diy front pulleys

[DoughBoy]

Greenline are asking for $400 for a set delivered.

[Roy]

I next series of DIY will show anodizing in your garden shed .....

Uh oh, i can see it now a bath tub full of chemicals and a 12V car battery

...in best Eddie Murphy-Delerious voice "Wont you be my, oh, wont you be MY neighbour!"

[GTRgeoff]

This M/F*ckers Crazeh!!!!! That's some expensive alloy.

Have you fitted up and determined improvement yet or is that the next zany installment?

[Warpspeed]

Great stuff, and jolly good fun making your own parts.

Anyone looked into making their own aluminium sand castings ? I have been doing a bit of a net search on this, and it looks to be a bit of an interesting new challenge, and not very expensive to try either.

Golly, people have been sand casting stuff for thousands of years, it is not high tech. Should not be hard to DIY in the garage either.

Check out google "sand casting" absolutely fascinating. I had no idea it would be so easy to build a furnace using natural gas and a hair dryer used as an air blower. Plenty of scrap aluminium car parts around to melt down as well.

Anyone here actually done this ?

[GTRgeoff]

Ally has some troubling properties when melting/casting so I have left the whole idea alone, particularly the after roughing effort required...artificially ageing, solid solutions and binary phase diagrams. Not something I would be getting too far into in the garage.

[ylwgtr2]

i toyed with casting some time ago.....i started to make a wooden plug for a set of engine cases to take two CR500 motorcross bike cylinders...the aim was to acheive a V twin 1000cc twostroke engine to fit into a RGV250 ...i shelved the project and fitted an RG500 4cylinder twostroke instead...my plan was to cast a mould off the wooden plug and pull a product out....but i ran out of time and it got shelved...the tunnels need to pour the molten ally would have to have been quite intricate

[ylwgtr2]

Ally has some troubling properties when melting/casting so I have left the whole idea alone, particularly the after roughing effort required...artificially ageing, solid solutions and binary phase diagrams. Not something I would be getting too far into in the garage.

Oh on another note....take a look at Brittan.....the man did all his stuff himself in his shed...cast his own wheels in a garbage bin ect....he was a kiwi but we cant hold that against him but he was intelligent

[Warpspeed]

Some people have had a fair bit of success, the main thing being to de-gas the molten aluminium just before the pour. Otherwise you end up with porosity and other problems.

Yes you must know all about metallurgy, heat treatment, ageing, and so on. A person can learn to weld without knowing anything about eutectic states and binary phase diagrams.

Its like driving a car. You cannot learn to drive unless you have ten years experience in combustion chemistry, thermodynamics, mechanical engineering, oil refining, and bearing technology. Without a very deep understanding of all the technology, just turning the ignition key can kill you. I don't think so.

People have been successfully casting metal for at least five thousand years. It is basically a very simple process.

Hobbyists are doing it at home all over the world. Check the internet.

[Clint32]

yeah its a pretty simple procedure if you can get the alloy in a clean molten state. If would be particually helpfull to make inlet a nice inet manifold or some cooler end tanks where the strength is not important rather the shape required.

[Warpspeed]

Exactly. I am thinking of non stressed, non structural parts. Things like plenums, pipework elbows and reducers for intercooler pipework, intercooler end tanks and so on. Things that do not require precision machining, but can be hand finished.

I think it is the sort of thing you would need to practice at to get your technique spot on. I guess it is like spray painting or welding, you can only learn so much from books. You must actually do it yourself and get the technique right.

The beauty is, that the metal, and the casting sand is very cheap and can be re-used. Its not like it is going to cost a fortune every time you try it.

I would love to try a custom plenum.

[Steve]

you could take a copy of a greddy plenum, then mod them to suit RB20 - you would make a killing. sounds like fun, even if you do fark it.

still chuckling about the thought of an RG250 being converted to a two stroke Vtwin 1000cc - a shame you never completed that one ylwgtr2 - I would pay money to see that:)

[EnricoPalazzo]

those bikes are so unforgivin i doubt he would still b here if he did it.

[ylwgtr2]

you could take a copy of a greddy plenum, then mod them to suit RB20 - you would make a killing.  sounds like fun, even if you do fark it.

still chuckling about the thought of an RG250 being converted to a two stroke Vtwin 1000cc - a shame you never completed that one ylwgtr2 - I would pay money to see that:)

[gatty]

nice job - get a CNC lathe and start floggin em out quick

[FATGTS-R]

" copped a rush at 1 in the morning and decided to make them"

Copped a rush and decided to make a pulley. Geez.. Most guys I know that cop a rush at 1 in the morning will either take the car out for a squirt or rip out the old fella and give it a beating. LOL

[Warpspeed]

Ahhhhhhhh, but some people have a kinky fetish about aluminium pulleys.

Bright and shiny, smoooooooth to the touch. Nudge nudge, wink wink, know what I mean.

[GTRgeoff]

Warpspeed

You got me interested. Looks like some research is in order. I reckon a plenum is ideal for investment casting.