It's been a while since I've updated this thread progress has been slow.

Tin is still out for media blast and powder coat.

I did finally get the rods rebuilt.

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I ended up going with the KolbenSchmidt rod bushings.

Initially I purchased AAP rod bushings but my machinist had some reservations about pressing them in because they seemed a little oversize. I had some reservations about the KS bushings since they seemed to lack the "interlock" design that was on the 1st rod bushing we pressed out.

At the recommendation of my machinist, I ended up purchasing KS bushings at least for comparison purposes. As it turned out, the KS bushings were a bit nicer both in finish and in fit. The KS bushings were round where as the AAP bushings were a bit oval. Honestly, I'm not sure it would matter after pressing but my machine shop felt more comfortable with KS and that is what was used.

Subsequent to pulling the bushings out of two rod sets (GA000099 and GA004310) it was clear that 6 of the 8 rods actually had bushings that lacked the "interlock" feature (shown on left) and appeared to more closely match the KS bushings (far right). All four of the rods from GA000099 which were known to be stock, had the KS style bushings.

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For any heads, check for excess casting flash in the cooling fins. My 2L heads had lots of flash with age, junk had accumulated in the cooling passages limiting air flow considerably.
Here's agter drilling out:

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Have you ever noticed how one project leads to another side diversion?

As part of getting ready to rebuild GA000099, I've wanted to modify my vertical mill set up so that I can slow down the spindle to do cylinder honing and ultimately, I'd like to be able to cut my own valve seats down the road.

My current slowest spindle speed is 135 RPM and that is just too fast for cutting valve seats.

So I broke down and bought a Variable Frequency Drive (VFD) for my mill which operates on 220V 3 phase power. Previously I was using a static phase converter that creates 3 phase power from single phase 220VAC. The problem is that it only creates the 3rd phase for starting purposes.

After starting, the 3rd phase drops out and then the mill is basically running on 2 phases. This works but it also de-rates the motor. For example my mill is 1 HP. But running on 2 phases it is only 2/3 HP at best not accounting for other inefficiencies.

The VFD will get me back to rated horsepower and more importantly, it allows for variable speed control. It also has some other benefits like soft starts but those were secondary to getting the spindle slowed down.

So after some rewiring of my garage and installation of proper conduit this time around to protect my mill wiring, I have the VFD wired up and operational. Still need to build a bracket to mount it to the mill or within close reach. Doh! Another project that doesn't involve the 914!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQ9_Aofg9aA

A few years back I bought the KS main bearings from AA.I paid through the nose for them but they were the "real deal", in short supply and at that time there were some trash bearings floating around. No one minds paying for the "real deal".

I finally got around to setting this GA000099 case up on the mill to fix the mismatch in the Rear Main Seal counter bore area.

Setup and dialed in the bearing bore.

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Finished product.

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If anyone is interested, I can post a few more details and a short video but mostly wanted to get this fix documented.

Next up: Need to pull all the oil galley plugs in order to get full access for galley cleaning.

GA000099 galley Plugs pulled.

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For those not convinced that galley plugs should be pulled I offer up the following pictures. First is a dark view of the sludge piled up against the end of the galley plug.

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The second is the goop scooped out.

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After I finish machining the case, all galleys will get a good scrubbing with a galley brush!

Check of cylinder deck shows that we have some flatness issues that need to be corrected.

I was able to easily get a .004" feeler under my straight edge. Straight edge is .0005" out of flat as judged against my granite surface plate.

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My flat edge spans both cylinder spigots which isn't the best way to judge this surface since both cylinders don't necessarily need to be on the same plane. They could be corrected later via cylinder base shims. However, in theory they should be on the same plane to minimize downstream problems later with sealing, valve geometry, and compression ratios.

I will fly cut this deck surface once I finish pulling the various studs from the case halves and get around to Tramming my mill to ensure that they are surfaced flat.

Nice! following..
not to but though this would be of interest.

Right on.

Earlier in the year I had someone PM me about another low serial # GA engine. I think it was in the 40's!

11/4/2009 update: I went back though my PM's. the early case referenced was GA000004. Holy Cow!

That is cool. What is your plan for it? I recommend Get Er' running! Do you happen to have a photo of the rear main seal end? I'm curious if other early cases had the machining error that mine had.

We need to find GA000001 Come on guys who has the lowest serial # GA engine?

So I spent some time to make sure my mill was set up perfectly. When fly cutting surfaces, if the head of the mill isn't perfectly square to the table, you will end up with an imperfect surface finish that will be prone to leaking.

For any of the guys doing machine work, I love this EDGE Technology head tram. Makes the work pretty quick and easy . . . relatively speaking vs. old school singe dial indicator.

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Dual dial indicators make the job so much easier.

The only problem was that I chickened out on cutting GA000099 1st. I decided that I had better make sure I liked the result before committing to cut 099.

Instead I cut GA004310 that I viewed as a little more disposable.

As it turns out, everything worked out OK.

Here is a partial cut at about 0.004". You can see the surface cleaning up but still haven't got into all the old material.

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Ultimately, I had to cut a bit more than I was hoping. This case showed about the same 0.004" from flat as I showed earlier on the GA000099 case. However, it took 0.010" to clean it up fully which isn't a big deal since shims are easily available in 0.010" increments.

Here's the final clean up.

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Happy with the result. Next time I'll cut GA000099!

Thank you for this thread!
I'm breaking down GA000130 and am learning from your work.
So appreciative!

Burning the late night oil.

So many other obligations for the weekend pushed machine work on GA000099 case into the late evening as the only means to get something productive done this weekend. The past couple weekend have been occupied with getting MIL moved into an assisted care facility after a fall. Nothing broken but her days of living alone and 90 miles away are over. Hard to see loved ones aging. Hard enough to see myself aging.

As predicted based on initial measurements it took 0.010" of clean up to get a completely clean cylinder deck surface. 0.005" pretty much cleaned things up (recall I could get a 0.004" feeler under my straight edge) so I feel comfortable about the work. The last 0.005" is pretty much just to ensure complete flatness and to easily coincide with the availability of cylinder base shims in 0.010" thickness.

Here are the final pic's of the Cylinder 1/2 side:

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And the 3/4 cylinder side:

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Need to follow up with my powder coat guy. Engine tin is past due It should have been complete a week or two ago.

Also need to get my own butt in gear. I need to get the original cam out of this engine sent to Elgin for a weld and regrind back to stock. There isn't a terrible amount of wear on it but there is some on the lobes that share lifters.

11/4/2009 update on low GA cases:

I went back though my PM's, the early case referenced was GA000004. Holy Cow! It may be for sale if someone is seriously interested in a super early 73' GA case. Not sure anyone can top that! If you're seriously interested I'll pass along member contact info to you via PM if you wish to locate GA000004.

Its not for me. I'm already over committed on 3 simultaneous engine builds that are currently Work-in-Progress. I need to get back to rust repair work now that my shoulder is healed but I'm on a temporary hold for a pinched nerve and then I can get back at it.

When you get the cylinder base shims, order in twice as many as you think you need and carefully deburr them then measure...I found significant variation within one package....

Thanks! I haven't gotten that far but sounds like great advice.

Here's a continuation of the case machine work that is ongoing on this GA000099 case and GA004310. It's easier to do both cases simultaneously as batch work to minimize set up time.

There are 11 galley plugs on each case that need to be bored and tapped. Tonight I managed to get six on each knocked out on each case.

The 3/8" NPT plugs are a bear. Due to the size of the tap and especially since they are cutting a tapered bore out of stright hole, they take a lot of muscle to get them tapped to the proper depth. This job would be a whole lot easier if I had a NPT tapered reamer to clear out some of the material but I don't so it's just a good workout for the arms and shoulders.

Typical process.

Locate the center of the galley bore.

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Bore the galley end to 3/8" NPT size.

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And then the worst part, tapping the hole.

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I contemplated using an impact gun to drive the tap but since the tap is tapered there is a risk of cracking the case if you try to drive too much tap too fast. Cutting the taper is a time consuming back and forth affair of advancing the tap only about 90 degrees at a time and making sure the threads and the taper is cut before advancing another 90 degrees or so.

Finished the rear galley plugs.

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And got three of the front end plugs in place.

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Hope to finish up the other 5 tomorrow but those will require more complicated set ups on the mill due to the galleys being at an angle.

Work on the galley plugs continues . . . .

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Simply takes longer when you can only drill and tap a hole or two before having to put my mill into another Yoga pose.

The compound angle on this one has me near the limits of my table travel.

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Started stacking up some parts in anticipation of putting things back together once I finish the case work.

I found one of the stock 94mm cylinders has a bit of corrosion pitting in it that I missed upon initial inspection. I think it can be honed out, but, given that I'm falling behind on getting at least one engine built this fall, I opted to order a set of new 94mm cylinders. If I can get it honed out later on without taking off more than 25% of the wear tolerance, I'll have an "extra" set of 94mm cylinders that might go up on Samba or on classifieds if someone is in need.

The stock cam from GA000099 was sent to Elgin to see if they can regrind but I'll be surprised if they can do it given two of the lobes had wear I could feel. I ordered a new Web Stock cam, gear, and lifters just in case Elgin doesn't come thorough.

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The 96mm pistons and cylinders will go to GA004310.

@914_7T3

Per previous agreement with Jeffrey, the NOS 94mm KS pistons and NOS cam go on the self until someone wants to build up a bone stock 2.0 using NOS parts given that GA000099 won't be my forever engine.

And what looks to be the best surprise I found on my doorstep this evening.

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I mistakenly ordered the 1st one in German. I cancelled the order but I never really could tell if the seller actually cancelled. If it delivered, my plan was to give it to my German neighbor as a joke. He actually seems to prefer Audi's

I then placed the order for this one in English but it took forever to arrive and it finally arrived with some miscellaneous wife stuff!

While I'm waiting on my garage to heat up this morning I thought I'd post the setup for the last galley plug and short video making chips.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0OtYHrOzqo


In the case of this galley hole, I couldn't go as deep as I would normally without intersecting the oil pressure relief valve bore. That meant using a drill was out since it has a tapered point that simply adds unnecessary length to the hole bore. A 7/16" center cutting end mill is the solution that allows the bore to be flat bottomed and as short as possible.

Once the bore was done I started the 1/4" NPT tap as usual but in the case of this bore, I couldn't go as deep as I would normally would. This meant that the 1/4" tap couldn't be inserted deep enough to get the plug to sit flush with the surface.

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The solution to this problem is to start the tap normally, and, get as many threads cut as possible before the tap bottoms in the bore. Once those initial threads were formed, I then had to convert my tap to a bottoming tap.

If you're not familiar with the various types of taps here is a quick link:
https://www.yamawa.com/Portals/0/resource/e...df/tips-007.pdf

Since I didn't have a 1/4" NPT bottoming tap on hand and knew that this was the last hole I was going to tap, I made one by using a cut-off wheel to take off the chamfered portion of the plug tap.

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The main downside to this approach is that I will need to buy another 1/4" NPT tap to repace this one, but, it works in a pinch. The upside is that I now have a 1/4" NPT bottoming tap should I ever need one again!

Hasn't been a lot of action on the engine front lately. I'm not sure if that is a bad thing or not since I was largely using it as filler work during the summer surgeries until I could get back to my rusted chassis which has finally happened.

Still have a few parts that were outstanding - the camshaft being one of them.

The orginal OEM cam from this engine was still in it when I did the teardown. The cam appeared to have very little wear as compared to the others I've typically seen where the lobes with shared lifters tend to wear a deep notch at the center where both the lifter lobes overlap.

Given that I wanted to put this engine back together with as many original parts as I could I sent the cam to Elgin to see if it could be reground.

I sent the cam out to Elgin for inspection back toward the end of November. I hadn't heard anything so a few days after Christmas I decided to give them a call. The phone rang, and rang, and just about as I was going to hang up. An older guy answers.

He says, were closed for the Christmas holiday period. No worries, so I say I'll call back after the New Year. He then says, "well you got me on the phone now, what can I do for you?". I ask about the cam and right off the top of his head he says it's over at the inspection area and tell's me he's already taken a look at it, it looks really good unlike most of the 914 cam's they get and/or reject for regrinding. We have a little chat about what it came out of, what I want to do with it (street use, race, etc.) and then he reconfirms that I just want a regrind to stock. "It'll be done right after we get back after the New Year when we get back to work".

Now I know Dema Elgin has got to be getting up there in years but I'm sort of suspecting I talked to the man himself. Regardless, who ever it was . . . he was incredibly nice to talk with. Stuff like that seems to be getting rare nowaday's but it is why I like dealing with Mom & Pop shops

Well, anyway here is the reground and parkerized cam. Looks good as new.

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Now before ya'all start in on the routine of regrinding isn't as good, that it takes off part of the OEM case hardened surface, yadda yadda. I know all that.

The purpose of this GA000099 build is to put a low mileage low serial number engine back together using as many of the original parts as I can without compromising the overall durability of a engine for a hobby car that will lucky to accumulate 5,000 miles per year. IF I'm lucky and we don't have crazy hot, crazy humid summers, or snow in June.

Next up . . . I need to get the heads checked for cracks with dye pentrant and then start thinking about new valve guides, springs, valves, etc.