Turning down a tapered shaft(How I did it)

rifter

I bought an engine, Briggs opposed 18 HP that was on a generator. This engine only has a very few hours on it so I didn't want to disassemble it. So,,,I removed the covers, and the flywheel, I didn't want to hurt the threads that holds the flywheel so I turned down a nut on the lathe to be round and screwed it on the flywheel threads, this went into the 4 jaw chuck on the lathe and dialed it in with a dial indicator with the centering bit in the output end of the crank shaft. When I dialed in the lathe chuck side to 0 the output end was only 1 thousandth out, this is good! Then I shimmed the bottom of the engine block to the lathe bed. I turned down the shaft to 1.00 using a fairly slow speed on the lathe, this let me use the Carts Parts Plus taper adaptor for the clutch. I then drilled the shaft deeper because I knew I was going to have to cut the shaft shorter, so drilled and tapped, installed the clutch and I didn't have to tear down the engine. I highlighted 4 jaw because 3 jaw is not accurate enough. Hope this might help someone. Oh, I almost forgot, I pulled the sparkplugs out so the engine would spin free.

Attached Images

	1.jpg (146.2 KB, 0 views)
	photo.jpg (128.4 KB, 0 views)
	photo2.jpg (124.2 KB, 0 views)
	photo3.jpg (142.7 KB, 0 views)

BGW

__________________
This advertising will not be shown in this way to registered members.
Register your free account today and become a member on Buggies Gone Wild Golf Cart Forum

fstg21

You my friend have a very big lathe...

Nice job. My little 9x20 wouldn't cut it for that job.

To anyone wanting to try this, just make sure you keep the spindle speed down.

You could use it as a spintron to check for valve float...

rifter

I did this where I work and that lathe was the small one,,sorry,,I work at a Power Plant, everything is big,,and heavy.

TerryH

That's really cool!!! Doing it like that would have never even crossed my mind. Excellent idea and excellent work!

gornoman

Rifter is the original "BOMB"!

smallblock450sl

He is ....."THE MAN" in my book

simple man

I will add that to make sure you have oil to the proper level in the engine, and to turn it in the direction of rotation that it normally runs. I've cut tapers on cranks before (still in the engine) and also cut straight shafts out of ones that were tapered! I really miss lathes and vertical mills!

sho305

Great post!

csason

Very cool..

slonomo

WOW! Waaaayyy beyond my capabilities. Very cool! I nominate Rifter for President!