A productive day at Mike Bender's shop
Posted: Thu Jun 23, 2022 8:49 am
Mike Bender rebuilt the engine and rear axle of our 15 runabout when I restored it three years ago. I am currently restoring an 11 touring, but this time I am also doing the engine and axle rebuilding. The block required some brazed repairs, which properly done, result in all the babbitt being melted. So yesterday I spent a long but productive day at Mike's shop in Tulsa "helping" him put new babbitt into the block.
It was fun and educational watching him pour the babbitt and line bore it to provide the proper clearance to my crankshaft. He also machined it to allow the proper thrust clearance for the crankshaft, as well as put in and reamed a new camshaft bushing. He even let me pick out a better cam from his bone pile. To top it off, the oil pan went onto his straightening jig for a small amount of tweaking to get it trued up.
We are very fortunate in the Model T community to have people available to do this work at fair prices, and allow you to learn from the process.
Thanks Mike!
It was fun and educational watching him pour the babbitt and line bore it to provide the proper clearance to my crankshaft. He also machined it to allow the proper thrust clearance for the crankshaft, as well as put in and reamed a new camshaft bushing. He even let me pick out a better cam from his bone pile. To top it off, the oil pan went onto his straightening jig for a small amount of tweaking to get it trued up.
We are very fortunate in the Model T community to have people available to do this work at fair prices, and allow you to learn from the process.
Thanks Mike!