[SEL] Babbitt bearings poured on the Alamo.

[Arnie Fero]

Hi Curt,

VERY impressive piece of work!!  I really like the fixture design for
positioning the dummy shaft.  I have a couple of questions.

You're pre-heating to 550 deg.F and you're using the upper cap with the
new bearing in place as a part of the fixturing.  What temperature does
your babbit melt at?  I would have thought it melted around 500 deg.F
(obviously not).

I didn't see the classic X-groove to help distribute grease across the
bearing surface.

You mention a 45-deg. bevel to "build the pressure wedge for the
lubricant film."  I think of hydrodynamic oil pressure effects as a
characteristic of much higher rotation speeds; like >1000 RPM,
not ~100 RPM.

Somewhere on the net a SEL FAQ is maintained.  I sure hope that SOMEONE is
capturing well documented work like this for the FAQ.

See ya,  Arnie

Arnie Fero
Pittsburgh, PA
fero_ah at city-net.com

On Mon, 1 May 2006, Curt wrote:

> Folks this was a banner weekend! Accomplished a significant milestone in
> the restoration of the Alamo engine by successfully pouring both the
> lower and upper mains on this engine. I had done lowers before, but was
> apprehensive about the uppers. As it turned out they were easier than
> the lowers. Missy and I picture documented this as best we could and
> I've put it on the website. Maybe it will be useful to someone when
> pouring theirs.
> Here is the link:
> http://www.oldengine.org/members/holland/images/AlamoBabbittPouring/Thumbnails.html