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A Duesenberg Model J Crank
Taking a File to the Project, One Pile of Dust at a TimeAlmost two months have passed without an update here. This is a tiny refresher for the front page while major remodeling continues in the back of the shop. Pictured is a Duesenberg Model J crankshaft, as I file the stubs off the counterweight bolts back in 2009. I don’t recall the circumstances exactly… I think…
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A Bugatti Cylinder Block Repair
Working with iron and a cautionary taleSeveral years ago, I went through a Type 40 Bugatti engine that had had a hard life. Its recent days hadn’t been made any easier by the chap that took it apart, using a dead blow hammer to break free the joint between the cylinder block and the crankcase. Not a crazy idea, to use…
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Two Hispanos, a Bugatti and a U-16 Miller Walk into a Bar…
The Setup for a Bad Joke, or Another Day in Paradise?May 25, 2012: A typical day at Phil Reilly & Co, on Paradise Drive in Corte Madera, California. The variety of projects under way at any given point in time was remarkable, with this snapshot in time featuring four pre-war powerplants and a hint of the future in the back, the roll hoops of two…
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The Lincoln KB V12 Mystery
Shims Suck, Let Me Tell You WhyBack in 2010, I built what was rare for me in my later career, an American-made engine. The Lincoln KB V-12, circa 1932, was a big cast iron monster, very different from the mostly French and Italian motors I’d been working on in that era at Phil Reilly & Company. This story isn’t about the…
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Keeping the Fire Inside the Motor
Five Methods for Sealing the Combustion ChamberI’ve worked on a pretty wide variety of engines over the years, and a consistent engineering question each of the designers faced is this: How do we keep the extremely high combustion pressures inside of the motor? If you’ve ever experienced a blown head gasket and the expense that comes with repairing it properly, you…
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A Lamborghini 400GT Project
An Engine With a Surprise Hiding Deep Inside…I worked on this Lamborghini 400GT back in Colorado several years ago. The car had been stored without the correct mix in the cooling system and the crankcase was broken by the expanding ice. A new old stock crankcase was somehow tracked down, and I was charged with transferring all of the components into the…
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The Bugatti Type 35 Crankshaft Explained
A Look Inside the Artistry and Madness of Ettore's MasterpieceBugatti Type 35 Grand Prix engines are well known for their complex roller bearing crankshafts, built up from hundreds of components, a design intended to reduce friction losses and to be able to survive on very little oil at very high RPM. The Bugatti’s practical rev limit was in the neighborhood of 6,000 PM, which…
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What’s it Take to Make an Old Bugatti Run Properly?
A Deep Dive into Some Pre-War French MachineryI spent a fair amount of time earlier this year getting a 1926 Bugatti Type 30 ready to do some road miles. It had been in a private collection for many years and apparently saw very little use. The new owner enjoys using his cars, so right off the bat the car needed to be…
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Back to the Birdcage
For the last three years, I’ve mostly been working on more modern race cars, but back in the day, I worked on several Maserati Tipo 61 “Birdcages”. I had my hands in four or five of the lightweight masterpieces and came to know them pretty intimately. I’m back in NorCal for a bit to do…
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The Talbot Lago Makes it to Pebble Beach
Overcoming challenges to finish the T26 engineI started working on this project back in 2016 in Colorado, the start of a long and circuitous path. In a previous post, I explained some of the issues that helped make it a five year engine build… One of the few upsides of a worldwide pandemic is that some events get postponed, which gives…