Babbit shells in 1938 Hudson conrod ??

Henk_Brough
Henk_Brough Expert Adviser
edited November -1 in HUDSON
Rebabbittising conrods is a very expensive action.
In the Netherlands, where I live, it is almost impossible to find a firm to do it.
Has someone experience with finding existing babbit shells,ginding out the conrod,
grinding the crank shaft ( all to the desired seize ).
How to solv the oiling problem. There is no presurepump, all the oil must come from the little " spoon " whitch picks the oil from the sump.
My machine shop came with this idee, but I must first know wheather it has any possibilities.

Comments

  • Marconi
    Marconi Senior Contributor
    Get a hold of Geoff Clark in New Zeland, he can answer all your questions with a lot of experience and know how.
  • MikeWA
    MikeWA Senior Contributor
    There are outfits over here who specialize in it- I think your best bet would be to let us help you find one, and ship your rods over here. Shipping shouldn't be too prohibitive, and the overall process would probably be a lot less than what you are proposing.
  • Park_W
    Park_W Senior Contributor
    A less drastic and less expensive solution might be to send the rods to one of the preferred shops here in the US for rebabbitting. Get the crankshaft journals reground first, if needed, then give the rebabbiter the exact journal diameter and he can machine the rods for a proper fit. A friend in Russia recently did this, and it was quite a bit cheaper than doing them there. The UK is also very expensive. The shop I use currently charges $50 per rod. Of course the rods are heavy, which means significant mailing cost to and from. If the crankshaft journals are only .010" undersize, our engine parts supplier, Dale Cooper, has rebabbitted .010 undersize rods for just $45 each.
  • Jon B
    Jon B Administrator
    Yes, some Hudson owners have tried insert-style bearings for the Jeeps, Federal-Mogul part number 9955 SB. Of course you must grind the rod to fit the bearing. There seems to be some problem with the width of the bearing. It may not be as wide as the journal on the crankshaft, which means that there will be some side-to-side "play".

    Some people have installed the bearings, only to remove them later, dissatisfied with them.

    Perhaps your machine shop can obtain one of these insert bearings and inspect it, to see how it might fit your rod.
  • Geoff
    Geoff Senior Contributor
    After much experimentation, I have come to the conclusion that this is not a practical long-term thing to do. The best result I had was on a 1930 Hudson 8 which I fitted with shells from a Continental C4 Fork lift engine. This did around 30,000 miles, but after this the crankshaft was worn .005", and the bearings hardly worn at all, with the motor knocking very badly. Other conversions I have done have been failures before long, as generally speaking the splash feed lubrication is not up to coping with hard bearing shells which are very narrow in relation to the crank. I have converted Essex and Terraplane motors using Hillman Hunter Main bearing shells, and Isuzu con rod shells, and none of them have stood up to the test of time, with extreme wear of the shaft taking place. I would be interested to hear how any of the conversions done in the U.S. using Willys shells have lasted. It's my bet that very few of them have done any mileage to speak of, so the long-term results will be inconclusive. One club member here has had four goes at converting his '30 Essex to shells, and none of them have worked. My advice is to bite the bullet and pay to get a good re-metalling job done, which of course is getting more difficult. This entails getting everything right - the type of babbit, the temperature it is melted to, the cleanliness of the rod and cap, and the purity of the tinning, and the temperature of everything as it is done. These are all crucial factors, and unfortunately very few people seem capable of getting it perfected. Hudson bearings were originally centrifuged, which gave a dense grain of soft metal. This wore extremely well, and any wear could be taken up by removing shims. My experience with re-metalled rods is that they generally tend to be much more brittle, and will break up rather than wear. The vast majority of re-metalling is done by gravity pouring, which gives much more open grain metal, often with blow-holes, and is nowhere near as robust as the original. I know there will be professional reconditioners who will disagree with me, but if so, please let us here from you and put your side of the story. Sorry to be so long winded.
    Geoff
  • Marconi
    Marconi Senior Contributor
    I'll have to go along with Geoff on this one. We just tore down a 49 Super 8 engine with 100,000 mi or so on it. It sounded very good but had no power. Ran a compression test on it and they ran from 35 to 92 psi. This engine didn't knock or have piston slap. When we got it apart, none of the valves were seating, the compression rings had no tension whatever, and when we turned it up-side-down we checked the fit of the rods by snapping them back and forth. They didn't snap, they pushed and when we tried to twist them on the crank we could move them about .060 in! I was amazed it ran at all and especially sounded that good! We are now doing an overhaul on it, there was only abut a .005 in or less ridge on it. It's all standard and the crank shows very little wear, so we dug around the shop and came up with an NOS set of Federal-Mogul standard rods to go back in it. Got to side with Geoff on these engines and leave the poured rods in them.
  • Jon B
    Jon B Administrator
    Geoff, have you heard recommendations from any U.S. Hudson / Essex owners, as to shops that do an especially good job of babbitt re-pouring?

    I've heard that babbitt is still used in certain machinery, so it seems incredible to think that we've totally lost the knack for doing it correctly. Or is there a reason that (for example) the babbitting of bearings for stationary equipment is different from that used for connecting rods or mains, in automobiles?

    Was Hudson the only one to use the centrifugal pouring system? If so, does that mean that Packard and Cadillac bearings failed more often? I'm scratching my head...
  • Park_W
    Park_W Senior Contributor
    Jon, I don't know about Geoff's thoughts on it, but I've had three sets of rods and mains done in recent times by Harkin Machine in SC. Nice work, short turnaround time. Give him your crankpin diameters accurately and you'll get rods back with exactly the clearance you requested.
  • Kdancy
    Kdancy Senior Contributor
    Harkin Machine Company
    Terry Harkin
    903-43rd Street NE
    Watertown SD 57201
    605-886-7880

    Easy to deal with and has done a lot of Hudson stuff.
  • Geoff
    Geoff Senior Contributor
    I didn't say nobody can do this anymore, but those who can are rare on the ground. I also don't know how other makes did their bearings, but I would suspect all of them used centrifuges. Generally speaking, bearings are not too much of a problem until the engines are rebuilt. If there is a good machine shop out there, then they should receive our support. See my next W.T.N. article for results of poor re-metalling work.
  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User]
    The splasher rods will not take bearing inserts. When you bore out the inside of the rod, you go into the rod bolts and there lies the problem. Weaken bolts and thinner rod material. I tried this set up back in 1940. The last time I had babbitt done on 1951 Hudson 8 rods, the place said who did these rods used too much lead. The rods were in an engine just overhauled and he was driving out of Salt Lake city, about a 16 or 17 miles hill climb when he started to hear a low knocking sound, and he made it to Rock springs, WY and had to stop, loud knocking sound. I meet up with him here and told him have the car sent back home, San Lorenzo, CA and I will check it when we returned from our cross country trip. All the rods were loose and the crank was in good shape with no marks or wear. This engine now has 30,000 miles since I did the job using the correct babbitt. And it's a highway traveler at 70 to 75 MPH. The man is now an anytime I want I go to the shop and do a little work. Walt.
  • Park_W
    Park_W Senior Contributor
    Walt, who did the babbitting for that rework you did?
  • ivanz62
    ivanz62 Expert Adviser
    After reading through this thread, it seems appropriate to sound off as I do have much experience with babbitted engine bearings. My business, Phil Reilly and Co. (http://www.philreillycompany.com/), does major engine reconstruction for many restorers and mechanics as well as for jobs in our shop. We are a "high end" shop and noted for racing and high performance engine work. Unfortunately for most Hudson owners, we are a very expensive alternative to other shops and our babbitt man with whom we have thirty years experience has Parkinson's and is slowing down. I pay attention to this forum looking for our next source of this pouring of babbitt, and Harkins name comes up these days as the best recommended shop.

    We have done many insert bearing conversions, but feel that a proper poured bearing job is the equal if done correctly.

    Notes
    1. Geoff Clark is dead on in his early post to this thread.
    2. Not all babbitt is the same--they are alloys of, mainly, tin and lead. Hard use requires a high tin content material. Most shops do use softer babbitt--its cheaper and worked in cheap Fords in an era when engines were rebuilt often, shims were removed during the life of an engine, and skilled labor was not uncommon. Hudson's babbitt was high quality centrifugally cast (as were the bearings of other quality vehicles). They would last and keep up with the stresses of even modern road speeds. We do not have this technology available any longer,
    so we must have the highest quality material properly applied with proper tinning, proper babbitt thickness limits and quality machine work. We have been successful with high RPM supercharged fuel burning racing engines using this type of care.
    3. To use modern insert bearings which have very little "imbedibility" (the ability for contaminants to bury in the bearing material), you must have a hardened crankshaft journal or the crank will wear early on--no filtration as in any insert bearing engine contributes greatly and without full-flow filtration you are in trouble.
    4. There is history of splash oil Hudson 8s being converted to Hudson Jet rod bearings. Gus Souza did this in conjuction with hard chrome plating the rod journals of his drag racers. This prevented crank wear, but he did use up a lot of rod bearings!
    5. All of these concerns about wear and longevity go out the window if your Hudson is "collected" and driven "gently". The troubles belong to those of us like Geoff, myself, and maybe you who want to drive the cars long distances at relatively high speeds available on modern roads.
    Hudsonly,
    Ivan Zaremba
  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User]
    The fellow that did all my babbitting is now in semi retirement and works only when he feels like it. He is located in San Carlos and does only A-1 work. He is not cheap but the work is the best. As long as you have oil in your engine, his babbitt will not flake or melt no matter the speed. Lee Cherry can vouch for this. I will not mention who did Lee's babbitt the first time, but it's a big shop and would not stand behind their work. Walt.
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