Page 1 of 1

Lathe work - small adaptor

Posted: Thu Dec 05, 2024 9:51 am
by Harv
Anyone interested in turning up a fitting for me please? Happy to pay for your time and materials.

The drysump pump for my meth monster project is in pieces, and I am getting my head around how it works. It has a spring-loaded relief valve to set oil pressure, similar to a standard grey motor oil pump. The relieve valve piston has a stop on the end of it (a thin steel rod). The stop bears up against a bolt, and sets the piston position when it is closed. The bolt is a plain 5/16-18UNC bolt, sealed into the pump casing with a fibre washer.


drysump fitting 3.jpg
drysump fitting 3.jpg (28.36 KiB) Viewed 3013 times

The tip of the bolt is in the exact right place to measure the pump discharge pressure. By making the bolt hollow, I can let the discharge pressure out of the casing, and fit a pressure gauge. There are two reasons that I can't just replace the bolt with a gauge nipple:
a) the UNC threads on the casing are not common, so fittings are hard to find (if it had of been UNF instead of UNC then a -2AN ORB fitting might have worked).
b) the bolt needs to provide the stop for the piston, which a fitting won't do (most are way too short, and too big a bore).

I got cute and machined up a standard 5/16-18UNC bolt. It can work, but it is ugly (least of my problems) and only big enough to get a 1/16NPT thread into... and even then the thread is shallow.

drysump fitting 4.jpg
drysump fitting 4.jpg (54.07 KiB) Viewed 3013 times
drysump fitting 2.jpg
drysump fitting 2.jpg (23.96 KiB) Viewed 3013 times

What I really need is something like a 5/16-18UNC bolt, but with a much bigger (round) head, and tapped to 1/4NPT... something like this (not to scale):

drysump fitting 1.jpg
drysump fitting 1.jpg (85.93 KiB) Viewed 3013 times

Mr Hobbs, my tech drawing teacher, is probably grimacing seeing that drawing. Prefer ally, but could be stainless, or steel.

Harv

Re: Lathe work - small adaptor

Posted: Thu Dec 05, 2024 7:06 pm
by EK283
Hi Harv,

Are you in a hurry for this ?
I could probably do it but flat stick with work at the moment, young bloke has a 1 tonne Rodeo in my shed all in pieces and i cant get to my lathe this weekend.
Next weekend maybe.

Regards Greg

Re: Lathe work - small adaptor

Posted: Fri Dec 06, 2024 6:33 am
by Harv
No rush at all, and very much appreciated - thankyou.

I've got a similar problem with the young bloke's VL Commodore.

Cheers,
Harv