Repco Power ASG Cylinder Head Grinder

Hi
Boss has bought an old Australian built Repco Power Pty Ltd ASG cylinder head grinder and I am in the processes of getting it going.
At first I thought it was missing the feed but by the looks of it you just move the head of the machine backward and forward by hand, could get tiresome, after doing 16 individual cylinder heads!
It came out of a diesel engine rebuild workshop, I would have at a guess somewhere from 1960 to 1970 ish.
So far it doesn't look too bad, 20 or 30 years of cast iron grindings 6" deep, that I am going to have to take to with a power chisel.

It has a segmented grinding head of about 12" dia. or a bit bigger.

At the moment it is sitting on a wooden pallet, but to me it looks as if the bed slopes down to the park up position, the head runs on two large round bars with flats machined into them for 4 roller bearings on the top bar and 2 reaction arm bearings on the lower bar.

I will take photos tomorrow and up load for reference.
I have cleaned the bars and bearings and the head moves freely now, now I have to tie the head back otherwise it runs to the lower end where I am working on getting the grindings out.

Is there anyone out there that knows anything about these grinders, I would greatly appreciate any help, I have looked on the internet and cannot find anything.

I will have other grinding questions, as the boss has bought a few others, Blanchard 20CD 36, Lumsdon 48", Blohm HFS512, and Supertec STD-1022AD,
I asked him if we were setting up a museum, he wasn't amused.

Burgs

Cleaning up, removed 6" of grindings, more to do today.
Fired up and motor spins up ok, coolant pump also working.


Burgs

Never seen one of those, would assume it had a feed, but you are the one looking at it. What does the switch on left side do? Master power switch?

Hi
The switch/power outlet on the left has been added to power up something else at sometime, the coolant switch is on the right side next to the coolant tank.
I have now nearly finished cleaning it, and it is coming up good, if it all works ok then we will strip and paint it, and most likely add a feed system.
Took a bit of time leveling it up, has no adjustment/jacking screws, just the cast iron base with two feet at the back and one in middle front, had to shim it up, might work something else out later if it goes any good.
I will start making the table to mount the heads on next, fit a new set of stones and take a grind on a couple of crook heads and see what happens.
Repco Power made quite a lot of grinders both surface and cylindrical.

Best Regards
Burgs

Hi
Well set up and ground 11 heads so far and machine works well for its age, the feed by hand isn't as bad as I thought.
Would like to try a diamond tip dresser rather than the wheelie thing, it seems to dig in too much, too quick.

Burgs

Really weird it does not have power traverse- how in the heck to you control the surface finish when feeding by hand? Most late model stuff requires pretty specific finishes to keep gaskets from failing.
The design is very close to a cross between a Berco and an old Lemco, but both had power traverse.

Dan from Oakland said:

Really weird it does not have power traverse- how in the heck to you control the surface finish when feeding by hand? Most late model stuff requires pretty specific finishes to keep gaskets from failing.
The design is very close to a cross between a Berco and an old Lemco, but both had power traverse.

Click to expand...

Hi
Yeah that's what I thought, but to my amazement it works quite well, not much effort is required and control of the finish is easy.

But I am not a young chappy so we will fit a pneumatic system to feed the head, did a bit of work on the wheel dresser and now the finish is real good, not polished and the wheel seems to break down good.

The shaft the dresser spins on was worn out, and the casting that held the wheel has suffered a lot of damaged so repaired that and it made a big difference to dressing the wheel and the finish.

The head was cutting at an angle by about 1.4 mm, so had to adjust the travel, simple to do but time consuming, ground the tops and bottom of the stands first so they where both at the same height and level, did this in the Kehren ring grinder.

The heads we are doing have been faced before and I cannot believe how out of parallel they were, it is critical to be true due to the high cam and squareness to the cam follower rollers that fit in the head. Any out of square point loads of the rollers to the cam, results in premature failure of the cam and rollers.

Best Regards
Burgs

how does the down feed work on this?

Ive seen lots of these....IMHO ,they get wear on the bearing surfaces ,and the head begins to dip in the middle of travel....I doubt they could produce the accuracy needed,or surface finish ,for the MLS gaskets used now......they were OK in the era of thick copper asbestos,and later soft composition gaskets used in the 70s......Hand feed isnt that rare in shop type surface grinders,friend had a very nice Italian machine with hand travel....good for motorbikes,all he did......I think the old Storm Vulcan was a better design for a cheap head grinder.Certainly what I d do if I had to make a cheap machine without expensive castings.