The V8 Owners Forum -

My build is ongoing, and had some great advice from you guys:-) been thinking- my workshop is basically a garage!!I have ll my machining done in my mates company in rugby- but am thinking long term... What can be done at home, want to fully develop my own heads:-) am building a flow bench and am looking forward to using it, but thinking about valve seats and skimming. Can a bench drill be used to do a nice 3 angle seat job?? Anybody doing this?? And can one purchase a milling machine large enough to skim a rover head for example?? I accept blocks are our of the question, but would love my own little cylinder head work shop:-) think the drilling machine combined with a press could be used to remove and fit valve guides also?? What do you reckon??

Second hand workshop equipment can often be bought quite reasonably - but the snag is it's often 3 phase and transport costs can be high.

Hi
For doing valve seats a stout pillar drill is adaquate, a proper floor standing chunky jobbie with the pillar at least 5" diamiter, not something that is bench mounted, otherwise a mill. The device for doing the seats is usually a grinding wheel that is centred using the valve guide, the driving end needs to be sturdy enough so not to get progression at the chuck. You will need a method of preping cutting stones acuratly.
If you are doing head work your first priority is to seperate off an area for diong it from the rest of any machining and dedicate a set of tools for the work, you don't want to carry the residue of head porting into the rest of your workshop on tools used in both areas. Also get some really good extraction, big chunky extraction at bench level and face level to create a negative pressure. It is a mucky job and the grit from grinding stones will give you miners lung if you are exposed for any time. You also don't want the fine swarf and grit in your cleen assembly area!!
You can get big mills that will do heads, if you can transport them they tend to go for little more than scrap value on Ebay but you will need 3 phase, getting a suitable fly cutter may be more tricky. You could also consider a metal shaper/planer to do the work that will have the capacity and the accuracy in a smaller machine, they are less common though!
The other thing to consider is a proper measuring table and some good measuring tools, again Slips and alot of the necessary stuff to be able to measure accuratly go for relativly little money on Ebay it would make a big differance to how easily you can produce accurate and repeatable work.
Best regards
Mike

Yes, it's the 3 phase and space question always. Think valve seats may be ok in the long run, getting skimming done elsewhere, how do you change your guides???

Is it not possible to ask your electricity supplier to give you 3 phase supply?

Here in Cape Town I can get 3 phase if I pay for the cabling from the distribution box to my house and the 3ph meters. The older houses have 3ph as standard fit.
Just wondering how they do it in other parts of the planet....

There is generally 3 phase running down the street, but normal sized houses only have one phase. To balance the load, adjacent houses are usually on different phases. However, it costs a lot to have a new three phase supply run in.
Some areas did at one time did install two phases to allow for electric heating in larger houses.

Get friendly with the neighbours on either side and pull a feed from each other phase...........




I'll get my coat, no need to shove.....