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Steve , i am a Master Harley Davidson Tech. I would like to thank you because i never was taught or learned that , about the reason why bearings were out of round. And we build pro stock harley bikes we race. We always just measured vertical clearance and assumed the extra clearance on the horizontal was for oil .. so thank you for the knowledge 👍
I guessed cap and rod stretch but didn’t consider the closing of the cap and rod ears but this makes complete sense after hearing your explanation, thank you for sharing this knowledge!
@@Shade_Tree_TV only older ones . They called them Timkin engines because the crank from 99 to 2002 had timkin bearing on the crankshaft. Along with EVO”s shovels , pans , and knuckles.. 2003 to present they use bushings no longer rollers/ ball bearings.
@PhatboyHD88 dude you got exposed and you're not making it any better. for a master Harley tech You should know they strictly use roller bearings In the engines. There are no journal style bearings in any of the harley engines unless you consider the wrist pin or rocker bushings lol
I'm only 10 minutes in. This is WHY you need to keep on making videos!!! You are a great teacher, Steve. I enjoy watching and learning. Pro Auto Shop for us former high school auto shop degenerates and others who just want to learn. Got to meet you at Norwalk, I was the dude scoping out Kyle's ride with my buddy Tom---also a veteran of the race engine building industry. We watch and discuss your channel and what we learn all the time. Thank you!
I happen to be an engineer at the plant where we actually make engine bearings. We make them for OEM manufacturers. It's actually called a crush relief. We cut them into every bearing we make. I have always understood that is why they are cut like that to take into account the bearing installed diameter. One of the checks we run is the actual bearing crush size. The height of the bearing is measured at an installed pressure to account for the crush on the bearing. That being said I am the controls guy not the finished bearing guy. I do plan to ask some questions at work tomorrow though. I have absolutely no reason to doubt Steve so take it for what it's worth.
Yes, as a 36 year employee of Clevite/ Mahle the tabs do not hold the half shells in place. It is the uninstalled bearing height that is generally .0008-.0012" taller than the bore size. There is also some extra clearance added down toward the parting line to accommodate the distortion from the crush of the bearing called the relief area.
Ahhh, the old days at GM... I never have forgotten … " Copper, Tin, Lead, and Antimony... plus the 7 other inert ingredients in the formulaic recipe for OUR specifications ". ( God rest his soul ) I always enjoyed the cartoons on the dry erase boards, but they convey their intended purpose! Appreciate this video and your attention to detail for us all! Have a nice day young man. Respectfully, Seth
Steve, the bearing episode was too cool. When you or anyone else talks about clearances, a lot of people don’t understand that when they hear . 002 thousands clearance or any other number, they don’t realize how much it really is. When I was working on my screw machines, +-.002 was the norm. When I would teach a newbie about machining, I would ask them if they knew what .002 meant. I would tell them that a human hair is about .003. If they split it 3 times, each piece would be .001, split one of them 10 times, that would be .0001, that’s how close that crank was ground to.
Oil films are generally in the range of tenths as well. I've been a machinist in every aspect of the trade for 20 years. Automotive to medical to aerospace. It's awesome to be able to talk to people with my same passion and an understanding of how tight some of these tolerances can get.
I think one thing people don’t understand is the machinists jargon. They call this measurement a tenth, it’s one tenth of one thousandth’s, (.001 to .0001) and your explanation is perfect for explaining it. Split a hair three times for one thousandth’s, .001, split that ten times for a tenth or ten thousandth’s of an inch, .0001. Just for grins for those in the know, a cigarette rolling paper is one thousandth’s of an inch, .001, split that rolling paper ten times for a tenth, .0001.
@@inertiaMSto people who doesnt use metric graduations on machines or would have to completely relearn measurements based off imperial to understand it is not as easy as “moving to metric”. Thats equivalent to you being sent to another country and be expected to fluently speak a new language when you step on the ground
Love the detailed content. Never stop learning! No one ever knows it all. Steve and the guys are the perfect example. They’re Extremely knowledgeable, but even they say, well, we’ll ask the specialists in every detailed area. Absolutely love it!
Hey Steve, Tim here, BOY i LOVED this vid!!!....it always bugged me that the bearings will stick out a few thou.....but NEVER filed them, NEVER had a massive failure, i just really didnt know why, NOW, i have my answer!!.....THANK GOD, i never tried to "fix" a brand new bearing.......i am ESTATIC, as i learned somethin new this morn.....TY sir!!.....boy, just KILLER info!!...TY again!!😊
Assembly aide. In many cases it also prevents the bearings from being installed in wrong position because the tang only fits one way. Tangs are a location device for the bearing as Steve said, friction from crush is what keeps it from rotating, well, until the other side makes more grip lol. Which brings up a good point Steve should cover, proper surface finish of the journal, clean, dry..not lubricated. Also handling of the bearings, maybe wipe the back with a dry cloth, and don't handle them more than needed. With today's coatings, sometimes people try to 'clean' them due to their appearance and damage the surface. On big engines we had a fixture that was machined to verify the bearing was proud out of the rod the correct amount on both sides. We also had thumb screws with a tab that held the bearing in position while it was being stuffed in the cylinder. Big parts use big bearings that are affected by gravity. You can bolt up a big end, have all the correct Clearances, pre lube oil pressure, it will turn over from the compression. Fire it up and it runs for 20 minutes. Just making contact with the crank journal bumped the bearing a few thousands (rotated) Yeah the tang ended up in the narrow part of the groove so the running clearance disappeared as soon as the oil got warm. So yes, tangs don't prevent the bearing from spinning 😂 Always make sure the friction on the outside is higher than the friction on the inside. < Tip 4
Steve! I think you and Gale Banks together would make a damn good engine teaching/sharing video or Podcast. You both are My favorite! Thank you for your passion!
Enjoyed watching the screw retrieval. In the medical field they use a retrieval basket which allows retrieval of fine parts from airways and vessels. Effectively you could have used one of these to remove the screw without removing the head. Thought you might like to know.
Makes pefect sense, every time you tear down an engine and inspect bearings, they are worn on the up and down side but never at the split of the bearing.
Has to do with: A compression B firing stroke. Both give more pressure on the bearing and thats in the centre line of the rod. C changing movement from up to down (i have to translate my words from my own language to yours, so dont alway know the proper words). Think an inline engine here. Your piston is continiously changing speeds while going up and down. At the moment something ( piston, rod, bearings and bolts=x weight) of x weight changes direction opposit from where it came from, that weight wants to proceed its travel. So the bearing needs to apply force to the x weight. That happens in tdc and bdc. Hence the spots in the bearings.
The bearing out of roundness is terms is called Eccentricity. And is necessary for connecting rods to alow for the elongation that happens making power and high rpm and as Steve said the sides of the rod bore moves closer to the journal. Maintain the oil wedge for lubrication without the bearing getting to tight. Have a great day everyone. 👍🇺🇸👍
I knew not to file the ends of the bearings, but now I know why. I did know the bearings were different sized from the middle to the ends, but again, I did not know why. Thanks Steve, I feel smarter now knowing why I did the things I did.
FYI. Vandervel was the major bearing producer back in the early days. Racers were encountering lots of spun bearings so they would tighten the crush but still had problems. Until Smokey Unick sorted it by putting chamfer on it because it would scrape the oil off.
Thanks Steve bearing Tech is so interesting. Glad you got the thread out of the Wagon that would have given you a whole lot of grief at a later time minimal damage and the Wagon lives to fight another day. We are blessed with the information you give us. Thanks to you and your team for all you share.
It's always amazed me the tensile and co oressive loads a connecting rod endures and how far materials have come in 20 years. We used to have to set bearing crush on exotic material connecting rods. We'd get +.004 crush and have to fixture and sand them down until they had the right crush for the rod materials... it was so much **fun**
We modified a high volume oil pump years ago. It made 96psi at idle. We thought we would never hurt a bearing. A week later we found glitter in the oil. Tore it down and the crank was not hurt but the babbit was flaking off of the shells! 🎉
Back in the day when machines were more manually operated they would put writing paper between the rod cap and rod before honing the bearing bore so when you remover the paper the bearing housing was oval like you say.
Definitely learned a lot in this episode. And I really do appreciate that you need to take apart your engines often enough to recognize the various benefits of Rev X. It shows me how beneficial it is to use their oil treatment. I started using it this year after seeing you talk about it and show the benefits. I’m sold on the stuff.
Using the oil as a hydraulic medium is fascinating to me. I have three pistons out of a Mack truck that I welded for my mailbox post. I watch you and KSR on RU-vid. I'm about two hours north of KSR and if I was a younger man I would be putting applications in at your shop and KSR. I used to build regular motors back in the eighties but I've learned more watching you on your channel than I have in my almost sixty years on this ball. Val's Camaro is looking fabulous and can't wait for the runs on the track. I wish you would sell some of your old rods because I would definitely find something to make with a couple. Stay safe and good luck on the track. I'll be waiting for your next video.
Great episode! Love these tech heavy sessions! Revex is most likely attracted to metal surfaces(surface acting compound) through an ionic bond type action, and not absorbing into "metal pores", as the sales guy explained. Most metals do not actually have "pores", but even finely machined surfaces do have microscopic asperities(peak and valleys).
Steve, leave the boy alone. Perfection is a standard he aspires to. You can’t require that of an employee, he does that on his watch, and you pay him what you pay him. If he wants a magnifying glass on his work bench, and you didn’t put it there for him. You need to gear-up for whatever else he may want. You will money ahead. The guy is gold!
In my Caterpillar diesel, we used a product similar in absorbed into metal surfaces and high heat protection. Motorkote was added into the oil as well and added protection.
Another great video with lots of good tech info!! I'm also glad to see you pulled that head on the Boost Master. Better to pull it in the shop where you're comfortable than to have it work loose on Drag Week and pull it in the pits. I'm looking forward to hearing what Oil Nerd has to say. Good luck to you and the team on Drag Week. I'll be rooting for you.
I was told a long time ago.... don't mess with bearings. Don't sand them, polish them or molest them in any way. Thanks for verifying. Oh, and my 'dropping a bolt' down the intake story. Put the carb back on an engine, couldn't find the 4th washer. Thankfully it was a cheap hardware store washer - super thin. The washer came to a rest along the wall of the cylinder. The washer got crushed flat - the hard way. No damage to the piston except for a ton of scratches. Heads were cast iron so almost nothing on the heads... Note to self, if missing a bolt (or washer or other hardware) when working anywhere near the carb.... Grab the magnet and find that hardware.
@@harmankardon478 The machine shop I use has always been + or - .0001. I hate it when they ask for what clearance I want. I said .002 - .003 and they get all bothered. I've learned to say .0025. I get more upset when they say they need to polish my brand new crank because one of the journals is .0001 more than the other.
The oil film when under pressure has a hydraulic effect. When can’t compress a liquid, so when the rod is forced down, it generates pressure against the bearing, and squeezes it in return. That’s probably the best way to describe what happens to the “V” series bearings. Most people don’t realize that the bearing inserts themselves are just there as basically a buffer, and it doesn’t ride on them, it rides on the oil film. When it gets through that oil film and into the bearing, you have problems. That’s why I always try to drill it into my students heads the importance of quality oil, the correct oil and also oil change intervals.
This is one of the most educational channels on all of RU-vid! Done in a way even morons, like myself, that don't build engines can completely understand and most importantly, Enjoy!!❤😊
This is some great tech . I always thought that the extra side clearance on the bearings was for a extra pumping effect that was created with the rotational weight slinging around . Great Stuff and thanks for sharing
About 30 years ago I was building performance and race marine turbocharged and blown engines for a friend's shop. He chose to use "P" bearings and had fixtures for the lathe so that we could cut a champher to clear the large radius stroker cranks that the P bearing would rub. The "H" bearings at the time were made with a similar champher, but later they went ahead and just made the narrow version.
Man, you have no idea how many times I get flamed on my channel for reusing some slightly damaged parts.😂😂 so nice to see a shop like yourself use common sense that the piston and head do not have to be completely replaced when something minor happens in that scenario. Love it.
To add a little context that Steve kinda touched on, but didn't specifically address. Bearing squish as a function of HP output/tune. IS absolutely a thing..... However, that squish is NOT solely dependent on power levels. The engine geometry also has a large impact on when you start "beating the bearings out of it"....... IE Bore/Stroke, Piston speed, Rod Material, Reciprocating weight..... Typically, around here folks start talking about beating the bearings out of a specific engine is when they've reached a power level where they really need to start thinking about an aluminum rod VS the steel one they are running. (Increased elastic deformation)
It’s cool to see the color on the exhaust and intake valves when you took them out. You can visualize how it’s injecting air/fuel and burning in the cylinder.
Smokey Yunick was the guy who figured out the rod bearings had to have more clearance on the parting line sides. They kept spinning bearings when they were "round"
Super interesting, thank you for this type of content. On a side note, the oil in your SMX should be called Predator blood, that's what it looks like to me!
I use to grind crankshaft at Mendham Engineering started an apprenticeship in the late 80s early 90s. I loved it until a lot of us found out we were not apprentices cheap labour some of the guys had been there for years. 🙏🇦🇺 and now I am the metal fusion technician intermediate Rigger and this is way more fun. 👨🏭
you need a lead in on any White metal bearing which also helps oil lube the bearing shell, the shifts actually float on the oil if you don't have that lead in edge it will actually wipe the oil off and will burn the bearing in micro seconds, I'm a machine tool fitter and on large shafts we get White metal put on to the bearing shells, I remember we did a machine that grinds the shock absorbers shafts and we hand scraped in the bearings, cost about $30-$40k to have it done a guy who wasn't up to speed with the lead in on the bearing he put the bearing shell in the wrong way around within 10min he burnt the White metal off the shell and rooted a $20k shaft it ended costing them $70k to repair it, engines aren't the only thing that uses White metal bearings and that lead in its the most important part of a bearing its self
Old school guys, if they read Smokeys history, i believe he said he was one of the first guys to develope that style bearing, because his motors at high RPM was eating the bearings. Smokey was never given proper credit for being a genuis !
Back in the day some of the race shops would put a C clamp on the parting line of the rods to intentionally hone them slightly out of round (when relaxed) so that additional housing size would provide the clearance necessary in race conditions to stop the bearing from spinning.
As soon as he asked about why the x axis/horizontal has more clearance I knew why. Only because they taught us in school about 15 years ago. Never thought I’d hear about it again 😂
I've noticed some of the OEM's now running both bearing types in the same engine. Hard bearings in the top half and soft in the bottom half on the conrod. Givs you the best of both worlds. A bearing that can handle extreme pressure without deforming an a soft surface that can catch and hold junk.
It would be super to watch a time laps of you putting the apart and back together! Set it n forget it while you work on the car or engine. Thank you for the videos. Hope to see you at PRI this December
Thanks Steve. Ive had people tell me for years the P bearings i use, i should change to H. Never have. Ive never seen a benefit to running a harder bearing, and ive explained the high HP stuff uses softer bearings. Been told i don't know anything, by people who can't keep a engine together, but mine live. 🤷
Im surprised it didn't do crazy damage. You could easy weld those spots and grind them down flat since it's not as critical as the deck surfaces. Although welding may mess with the material properties that the head is made out of
It's actually really interesting that it's possible to know around what power an engine was making from the dimensional change in bearing width. It makes sense the way you explained it, it just fascinates me that someone realized that it was possible in the first place. I guess when you have as many passes and tear downs as the Top Fuel guys eventually you're going to notice patterns, but it's still mind blowing.
Absolutely, also if the bearings dont have enough squeeze or outward pressure at the split area it can wipe oil. Reinstalling used bearings can lead to the split edge wiping oil also. Clocking the oil feed holes in cam bearings so the oil feeds ahead of the loaded portion can help to.
There is an interesting story in Smokey Yunick's book "The Best Damn Garage in Town" where he claims he and a tribologist discover the need to narrow the edges of the bearings to prevent spun bearing failures.
