Roll Your Own Hemi Torque/Hone Plate
Posted: Sat Oct 16, 2010 1:00 am
Hello all, I'm hoping this is an OK place to start this little build thread.
First, I must publicly give a huge thanks to 392heminut for helping me find a block! A Big Thanks Larry!!!!!!! I'll be heading down to Alburqurque on Thanksgiving weekend to meet Larry and pick it up. I can't wait!
Second, I have not found anyone around here that has a torque plate for honing, soooooo.... I'm going to try and build my own!
I am a machinist, and over the last 30 years, I've managed to collect a small rag-tag collection of old machine tools in my little home shop that I'm very proud of. Nothing fancy, and most of it's about 40 years old or so. More than good enough for this kind of job for sure. Now I do not pretend in any way to know much about torque plates. I only know what I've learned online. So I'll share with all of you what I'm going to do, and please feel free to make suggestions or share things you know about this subject.
This is what I have figured out so far, and how I'm going to go about it:
I'm going to start with this 8" wide by 2" thick by 48" long bar of A36 I've had for a while now. A friend of mine tossed it in the back of my Pick-Up some 20 years ago when I first arrived in Colorado from California. I was having trouble with traction in the snow.
Another friend of mine has gladly offered to stress relieve it in his big heat treat oven with a bunch of other parts he's running. He had room, so he through it in with the rest. I wanted this step done for stability reasons. For those of you that are machinists, you know how frustrating it is to chase a long piece of materials tendency to warp when trying to surface the faces one at a time. Each time you grind a little off, it warps from the built in stresses. The stress relieving is done at something between 1,500 and 1,600 degrees I think, I can find out for sure from him if it's important. He assures me it will be stress free and much easier to machine when it's done. I trust what he's doing. But most importantly, it will remain flat when I final grind both sides.
The plan is to cut the bar length down, rough machine the faces, final machine the bores, bolt holes and sides, then final dust grind the faces flat and smooth. I also plan on machining some stand-offs to simulate the rocker arm stands length so the bolts used to hold it to the block are stock length. That should duplicate as much as possible the clamping pressure the block would normally see with a head bolted down to it. The final thickness of the plate will be something between 1.75 to 1.875" after final grinding.
Ideally, a large chunk of cast iron would be the perfect material to use. But I'm going to try and use this stress relieved steel bar instead. I'm sure it will be much better than using nothing when honing.
I should be able to pick up my chunk of steel on Monday next week from the heat treater. Then I'll start making a great big mess in my shop. I'll post up picks as I go. Again, feel free to share your thoughts and suggestions.
If this plate works out, which my guts tell me it will, I'm hoping others in the area will benefit from using it too.
Take care all!
David
First, I must publicly give a huge thanks to 392heminut for helping me find a block! A Big Thanks Larry!!!!!!! I'll be heading down to Alburqurque on Thanksgiving weekend to meet Larry and pick it up. I can't wait!
Second, I have not found anyone around here that has a torque plate for honing, soooooo.... I'm going to try and build my own!
I am a machinist, and over the last 30 years, I've managed to collect a small rag-tag collection of old machine tools in my little home shop that I'm very proud of. Nothing fancy, and most of it's about 40 years old or so. More than good enough for this kind of job for sure. Now I do not pretend in any way to know much about torque plates. I only know what I've learned online. So I'll share with all of you what I'm going to do, and please feel free to make suggestions or share things you know about this subject.
This is what I have figured out so far, and how I'm going to go about it:
I'm going to start with this 8" wide by 2" thick by 48" long bar of A36 I've had for a while now. A friend of mine tossed it in the back of my Pick-Up some 20 years ago when I first arrived in Colorado from California. I was having trouble with traction in the snow.
Another friend of mine has gladly offered to stress relieve it in his big heat treat oven with a bunch of other parts he's running. He had room, so he through it in with the rest. I wanted this step done for stability reasons. For those of you that are machinists, you know how frustrating it is to chase a long piece of materials tendency to warp when trying to surface the faces one at a time. Each time you grind a little off, it warps from the built in stresses. The stress relieving is done at something between 1,500 and 1,600 degrees I think, I can find out for sure from him if it's important. He assures me it will be stress free and much easier to machine when it's done. I trust what he's doing. But most importantly, it will remain flat when I final grind both sides.
The plan is to cut the bar length down, rough machine the faces, final machine the bores, bolt holes and sides, then final dust grind the faces flat and smooth. I also plan on machining some stand-offs to simulate the rocker arm stands length so the bolts used to hold it to the block are stock length. That should duplicate as much as possible the clamping pressure the block would normally see with a head bolted down to it. The final thickness of the plate will be something between 1.75 to 1.875" after final grinding.
Ideally, a large chunk of cast iron would be the perfect material to use. But I'm going to try and use this stress relieved steel bar instead. I'm sure it will be much better than using nothing when honing.
I should be able to pick up my chunk of steel on Monday next week from the heat treater. Then I'll start making a great big mess in my shop. I'll post up picks as I go. Again, feel free to share your thoughts and suggestions.
If this plate works out, which my guts tell me it will, I'm hoping others in the area will benefit from using it too.
Take care all!
David