Recommend a machinist in West Florida?

[shovelnik]

I have a set of 63 OHO heads in need of some serious help. Can anybody recommend a good shop/machinist in thw Tampa/St Pete area?

Nick

[indianut]

What do they need?

[shovelnik]

Long sad story. Bought them on e-bay. Looked real good in the pix and not all that bad in hand, but then my eyes are accurate +/- three or four inches. Current machinist says it looks like somebody tried to rebuild these in their back yard with hand tools. Like I said, they look ok if you don't look too close, so there was some degree of skill involved. Start measuring and it gets real sad.

Machinist says they there was alot of welding done in the chambers and on the gasket surface. Sounds credible given the amount of pitting I could see when I opened the box (couldn't see it in the e-bay pix). The welded fill was ground down or cut away. Definitely did not use milling equipment. Surfaces are not level, kind of wavvy and not parralel to the cyclinder surface, i.e. left side ground down further than the right side. Distance from gasket surface to the fin material ranges from ~0.002 to ~0.050. Set them up on a set of cylinders and you can see them cocked over to one side. A real mess and probably worth their weight in aluminum.

Anyway, machinist says while anything is rebuidable given infinite $$ and time, he doesn't want to touch it, too much time and too much risk. Can't disagree with him. What I am looking for is - has anybody out their taken on a mess like this and what were the results?

Trying to get my money back, but if somebody is confortable with this kind of thing maybe it could work. I'm convinced the seller didn't know what he was selling. Hate to screw him, but hate to get screwed myself even worse. So ... any miracle workers out there?

Nick

[1950Panhead]

Nick,
The cylinder has a lip that protrudes into the head.
If the lip touches the head at any point aluminum will have to be welded on and then surfaced. If the lip doesn't touch the head can just be surfaced.
You can check this with a micrometer depth gauge, check the lip height and the head depth at several points.
Most auto machine shops have a head surfacer to make auto heads (and panhead) flat again.
It is amazing what happens to old bikes through the years.
Just when you think you have seen everything something else comes along.
Jerry

[shovelnik]

Thanks for that info. The bigger problem I see is that so much material has been ground off the gasket surface, I see it interfering with the valve to piston clearance. Also, the surface is not squared to the cylinder, i.e. the valve face is angled left or right of the piston face. Only a few degrees I'm sure, but I have to believe that would be a problem. Like I said, valve clearance is my biggest concern. Your thoughts on that?

Nick

PS I'm gonna try to get some pix tomorrow to illustrate. Hard to capture some of this lind of thing, but I'll give it a shot.

[indianut]

I am in Largo and would be happy to look at them for you.

[shovelnik]

Cool! I am going to try to catch Mark Wall tomorrow AM at Fletchers (between 9 and 10). I'm retired,but I'm sure you have a jonb to go to, but you can e-mail me. Not sure how this PM thing works or do I just publish my e-mail address?

[indianut]

Just ask Mark for my #. I figure that is a pretty good Reference. I don't really do the PM thing that well myself. And NO. If I had to go to a Job, I would never have enough time to work on Motorcycle Stuff!!

[shovelnik]

Thanks Danny. Learned alot from our visit. Seller agreed to take back the heads and I shipped them yesterday. I'll drop by Fletcher's next Wednesday and see if Mark found anything. Still alot on eBay, but I'm a bit more cautious about those now! I have penty of time, so no big rush.

Again thanks for the help!!