as an update, i'm caught up on all orders of kits. I have good stock at this point and can fill other orders immediately.
couple things have changed.
#1, new rods are being thread milled on a cnc lathe ... the threads look quite nice
#2, 440 specific kits are no longer being made. the rods just turn out too weak and it just isn't possible to make these correctly, the main kit certainly does 440 saws, but I cannot make a saw specific tool kit anymore
#3, 576 (575, 570) rods are being looked into. by design this needs to be a singled ended tool and the ones that the previous machinist made were ... uh... a pain to mass produce
odds are this rod will need to be cut out of a 3/4" round rod blank, not threaded rod. this presents issues due to the extra low volume of 576 rods requested ...
#4, the most common failure I know about on the tools has to do with user error. you cannot use a small aluminum sleeve on a saw with 6203 bearings. most commonly the flywheel side rod (which is 5/8") gets used with the small sleeve (5/8" ID) on a saw that has a crank that is 17mm. the aluminum sleeve which is designed to accomodate 16mm crank OD will get mushroomed. SOLUTION: use the large sleeve on large bearings ... even though its 3/4" ID sleeve, the 5/8" flywheel rod works fine with it. users that have the kit will make sense of this nearly immediately
#5, 2nd most common failure has to do with breaking threaded rods due to improper use.... they are NOT designed to pull bearings into crankcases. once you have the bearings properly installed in the crankcase, ONLY THEN do you grab the crank tools and pull the crank through the bearings (and subsequently the case halves together).
#6, crank seals.... I know that many crankcases come with crank seals (and bearings) pre-installed. IMHO, you do not want to be doing 2 things at once ...ie... pulling the crank through the bearing AND the seal at the same thing. I think this is asking for trouble. if a case comes with seals pre-installed, pull the seals out, install the crank, get the case halves together, THEN install the seals (with the coke can trick). doing it this way seems to me to be the only way to ensure the crank seal doesn't prolapse.
#7, I do need to work on an instruction sheet / cheat sheet ... I'll get to it.
I think i'm above 200 kits sold at this point. These things have gone to Germany, New Zealand, Austrailia, Finland, UK, Holland, Alaska etc. I'm having a fantastic time talking and meeting new people and see the doors this project has opened up. Thanks to everyone that has made this possible. This has been a super annoying and long road but its finally starting to turn around and be a fun project!
