Specialized Engine Service
Page 45
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N4UCH maintenance work in connection with motor vehicles, particularly that necessarily involving the employment of expensive machine tools which will permit meticulous accuracy, is now in the hands of specialist concerns, Last week one of these with an excellent reputation in the industry, was visited by a large party of members of the Institute of Road Transport Engineers. It was the Buttonwood Motor and Aircraft Engineering Co., Ltd., with its London works in Edgware Road, N.W.9, where it deals with the major tasks in engine reconditioning.
Starting in Finchley in 1933; it has steadily built up to an output which, during the past 12 months, achieved a peak of 2,000 bores and 2,000 journals a week, this representing a mean of 500 blocks and 300 crankshafts.
Machining operations are carried out on the ground floor and fitting on the upper. Crankshafts up to 84 ins. between centres can be ground, using wheels Up to 40 ins. diameter. Incidentally, as many as 30 crankshafts have to be recentred daily, owing to damage by pulling tackle, etc. Bores are dry-ground on a Churchill planetary-type machine, or bored or honed. One neat boring bar is the company's K.B., with separate motor and flexible drive to avoid vibration. A micrometer is attached for setting the cutter, and there is a separate rapid-centring device comprising a coned plug contacting three sliding plungers. The bar is lifted hydraulically, but descends through its own weight. Each bore takes about 10 minutes. There is a Churchill surface grinder with magnetic chuck or ordinary bed for cylinder blocks, manifolds, etc.. welded or out of truth, but cylinder block distortion is usually small, up to about .007 in. Line-borers with single cutters finish main bearings to the correct clearance.
All crankshafts for oil engines are tried on a magnetic crack-detection equipment. but other shafts only if this
be specially requested. Rig-ends are bored and for this purpose the setting originates in the small-end,
Automatic temperature control is employed in melting white metal, thus ensuring constant results.
Efficiency, combined with cleanliness, was apparent in every department, and it is not surprising that. the company. does so much work for operators who are not so well equipped.