MTFCA Forum

Has anyone ever built their own pan straightening table? Are there any parts available from suppliers .are their any plans or schematics available ? Thanks

A heavy straight table will tell you most of what you need to know.

It may give you a pan rail that is flat or not, and the transmission area that may be bent up, or down, but not the ball cap area, right, or left, the hand crank that is dead center with the crank center so you can turn the engine without it binding on the pulley pin.

Or, one of the most important, is the pan arm alignment.

Herm.

The best way to build an accurate pan jig is have a good pan and have it checked on a Wilson pan jig, and then use that for your pattern, to build your jig, for all the points of Alignment.

Herm.

A flat table will tell you a lot... but it sure is a bummer when you get the thing all buttoned up only to find out there is a 1/4” of yaw at the fourth main, or the pan has been hit from the rear and is too short to get the flange bolts in the hogs head

If you do make your own pan jig... be sure to consider all the misalignments, not just the flatness

Herm and Kevin have it right. A pan that is flat on a surface plate may not be truly aligned. I have rarely seen a pan that did not need some correction. The KRW jig is a demanding master. Either a pan is perfect or it is not. Most can be brought into acceptable standards.

Kenneth ; Here are some pictures of my home made Straightening table .
Unfortunately I dont have the right location for the pan arms.

Fact is, a few people have built their own pan straightening table jigs. I thought maybe by now someone having done so might have responded. To do it right, heavy enough steel plate (tried to buy any of that lately?), milled FLAT, adequate number of index holes (Don't have to have ALL of them, but about a third at least) both sides, front of block to back of hogshead. All index holes accurately drilled and pegged within about 1/64 of an inch might be good enough. The front engine mount NEEDS to be indexed precisely, in three dimensions. The rear (U-joint) end must be similarly accurate. The pan hanger arms need to be within an 1/8 inch in all dimensions.
One forum regular shared the process of building his own a couple years ago (I think I remember who, but won't say in case I mis-remember). As I remember he was nearing a thousand dollars in materials and machining costs when he lucked into a real one for about what he had already spent!

Many years ago, well before the internet, I understood the need to have the pan really straight. Without a jig/table, and no internet to help search or find one, I figured out how to check and straighten pans using known good straight edges (machinist accurate straight edge rulers or other accurately checked ridged steel), working in multiple directions, and VERY carefully measuring and triangulating nearly ALL pan bolt holes. Special care must be taken with the nose of the pan, and arms are a bit tricky.
IS it really a good way to go? Definitely NOT! But it is better than nothing. Best advice? If you cannot find or afford to buy one? Find a club member close by that is willing to share his.

Great topic, Anthonie, nice build, with a few more location tabs for the arms and location bushing for the crank/front mount your pan straightening table could be as good or better than the Wilson. As Herm has said, if you could start with a really straight pan, you could use it to install locating tabs etc. In my case I thought about building such a device but decided that I couldn't possibly used it enough to warrant having one. A guy in our club acquired a Wilson , but needs to get all pieces that go with it. Can anyone supply any information as to what pieces the Wilson jig should have? Thanks jw

Langs has had the castings available for the 4th main locating cone, the bracket that locates the cone and the bracket for the front to check the hand crank bore. I'm not sure if they still offer these, but its worth a check if you have a jig that's missing parts.

Here's the one I built many years ago with the "critical" dimensions courtesy of Herman K. ! Seems the K.R.W. fixtures don't come available often so I made my own - 1 & 1/4" T-1 steel plate that was surface ground both sides to .0001.

aboer wrote: ↑

Sun May 12, 2019 3:34 am

Kenneth ; Here are some pictures of my home made Straightening table .
Unfortunately I dont have the right location for the pan arms.IMGP0207.JPG

I seen your ball cap area jig, when you listed it a long time ago. Simple, but very ingenious, and quite effective! I would never have thought of it.

That area of the pan is most important, and has to be right on.

Very good,

Herm.

Toon, i have my motor apart and want to have the pan checked, the car had an accident sometime in its history and i need to get the pan straight before the rebuild.
Could we somehow meet ?

Toon, ik heb mijn motor uit elkaar en zou graag de carterpan controleren, de auto heeft ooit lang geleden een aanrijding gehad en ik moet de pan controleren voor ik verder ga met de revisie.
Zouden we een keer kunnen afspreken ?

Contact via kottertje1(apestaartje)zonnet.nl of mobiel 0655751042

Groet, Leo

Can someone post a photo of the tools that came with the Pan Jig. It would be interesting and educational.
My new pan jig on its way home.
Brian

Hope this isn't considered hijacking this thread but....

Does anyone in or near Houston, TX have one that we could put my pan on?

I can't believe no one has brought up Stan Howe's suggestion.

Get two large angle irons - 3 or 4 inch and longer than the engine and transmission. Bolt the angle irons to the top of a '26 or 27 block and turn it upside down. Bolt the hogshead to the block. Put a straight edge to make sure the pan surface on the block and hogshead are straight. Use a straight edge of some sort to make sure the block mains are true to the forth main on the back of the hogshead. You'll probably want to make some jigs to help out. Oh yeah, run a couple of heavy straps or some such things up from the angle irons to the forth main on the hogs head to stiffen it up and make sure it doesn't move.

You can figure out the fine points. I doubt you can do much straightening on this but you can sure tell if the pan is bent badly - that and it's cheap.

FYI!
Lang's has a source for the castings for the Pan Jig tooling!
The guy lives in Long Beach, CA and has sold to Lang's in the past.
Happy Days!

KRW Pan straightening jig fixture castings, 2 piece set
Item Number: KRW-PJF
Condition: New
Price: $109.95 set

Quantity:

Found it, no photos though. Anybody have any photos?

Brian D wrote: ↑

Mon May 13, 2019 3:31 pm

Can someone post a photo of the tools that came with the Pan Jig. It would be interesting and educational.
My new pan jig on its way home.
Brian

When you get to Luray I will show you the fixtures for the pan jig. See you Thursday

On our way, stopped off at Myrtle Beach first.

I am in the process of restoring a KR Wilson pan jig. Ill be posting a thread about it soon.

But for now here are some pics of the attachments. The first five pics are of original pan jig and attachments. There are two styles of the front hand crank bearing attachment. The single bolt style seems to be the most common. all the attachments are locked into place with dowel pins after final alignment calibration is achieved. The other pictures are of the Langs castings. They worked very well for me, but you must be very careful when machining them as there is very little extra material to work with.

I forgot to mention that the Lang's castings come with detailed drawings with the machining measurements for the castings, as well as dimensions for the other fittings. I bought my material for the tail shaft and pan ear bar, as well as the locating pins from McMaster Carr. , following are the part numbers
1. pan ear bar, 3/4 x 1-1/4 x 24 inches, flat bar, part # 8910K765 cost = 29.52

2. front test plate (single bolt style), 1/2 x 1-1/2 x 5 inches, flat bar, part# 8910K939 cost = 7.68

3. tail shaft, (rotary shaft material) 1-1/4 inches diameter x 12 inches long part# 1346K44 cost = 43.24 I bought this shaft longer than the original KR Wilson shaft so I could let it stick thru the tail shaft casting several inches. I machined 1/2 of the excess shaft away so it could clear the table top. I did that so I could use the excess shaft to help in aligning the tail shaft casting to the centerline of the table.

4. locating pins, 3/8 head x 5/16 shank, amount needed =10, part# 8472A13 price = 3.53 each The 5/16 shank is plus .001 and the 3/8 head is a little smaller at aprox minus .001 to allow for a press fit in the table and sliding fit in the pan. The only issue with the pins is they are too hard. I broke a couple of them when I started using the jig to practice straightening pans. I annealed the pins by heating them to a "dull red" with my cutting torch and letting them air cool. I have had no more problems after annealing them. By letting them "air cool" they are still plenty hard to use, but not so hard they break like a file. Other than the shape of the head point, the McMaster Carr pins are identical to the KR-Wilson pins.
There are 10 pin holes in a KR-Wilson table. 6 of them go all the way thru the table top. But the 4 holes at the pan arm are "blind" holes. If you break a pin at the 6 "thru" holes its easy to just drive the broken piece thru the table top. But the 4 holes at the pan ears are another story. If you break one of them, the pin will need to be "drilled" and "tapped" for a small bolt to act as a puller. If you do not anneal the pins, it is almost impossible to drill and tap the broken piece. (do not ask how I know this) So I highly suggest to at least anneal the four pins at the pan arm area. (you have been warned)

5. front test pin for hand crank, 3/4 x 7 inch, round rod, I can not find the part number. price = 16.64 any good 3/4 inch round rod should work, I just bought a new one so it would be shiny and well machined.

The only thing I have left to do is take my freshly straightened pan to another pan jig and see if my table alignment matches a known table. If my alignment is OK then I will drill and install the dowel or taper pins into the Langs castings to lock them into place.

The following pics show how I used the excess tail shaft and a machinest straight edge to align the tail shaft casting to a center line. The drill bit is used as a locating pin to establish one end of the shaft to the center line, and then "swing" the other end into position using the straight edge to show a paraelle measurement at both ends of the straight edge.

Donnie, Thanks, that was exactly what I was looking for, much more than I had asked for, but exactly what I was looking for. Great job. So what's going on with the speedster? You will have to up date your thread. Thanks again. jw

John, I am almost done with the speedster project. The rebuilding of the engine is the last major item. I have the entire engine and transmission assembled and ready for the pan installation. I also have the Rajo 4 valve installed on the engine. So instead of just using the pan jig one of our local club members has, I opted to use this time to rebuild my pan jig to use to straighten the speedster projects pan. So in a way, rebuilding the pan jig is part of the speedster project rebuild. and now we have another pan jig in Arkansas for others to use ....

I plan on a "pan jig" rebuild thread soon. But I have to verify my final fixtures settings and install the dowel/taper pins, before I call the pan jig done ...

Another thing that is important, even if you have a pan jig, is knowing how to use it! The four dip pans are the ones that get bent the most, and one of the most important aspects of straightening a 4 dip is to make sure the alignment of the wishbone support is correct. I paid Chaffin $75 years back to get my four dip straightened, and they didn't even bother to check the wishbone support. I had to take the engine back out of the car, and get the pan straightened by someone who KNEW what he was doing.

I had a similar experience as Larry which is what prompted me to build my own fixture (with help) - see above photo. As Larry eluded to, 4 dip c.c.'s are notoriously weak at the radius rod socket which can & will get pushed in from a not so hard impact of the front wheels - next thing you know, the flywheel is rubbing !

Is there a drawing or diagram that shows dimensions of the wishbone support relative to some fixed location on the pan? I know for a fact that my wishbone support has been hammered rearward over decades of use as a truck. I have not addressed the current wishbone ball to socket alignment yet. I need to re-bush the front shackles first to ensure correct wishbone location.

Nothing I've run across, yet.