I did a lot of research into milling machines that could be purchased for under $3000, I looked into used Bridgeport's, Jet, WTTools, Enco, Grizzly and others and (at least on paper) the Grizzly G3616 mill has the most features per dollar. In my search I ruled out the following types of mills: round column, moveable heads and 3-phase motors. What I was looking for was what is referred to as a knee mill, meaning that the head of the mill stays stationary and the table moves up and down.

In addition I was getting tired of cranking the table movement by hand and definitely wanted power feed on the X-axis.

Luckily all of the extraneous equipment (collets, vises, drills, mills, etc) will also work on the new mill as my current mini-mill came with an R8 spindle taper and all of the collets that I have are compatible.

The shipping weight of it is almost 2000lbs! I could not find any independent reviews online anywhere of this particular machine, so when I get it I will write up a review. I did find a review of a smaller Grizzly G3103 mill here.

First thing was to cut off the old socket from the back of the assemblies, quick work on the bandsaw. Next thing was to drill a 1" hole through the back for the socket to get inserted into, and finally a couple of small slots for the tangs on the socket and done!

Left is a picture of the unaltered turn signal assembly, next the 1" hole put in, I used my pocket knife to cut the slots out for the tangs:

Got the 4 parts cut and ready to TIG weld when I thought that I would practice on some scrap pieces of the track first. After changing my collet and tungsten to a 3/32" size I fired up the welder. Using some low amperage the extrusion did not want to weld, the edges of it turned a slight brown coloration and it just puddled up and dropped away. I moved to slightly larger tungsten and same thing. Then I realized that I had forgotten to ask what type of aluminum it was!

Post Note: 3/14/07 Today I called Brunner Enterprises and I found out that the extrusion was anodized using aluminum oxide and this appeared to be the source of my problem. They stated that the finish is about 4mil thick and in order to TIG weld it I have to remove the finish from the area that I want to weld, the underlying alloy is a 6063 and should be easy to weld. They said that the anodizing is slippery to the finger, I will know when I removed it as the underlying alloy will be sticky to the finger.

Ok, try another approach. I have some aluminum solder (yes you can solder aluminum!) and gave it a couple of trys. Not good adhesion and pulled apart. I had two different alloy solder and tried them both with no good luck. Apparently this extrusion was a tough one. You could possibly MIG weld it, but you need a pull gun and I don't have one for my welder.

So now I am back to square one again, what I just may end up doing is waiting until the new milling machine shows up, get some known composition aluminum and just mill it out myself, and then weld it up.

The milling machine arrived! My good friend Paul Schreiner from PS Composites and his wife MaryKay came over to help me out.

It was interesting getting it off the truck as my driveway has a slight incline coming from the road so when the mill was on the tailgate it had a bit of a lean to it. We were being extremely cautious and used 2 large binding straps to help hold it down on the tailgate, and I'm glad that we did as when the tailgate started downward the machine rocked back and forth a bit!

We used the palette jack to slowly move it down the steepest part of the driveway down into the lower bay. It took about 45 minutes to get it off the truck and into the garage.

I removed the outside crate and inspected the machine. In previous research it was advised to be sure that a collet fit properly into the quill, as in the past a number of machines had a slight problem, but my machine checked out ok. Did a quick inventory of parts and everything looked good so I signed the paperwork - it is now mine!

I was extremely anxious about the weight of it as during my initial research I found an article about some guy that rented a truck from Budget trunk rental. Supposedly the tailgate was rated for 3,000 lbs, but when he and his neighbor moved the mill (same one as I have) that the tailgate collapsed making the mill crash to the ground where it fell over onto the guy's neighbor! Very scary stuff: here is the source.

The machine was actually double palleted, so it was about 8" off the ground. We went to my pole barn and disassembled my engine hoist, brought it over to the garage and reassembled it. The legs of the hoist initially had to be put on top of the palette and we slowly inched it forward till it was about 1/2 the way off the palette, blocked up the front and set it down. Next we extended the legs and boom of the hoist to the maximum extent that they would move, and using 2 large straps hoisted it from above the machine until it was completely free. Then we simply removed all the blocking and palettes and put it down onto the floor, a few minutes later we had it pushed back into position where a spot was cleared for it.

In all it took almost 2 hours to get it off the palette, on the ground and positioned!

I took the rest of the day cleaning up all the packing/shipping grease on the machine. It appears that they must spray this stuff on as it was all over everything including wires and hoses! This am I had purchased a bunch of shop rags, paper towels and acetone. I ended up using a razor blade to help remove the grease from all the machined surfaces then used a rag wetted down with acetone to remove the residue. Once off I lubricated all the machined areas with some good lube.

The only place that you have to be a bit careful is the adjustable stand for the halogen light, there are a couple of plastic pieces and the acetone removed the silver paint in one spot.

Next I chucked in a dial indicator and ran it across the entire surface of the table. It did not look to bad as a start, across the entire X-axis from end to end there was a .003" difference, and across the Y-axis from front to back there was also about .003" difference as well, not too bad for a start.

The mill came with a halogen light, coolant system, collet set and a rotary 5" machining vise. The vise was not fantastic but not all that bad either, it comes with a fairly cheap removable handle, binds a little bit in one spot but will do some further testing with it.

First impressions are that the mill is not bad, I would not want to use it for a commercial business but think that it would be just fine for the home/hobbyist and after a little tweaking will be just what I has looking for. I think that at this time the biggest complaint that I would have about it is that it seems that the mill castings have a fair amount of bondo on them but this is for looks only and will not affect performance.

Most of the day was spent on modifying the rear brake caliper mounting bracket. As you recall I modified the rear axle rotor spacer and went with a recessed brake rotor. The diameter of this rotor was larger than the flat rotor that I originally had which caused the mounting holes to be incorrect. I had to 'extend' the top of the bracket and a portion of the lower section as well so that I would have additional material in which to put in the new mounting holes.

In order to modify the caliper mounting bracket I had to remove the rear swing arm, weld on additional material, grind it down as well as fill in the existing holes. Once all this was done I figured out the new mounting position of the brake caliper and drilled new holes:

I had to use a small spacer between the caliper and mounting bracket to position the caliper on the rotor as well. This was planned as initially I purposely made the space between the bracket and the rotor slightly wider than I actually needed. Had I put it even slightly too close then the caliper would hit the rotor, so using a small spacer to shim the caliper to the desired position makes it easy to put the caliper exactly where it should be.

Once the caliper mounted I finished up running the rear stainless steel brake line to an offset 3/8" banjo fitting and wire tied the line onto the rear swing arm. I am quite pleased with the final results:

Ok so you are asking "does he have a 2-1/8" end mill?" well, no I don't, but I did have a 2-1/8" Forstner bit used to cut wood! So I marked the profile of the arc, used a 1/2" end mill to hog out the majority of the material and finally sacrificed the Forstner bit to make the final cut. The bit was cheap and I threw it away when done. If I had an adjustable boring bar or fly cutter I could have done the same, but at the time I didn't, and just went real slow with the wood bit. If the bracket had been steel instead of aluminum it would not have worked.

First I cut a piece of angle to the approximate length and cut out the washer clearance area (as stated above). Next I marked out where the top bolt hole should be positioned and drilled the hole. Then I mounted the bracket and marked/drilled the second mounting hole position. Next I cut the angle, removed one leg of it, bent it and TIG welded it, located and put in the muffler mounting hole. Lastly I marked and cut the top profile so that it matched the swing-arm bracket and radiused all corners. I do not have any machinist blueing, and instead use a permanent magic marker to layout the holes/cuts/etc, when done I use a wire wheel to remove all traces of the marker and buff up the part a bit.

Below is a picture of the finished bracket:

(Post Note 4/4/07 : The vernier control is wayyyy too big, sending back.)

Arvil Shepherd had previously turned me on to this company for the throttle cable, and after some research only found one other company that sold custom high performance throttle cables Push-Pull. I went with Pegasus because their website allowed online ordering and gave a lot more detailed information and cable end options.

The cable is pretty long and I will be threading it through the front steering tunnel, inside of the passenger compartment, out the back, wire tie it to the engine subframe and up to the throttle. The inside cable is 118" long and I needed 1-1/2" movement at the pedal, and 5" at the engine side, so the total casing length is 111.5". To get the cable measurements I actually used a long length of MIG wire and threaded it through both of the paths to get the total length measurement of the cables that I needed, I did not want to guess at them.

My Honda VFR-750 has a rotary throttle connection that requires a .250" barrel connection at the end. I talked to the guy at Pegasus that makes the cables and they do not install these types of ends, they will only install swaged stud connections. Recently I went to my local ACE hardware store and they did have a 1/4" barrel connector that fit perfectly so I will be silver soldering this onto the end of the cable myself.

The vernier control is overkill for the choke, but it is a high quality item. By turning the knob each rotation moves the cable 3/16", or by depressing the button you can rapidly move the cable to either end of travel. I did not want to go with a cheap choke cable like they sell at the local auto parts store. I am currently using one of them for the front trunk release and it does not move smoothly, and eventually I will replace it.

Today I called Brunner Enterprises and I found out that the extrusion that I purchased from them was anodized using aluminum oxide and this appeared to be the source of my problem. They stated that the finish is about 4mil thick and in order to TIG weld it I have to remove the finish from the area that I want to weld, the underlying alloy is a 6063 and should be easy to weld. They said that the anodizing is slippery to the finger, I will know when I removed it as the underlying alloy will be sticky to the finger.

One of the guiding factors that I have been thinking about is that under 'normal' operating conditions (with the vehicle moving in a forward direction) that there has to be some sort of separation between the jack-shaft operation and the reverse motor. When I refer to 'separation' what I mean is that the reverse motor is not being driven by the jack-shaft, but it is stationary.

I have concluded that there are three ways in which to achieve this separation, they are:

1. Physical separation: this assumes that the reverse motor (or coupling) is somehow physically separated from the jack-shaft.
2. One way clutch mechanism: something like using a sprague bearing clutch.
3. Planetary drive: an great example of operation can be found at this website. This mechanism utilizes a 1) sun gear, 2) planetary gears and 3) outer ring gear (also called epicyclical). There is a nice article at Wikipedia.

1) Physical Separation -This solution involves 'disconnecting' the mechanical coupling of the reverse motor and the jack-shaft. This complicates the issue as not only do you have to have electrical circuitry to turn the reverse motor on/off/variate the speed, but you also have to create a mechanical separation as well. You could use something like a starter motor that has a solenoid to engage/disengage the motor and is one possible solution.

2) One way clutch - Sprague or one-way clutches could be used however most of them have a fairly low overrunning speed of between 1,000-2,000 rpm so some sort of gear reducing needs to be done as the jack-shaft turns at almost engine speed, upwards of 8,000 rpm. This complicates the issue, but is not impossible.

3) Planetary drive - these style drives potentially offer a good solution to my problem. The jack-shaft is coupled to say the outer ring gear, the reverse motor is coupled to the sun gear. When the vehicle is being driven in the forward direction the planetary gears are allowed free movement while the sun gear is stationary (reverse motor turned off), this allows the planetary gears to rotate around the sun gear. When reverse is desired the reverse motor is engaged and the planetary gears become fixed, allowing the reverse motor to turn the jack-shaft. Taking this idea further - you could potentially use a single speed reverse motor and use a brake type of mechanism to slowly 'lock-up' the planetary gears, giving you a variable speed reverse operation!!! Now that I like and it would be the ultimate solution!!!

Ok so I think that you can see that initially I will be exploring further option #3 and fall back to option #1 if it gets too difficult.

Next issue - where are commercially available planetary gear drives? There is a commercial unit sold by Quaife, but it sells for about $1200. After looking hard and long it became very apparent to me that potentially the answer is simple. Literally just about every household has at least one in their garage - a bicycle! More specifically a 3 speed bike these types utilize internal gear hubs vs a derailleur which is commonly used on 10 speed and uses external chain gearing.

The internal gear hub was initially developed in 1903 by the English company Sturmey Archer, and by the 1930s they had become common on bicycles across the world. Another positive advantage is that the mechanism is enclosed within the hub and is not exposed to dirt or weather. There is a nice article describing it's history at Wikipedia.

My initial thought is to acquire a 3-speed hub and do some experimentation with it, I need to see if the internal components are up to the torsional requirements as well as what the max. overrunning speed might be, as it may need to be geared down using a small pulley on the jack-shaft and a larger on on the hub - which affects the speed of the driving motor.

Here are a couple links:

• http://www.mistertransmission.com/transmission_school.htm
• http://www.transmissiondenver.com/facts.html

I decided that I would fall back to something that I know that I can do - build the window framework out of wood instead of aluminum. So I took some 1/2" thick red oak that I had laying around and cut it into 1-1/2" wide strips. On my table saw I have a really good cabinet making blade which is 1/8" wide and cut two slots into the wood about 3/8" thick deep, I separated the slots with 1/8" material. Once I mount the window panels I will glue a strip of 1/8" acrylic onto one window panel to help the windows seal between each other as much as possible. Here is a scrap piece showing the spacing:

I carefully fit and marked each of the pieces into the window area, the bottom piece needed to be able to drain any accumulated water so I cut some simple slots every 3" using a 1/4" wood router bit to allow both channels to drain to the outside. I probably could have put in less drains but I did not want water sitting inside the channel.

Next I cut a couple of pieces of 1/8" acrylic to fit into the window frame. I had originally thought that I would use some 1/4" thick acrylic pieces for the sliding windows, but really did not need the additional thickness, the 1/8" is plenty sturdy for this purpose. I cut the two windows so that they would overlap about an inch or so in the middle.

Finally I then drilled and countersunk the mounting holes into the inside surface of each of the four frame pieces and spray painted all sections black to match my paint scheme.

I used a short length of 3/4" wood to help space the framework evenly inside the window box, marked and drilled the mounting holes, put some black silicone caulk on the underside and mounted the bottom framework piece in place. Once I got the screws tightened up I cleanup any of the caulk that had oozed out the bottom.

Next I mounted one of the side pieces in a similar manner, the only difference was that I put one of the acrylic windows in place to ensure that when closed that the slots aligned up correctly. Then onto the other in the same manner, again with black caulk on the back side as well as the mating surface of the bottom piece.

Finally I put the top piece over the top of the window panels, slid it into place double checked alignment with the sides and screwed it into place. I did not use any caulk on the top piece in case I had to remove the windows in the future.

Here are a couple of pictures showing the window from the outside and inside, they slide real easily, above the window you can also see the 3rd brake light that I put in:

In the future I will use a glue a piece of 1/8" acrylic onto the innermost window panel once I can find out what kind of glue to use, and I will also put in some kind of hand operated spring loaded pin to lock them in the closed position.

When I initially put the engine into the subframe I had a bolt in the rearward motor mount that I didn't pay much attention to and just kinda slapped in any old bolt that was long enough. Well the bolt that I used was about 4" too long and I had forgotten all about it until recently. Unfortunately because of the length I would have to either pull the engine to replace it with a correctly sized one or to use a die and thread it in place. I decided to thread the bolt in place, as it was the lesser of two evils.

Here is his process: be sure that the surfaces of the two pieces to be glued fit well, put a small amount of MEK in a syringe and use it very sparingly around the perimeter of the area being bonded. Simply press the two pieces together and hold for about a minute and let the capillary action spread the MEC across the surface. It can take up to 8 hours for completed bond to completely set.

He says that typically a gallon is the smallest quantity that you can typically buy 'off the shelf', however if you go to a sign maker they possibly might sell you a smaller quantity.

He mentioned that most modern transmissions all use clutch packs and that these packs need to have hydraulic pressure on them to work, so that rules them out for me. He said that the older Ford C4, C5 or C6 transmissions used bands and for what I was looking for would be the best place to start.

These bushings are 3/8" ID, 9/16" OD and with a flange diameter of 1". I also recessed the bushings so that they protruded on each side of the shifter by about .030". When done I had to modify the shifter base so that the shifter and bushings would fit between the flanges.

Here is a picture of the modified shifter base:

The pattern that you see on the shifter is my kitchen wall paper which was over a foot away - that is a a pretty good almost mirror finish that I was able to obtain! The shifter almost looks like it was made from polished stainless steel - but it is not - it's aluminum. I have a lot more appreciation for people that polish metal for a living...

Most of the rest of the day was spent in assembling my buffing machine and finish polishing the shifter and base. This was a long process and took at least 4-5 hours! I would polish using the coarsest (black) compound with a sisal wheel. Once done lots of small imperfections came out so I laid some sheets of 200 grit sandpaper on my welding bench and used it on the shifter, then back to the sisal wheel and black compound. Back and forth until I got the finish fairly perfection free.

Once I got the shifter looking pretty good I finished off polishing it with a spiral sewn cotton wheel and using the polishing compound (blue) until I got almost a mirror finish.

Here is another shot of the shifter, base and nylon bushings:

The length of the ball pins was not sufficient to have enough threads in the tie rod end, so I decided that I had to extend both ends by about 1". If I did not then there was the possibility that when I brought the vehicle in for a front wheel alignment that I would run out of threads. I have always understood that you want about 2x the diameter thread length inside the tie rod ends, so this modification should give me potentially between 2x and 3x.

The ball pin shaft diameter was about .462" and the closest thing that I had was 1/2" drill rod, so I knew that to make welding easiest I would have to reduce the diameter to what was already there. So I chucked some drill rod in my mini-lathe and turned down the outside dimension to match the diameter of the ball pins. Once the spacers were cut I cut the ball pins on my band saw.

I used a 'Vee' block to keep the parts as straight as possible and TIG welded the spacers in place, and finished them by putting them back into the mini-lathe and turning the welds down, painting them and reassembling the rack & pinion. The current length of the ball pins is now about 12-1/4" long.

It looks promising! There are 2 planetary drives inside and possibly a good chance on making a variable speed reverse solution work. Here are a couple of photos of the planetary center sections:

In the above photo the gear on the left came from the back of the transmission and has an aluminum frame, while the beefier one came from the front. Here are a couple of photos of them together using each of the center sections with the same ring/sun gears:

Here is a picture of all the components from the rear planetary drive, and on the right the assembled unit. The only thing not showing is the output shaft that drives the ring gear (farthest component on the right). The brake band that stops the planetary gear basket from moving on the farthest left:

THIS IS A WORKABLE SOLUTION for variable speed reverse, and a compact unit to boot!

All that is left remaining is:

• a suitable container (with mounting tabs/holes/etc)
• a mechanical mechanism for locking the brake band with variable pressure
• a mounted gear to drive the sun gear (short stubby item)
• some bearings to mount the input/output shafts
• possibly a sprague clutch to keep the reverse shaft from counter revolving

Initially I ordered three different plungers, various diameters an lengths, however I feel that this one would suit my application better.

This is the device that I will be using for the sliding rear windows. I will be putting a strip of acrylic between the two sliding windows, gluing it to the innermost panel. Then I will drill & tap it to install the plunger and use a jamb nut to lock it into place.

The lever pulls out and you rotate it to lock it in the retracted position and open the windows. When you want to lock it you close the windows and rotate the lever so that it plunges into a hole made in the 2nd panel, and this locks the windows closed. This is not tamper proof, but the intention is just to ensure that the windows are closed and as water tight as possible.

I ordered up a replacement cable for the front trunk lid release to replace the cheap choke control cable that I currently have. The cheap choke cable sticks and does not operate smoothly. Since the last cable order I used Pegasus Auto Racing I thought that I would try this supplier as well.