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  1. #1
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    Default Gearbox needle roller housing.

    I recently bought a very well worn XS to while my time away on. After cleaning and stripping it a little I found the housing for a gearbox needle roller bearing was buggered. I was going to find an engineering shop to build up the area and machine the housing but thought better of it as I really wouldn't trust them to do a reasonably job. The machining would have to be spot on or the gearbox shaft will be out causing lots of problems.

    Next, I thought I might buy a three in one and do the job myself, I have all the time in the world so I'm not constrained by price or disinterest.

    Anybody done a similar job? What are your thoughts.
    Attached Images Attached Images

  2. #2
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    Jul 2016
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    What kind of mill do you have? Do you have a good boring or boring and facing head?

    Some things I have learned doing similar jobs.
    - Dial the work in on the bore and use your dro to dial in on other features and make a drawing because as soon as you weld on that casting it will distort badly. Or make a fixture that means you can take the work and weld on it without losing position.

    - welding cast alloys is a real crapshoot so I would get a pro to do it if this was mine. I'm an okay machinist but no welder.

    Sent from my Nokia 8 Sirocco using Tapatalk

  3. #3
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    Jun 2010
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    Wimmera
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    4me, you will have to take another photo with a better camera. I tried blowing it up but it is very pixelated and does not show the damage very well.

    Hooroo.

  4. #4
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    Adelaide
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    I thought thr best way to do it would be to turn up a steel plug same size as the needle roller housing, insert that and build up the aluminium around it. that way there should be no machining required and sizing and placement wouldn't be be issue.

    Picture is the best I can get. The piece missing represents probably a little less than a quarter of the housing.

    If anyone knows of an engineering firm in Adelaide set up to do these kind of repairs could you please advise? Southside would be best.

  5. #5
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    Oct 2011
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    Norwood-ish, Adelaide
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    I think the better move might be to make that plug out of copper (better non stick properties). Make it slightly undersize and then clean up with a boring head or similar. Bearings need good round housings and I would be surprised if weld metal around a plug would be good enough.

    Bear in mind that anyone welding that will not be happy about it as there will be oil all over the place, which will cause problems welding. I would be looking at firms who repair aluminium engine heads, as they are at least used to working with that sort of contamination. Alloys that are good for casting are sometimes not good welding candidates either, so there is an added complication.

    Michael

  6. #6
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    If you have the time which appears to be the case have you considered boring both parts and then bushing them and then boring to the finished size required.
    This would eliminate the need to hope your bore is concentric as well as parallel, it would require you to set the job true in your initial set up before ruffing your bores and then the finish bores.

  7. #7
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    Adelaide
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    I wouldn't take a dirty pair of shoes in to be repaired, same with engine parts, that's just silly and rude. I take your suggestion on a copper plug on board but, Copper is a bugger to turn.

  8. #8
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    I don't think I've expressed myself as well as I could have - the metal needs to be really clean. I understand what you are saying about cleaning engine parts, but oil etc soaks into the pores of the metal, so even if you wipe it over with a solvent so it is clean to touch, it can still have material in the metal that will boil off when the arc is struck.

    Typically when welding something like that I would be cleaning several times with acetone and may be some heat to try to boil off some crud. If possible I would then be abrading the surface away to get to 'clean' metal and hope that it was not contaminated. The welder will help, in that A/C will clean the surface a little, but it is not ideal.

    Michael

  9. #9
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    Quote Originally Posted by 4me View Post
    I wouldn't take a dirty pair of shoes in to be repaired, same with engine parts, that's just silly and rude. I take your suggestion on a copper plug on board but, Copper is a bugger to turn.
    Umm, you suggested buying a 3 in 1 lathe/milling machine to do this job. That tells me right off that you're not a machinist, else you'd know those machines are bloody hopeless. Hence it would pay you to listen carefully to suggestions as to how you might get it done.

    The steel plug is a non-goer I'll tell you right up, and I *can* weld. Undersize copper maybe, still don't like it, wouldn't touch it if someone brought it to me and asked me to do that.

    If there's sufficient surrounding material then boring oversize, shrinking in a sleeve and then finish-boring it to size is how I'd do it. We did this not so long ago with a Honda XL250 to fix the overhead cam bearing seats - plain aluminium doesn't wear well, it now has split bronze bushings line-bored.

    This is one of those jobs where doing it correctly takes a certain amount of tooling and skill. If you haven't got both, you have to pay someone who does. There are no short cuts.

    PDW

  10. #10
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    melbourne australia
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    It might be worth trying to find another well worn XS to use as a donor bike. The gearbox casing is unlikely to be the only part that needs repairing.
    Chris

  11. #11
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    Adelaide
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    Quote Originally Posted by PDW View Post
    Umm, you suggested buying a 3 in 1 lathe/milling machine to do this job. That tells me right off that you're not a machinist, else you'd know those machines are bloody hopeless. Hence it would pay you to listen carefully to suggestions as to how you might get it done.

    The steel plug is a non-goer I'll tell you right up, and I *can* weld. Undersize copper maybe, still don't like it, wouldn't touch it if someone brought it to me and asked me to do that.

    If there's sufficient surrounding material then boring oversize, shrinking in a sleeve and then finish-boring it to size is how I'd do it. We did this not so long ago with a Honda XL250 to fix the overhead cam bearing seats - plain aluminium doesn't wear well, it now has split bronze bushings line-bored.

    This is one of those jobs where doing it correctly takes a certain amount of tooling and skill. If you haven't got both, you have to pay someone who does. There are no short cuts.

    PDW
    Just a couple of things PDW:
    I am listening, hence the question and answers to questions.
    I've never seen nor heard of a 3 in 1 lathe, what would that be: lathe, mill and ???. WELDERS, come in 3 in 1s though!
    Aluminium can't be too bad a medium in which to mount bearings, after all there is no movement to wear the housing and 'ALL' manufacturers tend to mount bearings in this manner.
    Who said anything about welding copper???

    So: that's a three in one welder, I'm talking about You are incorrect in surmising I have no machining background. 20+ years in fact. Whilst I may have that 20+ years experience in machining that does not mean I have experience in every facet, this job is a very good example, that is why I asked for thoughts.

    As an aside, I do not appreciate your rude tone. So, please ignore any requests for assistance I may post, life is just too short!

  12. #12
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    Quote Originally Posted by 4me View Post
    Just a couple of things PDW:
    I am listening, hence the question and answers to questions.
    I've never seen nor heard of a 3 in 1 lathe, what would that be: lathe, mill and ???. WELDERS, come in 3 in 1s though!
    Aluminium can't be too bad a medium in which to mount bearings, after all there is no movement to wear the housing and 'ALL' manufacturers tend to mount bearings in this manner.
    Who said anything about welding copper???

    So: that's a three in one welder, I'm talking about You are incorrect in surmising I have no machining background. 20+ years in fact. Whilst I may have that 20+ years experience in machining that does not mean I have experience in every facet, this job is a very good example, that is why I asked for thoughts.

    As an aside, I do not appreciate your rude tone. So, please ignore any requests for assistance I may post, life is just too short!
    Lathe, mill and drill press or at least imitations of the same.

    If you're an experienced machinist, what do you reckon the odds are on putting a steel slug in an aluminium bore, surrounding it with weld metal (aluminium), removing the steel slug and getting a good enough finish in terms of surface roughness and accuracy/concentricity to run needle rollers on it without problems? I think my chances of winning Lotto are higher, and I don't buy tickets.

    WRT 3 in 1 welders, none of those AFAIK are capable of AC-HF and therefore are unsuitable for aluminium anyway. Let alone highly unlikely to have sufficient amperage. A decent TIG welder is going to run at least $1000 and I strongly suspect more like $2000.

    Nobody mentioned *welding* copper, Michael's suggestion was to use a *plug* of copper and weld around it, the (valid) logic being that it's a better heat sink and aluminium doesn't readily stick to it - I use copper as a backing strip when welding aluminium and thin stainless, for example. You'd still need to clean up the bore to size though.

    Next point, manufacturers use aluminium bearing surfaces because it's *cheap* and saves steps not because it's a good choice of material. Trust me on this, if you think there's any other reason then you really do not understand the properties of materials. And of course there's movement, do you think the needle rollers just sit there? The shaft rotates in the needles and the needles rotate on the outer surface. The oil film stops it all going to poop too quickly.

    The tooling to do this right is way over the cost of paying someone what the job's worth to do it for you. If you want an excuse for buying tooling, fine, that works for me. But I reckon you're looking at maybe $5K by the time you're done. As I said, we recently did a similar job on a 1975 Honda XL 250 camshaft bearing surface that was plain aluminium but badly worn over the years. Bore oversize, insert new bearing shells, bore to finish size in situ.

    You asked if anyone had done a similar job, I have. What you're suggesting won't work, IMO. Feel free to do it & prove me wrong, it won't be the first time that's happened and it wouldn't be the last. And it's not like I'm touting for business either, I don't do stuff like this for anyone other than friends who swap favours with me (one just painted my house for example in return for a bunch of machining - I hate painting).

    This is a forum, you get the advice that you get. I type fast & on point and it comes across as you interpret it.

    PDW

  13. #13
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    Well PDW, clearly you don't have much of a clue: needle rollers don't roll in Al housings, they have their own hardened steel houses with lips to stop the needles from falling out. The entire unit is a press fit inside an aluminium housing, no movement, no wear. Lining an Al bearing housing with some other material is simply a waste of time and effort. So, either you have never done such a job or you simply just don't have a clue, I'd lay bets on both. If you want to grandstand at least know what you are talking about!

    Thanks to the rest for your advice, I'll take it on board.

    There should be a blocking facility on this forum just to weed out the rude and nonsensical.

  14. #14
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    Quote Originally Posted by 4me View Post
    There should be a blocking facility on this forum just to weed out the rude and nonsensical.
    You have the ability to have an ignore list. Look under settings where you will find a button marked edit ignore list. Not sure what the result is but I suspect you just don't get to see posts by whoever you are ignoring.

  15. #15
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    Quote Originally Posted by lamestllama View Post
    You have the ability to have an ignore list. Look under settings where you will find a button marked edit ignore list. Not sure what the result is but I suspect you just don't get to see posts by whoever you are ignoring.
    Yep, that worked well. Didn't notice the block facility. Life is just to short to put up with that nonsense.

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