff, go to put flywheel on. Massive crack in
rear engine plate. Oops. Unclear how/when it happened.
I had the flywheel on when it went to the shop, I
wouldn't have seen it then. I've had a mystery leak
there since March, that could explain a bit. I get
another plate, we remember an issue with pump housing
on this plate from 2 years ago. Plate is from early
thin flanged block. Hmmm looks fine. So we disassemble
old one, it won't go on.  Like pump hole is in wrong
spot. Strange - aren't all pumps (and cam) locations
the same? I guess not. We bolt the 2 different plates
together for a dimensional check, all holes line up
perfectly, like they were match drilled. But....the
pump hole is smaller on the new one, like 1/4 inch,
and offset from the other one, not concentric to each
other (BOTH 1275 plates, wtf). I have 2 different pump
covers, one that was on the 1275 in the car, the other
a 1275 one I got from Frank (also a 3rd one that came
off the thin flanged motor, identical to the one Frank
sent). Either the crank hits or the edges of the oil
pump. Can't fit both. Again, WTF. It's now 7:45 or so.
What are we gonna do. I call my buddy Ron Downs, our
MFG director. I tell him there's a hole that's around
4 inches, it needs to be 4.25. Plus it needs to move.
He calls the 2nd shift guys, tells them we're coming
in, make it happen. Peter and I speed to work in the
Alfa, all that's missing is Katherine Ross, Dustin
Hoffman, and some Simon and Garfunkel music. We get to
work, Peter is duly impressed by the machine shop,
65,000 feet of CNC machines on floors you could eat
off of. The guys are also duly impressed with Peter.
The boys rig up a fixture and use a flycutter to
re-center the hole and re size it. They then set the
plate up on a rotating base and use an end mill to
make the counterbore relief cut for the oil pump
housing. The plate is perfect, better than new.

By the time we high-tail it back to the garage in the
Alfa, it's 10:00 or so. We do some more assembly of
the long block/transmission, PPP takes off around 1
am. Valves are adjusted, final stuff is put on, 2 am.
I can usually go til daylight, but a long week has me
beat. I've had enough, as I have to be at the field at
8:15 for my son's baseball game (we win, he got the
victory and went 3 for 4). More family plans til now,
more later starting at 6 PM so I have a small window
to work. So....a little more to do today, it'll fire
up tomorrow.

The boys at work - unbelievable. PPP - what can I say
- no finer friend anywhere.



Ron Soave

"Life is just one damn thing after another" - Mark Twain



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