I'm back? Excuses and more lathe stuff

I logged into my own blog the other day. It's a useful resource (at least for me). I was looking for something about the camshaft I'd bought for the V8, and noticed that the last blog post was 7 months ago! That's what having another ankle biter does. Anyway, I did say (way, way back) that I wouldn't say when I'd just been accumulating parts, but I would blog when I'd actually done something with them. Well, rest assured the parts accumulation is ongoing. The aim right now is to get the bottom end built. However, that means balancing it. There's a load of bits to get in order to get this done. Basically, anything that hangs off the crankshaft  needs to be balanced, so although I had the entire bottom end of the engine bought, I still needed to get the crankshaft damper, bottom pulley, flywheel, clutch and all associated nuts and bolts in a state where they could be balanced.

As I want to run a proper ECU controlled injection and ignition system (I already have an Emerald ECU bought), I need a trigger wheel. These are basically a toothed wheel which has tooth missing. A magnetic sensor detects each tooth as it passes, and through the missing tooth, the ECU can tell where the engine is on its firing cycle.

This is the one I have:

It's a laser cut ring-gear style 7.5" job from www.triggerwheels.com, who have this base covered pretty well.

Basically though, you need to attach it to the crank somehow, and this is where I've shown great forward planning in investing in a lathe. 

A small digression:

Last time I used the three jaw chuck that came with the lathe, I noticed a bit of run-out (basically whatever's in the chuck wobbles ever so slightly). With a three jaw this is going to happen, and run out of a about about a thousandth of an inch in each inch you move away from the chuck is about what you get. Which is about what I have. Still, I have a decent quality chuck, and didn't see a reason why I shouldn't give it a clean and see if this makes is a little more accurate.

Here's the chuck off the machine:

And the machine chuckless:

That bit of wood on the ways is because the collar you can see in the pic (which is what holds the chuck on the taper) can eventually force the chuck off the taper as it's spun. Chucks are heavy - you don't want one landing on the ways of the lathe.

I took the chuck to bits and gave it a clean and regrease.

It really wasn't at all filthy, so I'm expecting zero as a result of my efforts!

Unfortunately the phone ran out of battery at this point, so the rest of the process will not be documented, but overall I took it to bits, cleaned the scrolls and put everything back exactly how I found it.

Just for fun, I mounted the faceplate in the lathe:

Earlier this week, I found a 10" four jaw chuck locally to me (same guy who sold me the lathe), so snapped it up. I didn't quite appreciate how big it would be - it's a big lump and no mistake. Here it is next to the cleaned and reassembled 3 jaw:

Big beastie!

On the lathe, it looks like this: