Diesels are steam engines that make their own steam....  I worked on 'em all my life.  Nowt wrong with diesels....

Here's the dummy crankshaft and register doing its job.  Yesterday was a bull day.  It took me all morning to do the first standard to my satisfaction but then I got into my stride and by 6 last night (an hour of overtime!) this was the line-up.  All the standards fitted.  They're beginning to show signs of being engines.....

What's he up to now?  I need a piece of steel 1 1/2" thik by 2" by 7 1/2 inches.  Of course I haven't got one but I do have a piece of steel 4" square and 1 1/2" thick.  So, get it square and bright in the lathe and then......

Slit it down the middle.  At times like this the 8" by 1/8" slitting saw is a lifesaver!

A heavier saw so it won't flex and some radical surgery on the beds.  The two matching surfaces need to be square and clean.

Here we are.  Some trimming needed on the spacer and then some bolt holes and accurate marking out tomorrow and we can fasten the whole lot together to make the bed for the compound.  Newton had a new bed cast for his but I haven't got access to the patterns or the foundry and besides, this will be just as good.

A bit of trimming on the spacer blocks and four 3/8 Whit bolts and we have a bed for the compound engine.

Here are the two engines sat on the common bed.  It's suddenly become one engine.  The gap between the two engines makes it look better, gives room for the bearings and adjusting them and I have a fancy to install a split eccentric and use it as a drive for a boiler or condensate pump, we shall see.  The main thing is that the possibiity is there.

One or two non-shed tasks to do today so it was after dinner before I even thought about the shed.  Didn't feel too energetic so I did one or two small tasks and then set the two halves of the compound up to test the alignment of the bearings.

Not bad really, about .005 out perhaps on the LP engine.  Remember the bearing caps are dead tight, the discrepancy could be easily cured by slackening a bearing because it is out on height, not lateral alignment.  So I cut a piece of 3/4 bar and Ive spent about an hour lapping the bearings with fine valve-grinding paste.  Almost there but I got fed up of grafting and decided tomorrow is soon enough.  I rand a mate this morning and my piece of 3" bar will be ready for export on Thursday.......  Nice!

It took me a while to set this lot up but well worth while, not an easy cut and I don't want any accidents at this stage in the proceedings.  It took me almost four hours to measure up, decide on the cut and get sorted out.  This is the second standard and it took just an hour to bore out.  The other two are up for shaving tomorrow.  The drawbolt through the mandrel is a good insurance policy and saves overtightening the chuck.  No way it can shift.

Here's a close up of the bed with the adjusted standard on it.  You can see what needs to be taken out of the inside at the base of the standard to give room for the big end of the con rod.  Easy to mark now and a simple milling job on the V miller to get rid of the excess.  I always knew I had to do this but it slipped my mind in the rush to get forward.  Just a word about finish, you can see the ledge at the top of the cut.....  Twenty years ago I'd have spent hours getting rid of this and making it all look 'nice'.  Over the years I have learned a lot about engines and the old fitters and they never did any finishing or polishing unless it was on show and necessary.  Nowadays I don't think anything looks better than a sharp machined edge and a tool finish.  There is absolutely nothing wrong with the rough cast finish and there will be no polishing and mucking about.  All that counts is whether the engine is fitted accurately and therefore runs properly.  So, tomorrow is boring two standards, milling the beds out to suit, fit the dummy shaft and then shim the bed up to the right level and bolt the beds down to the box bed.  Just like that........

Good day on Wednesday....  Knocked the two standards off by dinnertime.  Milled all four beds out to suit the standards and did some more measuring on the discrepancy in the two beds.  I was surprised to see how far out I was.  On the surface plate everything is parallel but the no. 3 bed (the LP) is .054shy of bedding.  Did the same thing on the combined box beds and found it was .025 due to a small discrepancy in the beds themselves.  Gave it a coat of thinking over and decided to take .025 of the high soleplate.  So the first thing to do was sharpen a milling cutter....

25 thou coming off the HP bed after stripping it down.

Teatime and we are ready for rebuilding the HP soleplate, making any final adjustments and then marking the box bed up for drilling for the holding down bolts.  This will then stay in one piece unless there's something I have forgotten.

Pluggy, give up!  The beds were OK, it was the boring for the seat of the pedestal bearings that was wrong.  It would have been a miracle if they had both been exactly the same.  On the single engine it doesn't matter but on the double engine it had to be rectified.  There were three ways it could have been put right without altering the relationship of the internals of each engine, skim the box beds and shim .054 on the low engine, Shim the low engine .025 or skim the soleplate of the high engine .025 and use a very thin shim to get it dead right, probably about .003.  The easiest way was to skime the soleplate.

Here are the two engine soleplates mounted on the box bed and cramped down tight in the optimum position.  The shaft is free but a touch tight, a small shim on the LP will cure this.  I've got them all assembled and cramped because I want to re-bore the foundation bolt holes in the soleplates to ensure they are dead vertical and spot the box bed for drilling and tapping in the right place for 1/4 Whit studs.  Looks like overkill but it ensures they are dead on.

I took a short walk down to my mates at Gissing and Lonsdale and staggered back with 35lbs of 3" shaft.....  This will make the crankshaft for the double engine.  Another problem solved.  I'd just got back with this when a big silly grin appeared at the window.....  Doc was back and he took me off to Skipton where we had half an hour in a shop with a lot of different whiskies in it.....  I bet Doc that I knew one they wouldn't have, 'As we get it', a whisky bottled by a grocer who supplied the fishing fleets.  It is cask strength and they only bottle it when they have an eight year old malt good enough.  They had it, and this one is over 60 proof and we tasted it when we got back.  Lovely stuff......  So no more shed yesterday!  Onwards and upwards today.