MTFCA Forum

Does anyone know how much a pan straightening table would cost?

A good ready to use KR Wilson pan jig/table with all the attachments will be in the 4000.00 to 4500.00 range. I have seen several sell in that price range.
They occasionally turn up for a steal but that is very, very, seldom.
There are also home made pan jigs out there but I do not know what they are selling for.

IMO - the KRW is the "gold standard" for crankcase alignment fixtures - there were several others available.

Since the KRW are few & far between, I had my own fabricated - T-1 steel, fixtures located & set off a KRW jig - with machine work & surface grinding, I'm into for a little over 1K.

I'm hoping to buy one for a few dollars at an auction where nobody knows what it is, but no luck so far.

I've known about a KRW for 25 years in a boat marina's shed - it's was used as a "surface plate" for sanding down & checking aluminum outboard motor cylinder heads ! It's been retired from that duty or many years but I wasn't able to purchase it !

Wish you luck in your search. The problem with auctions is it only takes one other guy who knows what the item you are interested in actually is. And with everyone having instant communication in their pocket, everyone else will know about it in minutes and tell the bidder what they will give for it. I bought mine on eBay so it was a bunch of money for just the table and legs. Then I had to go to New Mexico to pick it up. When I got there the seller was a little embarrassed about it. Is this thing what you bid that much for? It had been used as a welding bench/anvil for many years so I had to mill the surface on a big machine and them make all the accessories. Total investment over $5K but worth every penny. Not once have I put a pan on it that didn't need at least a little correction. Some need a lot. Sometimes all day. Everyone that does main bearings for people should have one, you can't guarantee their survival unless they are bolted to a straight pan.

Your best bet is to join a Model T CLub where a member has a table. How often does a guy need one? Mike

Quite often if you are in the T rebuilding business !

If you have one and are feeling generous, we would really like to have one in our Vintage Garage in the MTFCA museum

Thanks for all the information. I had no idea they could cost that much. I'll just use the services of a member of the club that has one. As long as I don't break another crank I should be good for a while.

How hard or costly would it be to make one out of a thick enough (what would be thick enough?) sheet of steel cut with a plasma cutter over a thick subfloor type plywood?

I suppose if it's going to get the use 5K would seem OK to the buyer but Im with Ignatio. You have to be able to make a decent one for a fraction of that cost.

I had an extra set of KR Wilson legs for a combination machine that I had little to nothing invested in, I found a piece of scrap/salvage 2 inch thick steel to cut the table out of. After shopping around for weeks I finally found a place with a water jet to cut out the shape of the pan jig with a water jet. He did it for 250.00 almost as a "good deed for the week" Any of the shops that I could get to even quote a price for cutting it out wanted 600.00 to 800.00 to cut it out. Then you must make all the fixtures. I had bought the rough castings from Langs for the cone and rear shaft mount. But they are rough castings and require quiet a bit of machining to make them work. Then add in a little for the gas of hauling the plate to the shop to be cut and then pick it up. I ended up with 900.00 to 1000.00 in it at that point. Then I still needed to lay out and drill for the locating pins and make 10 of them. Also the front locator and pan arm locator needed to be made and installed. Then I would have had to have the surface decked and trued up at another machine shop. A person could very quickly end up with 1500.00 building a table. With a lot of work involved. I was very lucky and acquired a KR Wilson pan jig from a friend before I finished making mine. Even with a factory unit. it still is a lot of work to check and calibrate it, before it is useable and can be trusted. I still have a little final fitting to do on my pan jig. But Ill have it finished soon. I have to get it ready to straighten the pan on the "speedster project" engine. When I get it calibrated and checked out we will have another pan jig in the Arkansas Tin Lizzies club for others to use. I know of three in Arkansas.

have fun and be safe....

A local member had the workshop at a mine cut out a table from 1.5" plate. I'd used it a couple of times. When he passed, his son-in-law cleaned up the workshop and it went to a scrap dealer.

Allan from down under.

Steve;

Do you have the dimension information for the holes and all of the add on stuff for your table? I'm thinking I can cut a simple shape like yours with a track cutter, and I have access to one for the next few months. I'd probably build it out of 1" plate and weld reinforcing ribs on the bottom.

No, sorry I don't Gary.

Gary I have all the measurements. send me an e-mail to dobro (at) artelco.com ...

OK guys. I may have to back out of this for the time being. I have been hit with way too many request for the dimensions to reply to them. The main problem is all my measurements are from the original pan drawing measurements. My copy of the pan drawing is way too small to copy and post or even get a good enough copy for someone to read. I can give individual measurements if someone is stumped as to continuing with the project, but right now I do not know how to give "ALL" the measurements needed.

The pan drawing is a very complicated drawing and most of the info is not needed to build a pan jig with. I was going to "reverse engineer" my pan jig using the two centerlines of the pan. One center line is straight down the middle of the pan. The other centerline is thru the center of the pan arms. Once those two centerlines are established, everything else is based off them.

If a person is wanting to build a table, Langs has the castings for the rear of the pan jig and the cone. They come with a set of measurements to machine the castings with. They are rough castings and need machining to be useable. The instructions have all the measurements of the individual pins, shaft, cone, mount, bars, ect. I recommend to buy their castings instead of trying to make your own.

Im sorry for getting hopes up, but I think 1/2 of the members of the club just e-mailed me for the measurements ...