On heads and castings ...
How much did Weslake contribute to the design of Austin-Healey heads? Our
BN2's head has 'Weslake' on the casting;
presumably he contributed to the design. Our machinist, who assembled the
head, got really excited when he saw 'Weslake.'
bs
On 10/5/2010 8:04 PM, Chris Dimmock [Healey] wrote:
> Hi Richard,
>
> Yes - since been confirmed AEC960 is a casting number. And yes - it's the
>machining
>
> And who or where the production AEC960 heads were machined, over a 6 year
>period - is anyones guess. But some are
> definately WRONGLY machined.
>
> I totally agree Richard - its a machining issue, and relatively easily fixed.
>
> Richard - if you look at your AEC721 head - I'll bet you it is machined
>correctly. As are the earlier 100/6 "log" head.
>
> Harry Weslake's combustion chamber & port designs were subject of many
>patents - and the reason for including pics of
> two other Harry Weslake designed chambers was to show that the production/
>machining of the AEC960 heads I have is
> just wrong - and I used exactly the SAME spark plug in all 3 pics.
>
> And if the plug is sitting down inside the plughole - that makes these AEC960
>heads a lower compression than they were
> originally designed to be.
>
> So as AEC960 head castings are used on all 3000's - from early MK1s to late
>BJ8 - as well as other austin/ wolseley
> sedans - such as the 6/1100 mk2 - its really a case of trying to find whether
>they are all affected - or just some, or
> a date range.
>
> But that's academic - the real issue is that I've finally had time to explain
>in pictures what I had tried to explain
> on this list for the past 12 years in words i.e. (some? all?) of these heads
>are incorreectly machined.
>
> And Geoff Healey wouldn't have picked it up - the race cars and rally cars
>were running the alloy head based on the
> AEC721 post the 100/6, and all 100/6 AEC 721 castings appear fine.
>
> If you want some understanding of how much Harry Weslake did for engines,
>design, bikes, cars and racing - and more
> than just a heart shaped combustion chamber - you can start here
> http://thevintagent.blogspot.com/2010/03/harry-weslake-and-swirl.html or here
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weslake
>
> I'm probably more academically interested in anyone who can find an AEC960
>head that doesn't exhibit this issue (other
> than the one on my black & white car, which we machined 12 years ago...)
>
> Chris
>
*******************************************************************
Bob Spidell San Jose, CA bspidell@comcast.net
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