I've actually using my TOS FA3V mill to do something other than gather dust!

This is a mish-mash of updates from over the course of a week and two different sources, so it might seem a bit less contiguous than most of my posts, but, it's EXCITING!

I discovered almost accidentally that if I rotated the mill, the hefty 4-conductor wire I have would reach the nearest breaker box! Here's Dave's excited video of me moving the mill with the overhead gantry crane:

I <3 gantry cranes!

Some of you on FaceBook may recall this photo I posted semi-enigmatically:

That casing is from a Getrag 4-speed transmission that would normally bolt to the back of the M10 (I think) engine in my friend's BMW 2002. We unceremoniously took a reciprocating saw and whacked a bunch off:

Then we got down to installing the serious cutter:

After that was installed, we proceeded to test the cutter, fastening and general functionality of the mill after making sure it was oiled and wired (probably) correctly.

 Video of test cuts (though this video is kinda boring):

I do love watching that cutter spin. The mill has a power gauge and it was barely above idle, even on the heaviest cuts we were taking later. I love this mill. =)

Secured the case to the table:

And ran some test passes. What we were left with kinda blew our minds. Check out the finish!

 It's pretty darn smooth! I wouldn't do a head with the current configuration, but with some tweaking and rotating the carbide inserts, I am sure an acceptable finish would be easily achievable!

The whole thing was cutting so cleanly, it left the threads perfectly intact on the fill bung:

That cut was a bit rougher, as we were playing with feeds and speeds.

Now on to the most precise machine work we did to date:

LOL! We didn't want to spend another hour making itty bitty cuts, so we just power hacked off another inch and a half after making sure we knew how far NOT to go.

 Leftovers:

Then we started machining again:

We stopped and checked the depth (I sure hope Dave's math is correct) on occasion, but not before getting some serious chip action going:

Chips were flying EVERYWHERE! I can't wait to get the power feed working in both directions so I can blast the chips towards the back of the machine, not out onto the floor, or my face. LOL!

Here is what the floor looked like after we were done:

I think we did some work! Or, we at least made the mill do some work while we got chips all over us!

This is what we were left with:

 I will be welding a plate onto that after we open up the input shaft hole a bunch, which will be the next major operation we do on the mill after the 10" rotary table I ordered shows up! That will be a fun package to get. It is listed as 137 pounds. heh

Since we made a mess, I had to clean up. It was late, very late, when we finished up, so most things just got plopped on the mill table, which I don't really care for doing, but, it is under the tarp and out of site, which is the most important part. Here's where I started:

I found a box to stick the tools in, took a while to clean out the chips in the t-slots of the table, and basically cleaned everything I could from the top down, ending up with this:

I also moved some of the shop crap that ends up in that corner (that area is the shop black hole) so we can move around the mill in a safer to our knees fashion.

Next time you see this project, I'll have my new rotary table and a better wiring scheme for the mill, so we'll be going at it hard to try to make the deadline that is looming pretty large. We'll make it happen, though.

Pit pics from Lime Rock

Some pics from the pits at Lime Rock two weekends ago. (Yes, I'm slow.)
Veery fast EP BMW:

Ed and Steph's ITA CRX:

 In the staging area for the qualifying heat:

 This car looked good, even with some rough spots:

 I have never heard of this car:

 I liked it, though.

Here's something you don't see every day:

Especially not with a Cobra 460 engine with a turbo strapped to it:

 I like the design of this gurney flap:

 The dude that owned this 02 was totally cool:

 Yum:

 The aftermath of being made a bumper car:

 This is the worst part:

The rear subframe is tweaked, but fixable. 

Dave's 2002 update: The floors are no longer Flintstone approved.

That took a lot longer than expected, but, the floors are finally solid again. Geez.

Here are a couple of final pics from Friday evening just before we quit for the evening:

 Dave actually does work once in a while. heh

This is mostly where we left off with the passenger side:

 Test fitting the new floor pan on Saturday morning:

 It fit really well. It covered nearly all the areas that were rusted and that were cut out. We did have to fill in a bit with some steel patches and there will be some liberal use of seam sealer on the far right side, but at that point, we were happy to have the panel line up and fit overall better than expect, even with the panel itself not matching the transmission tunnel. (I "adjusted" the tunnel with a hammer. heh)

This is where things start to get sketchy! The hole that I cut out was supposedly the only rust on the driver's side frame horn/rail thing. That was what we assumed until I hit the bottom of it with a wire wheel.

  ARG! I ended up cutting out the bottom of the thing  as far forward as I could go. I tried to leave as much of the curved edge as possible so when the welds were ground down it would appear mostly factory.

The driver's side floor pan was oddly intact:

 You can also see more of the rust holes in the frame rail from that view, too.
I only had to chop out that much and a little on the other side of the frame rail, but was frustrated because of the pedal assembly getting in the way of nearly everything. That little piece took much longer than both Dave and I figured because it was so awkward to get into the corners  from above an below.

I had to move the lift arm off the frame rail, and again, more rust is revealed:

 Dave and I made a cardboard template and traced it out on sheet steel, cutting it out with this awesome tool:

 I LOVE the curly cues this thing throws off:

 Then I got busy tacking the sucker in place:

 Flash added for effect:

 Jump forward to Sunday and the passenger side pan is finally welded in:

 It looks and feels GREAT. I did need to add some additional welds  between the frame rail and pan from underneath, but it went pretty smoothly except for the fact that Dave was under the car watching for the inevitable fires welding was causing from the greasy underside.

Jump forward a LOT later on Sunday:

 Despite the issues with how awkward the prep work was, the actual welding of that panel went very well and much more quickly than I expected. There weren't as many fires to contend with, though we did have one pop up in the actual pedal box that was a bit bigger than the normal small flames we'd deal with. (We had a hose near by, for the safety nannies.)

A view from underneath showing the very good penetration of the floor patch pan and the welded in panel on the frame rail:

 One last view after cleaning up most of the welds on the frame rail:

Now all Dave has to do is rust proof the thing so hopefully this will never happen again. Yay!

I am really beat. Saturday was so dang hot and muggy, and while we did have a fan, I couldn't keep it on while I was welding. Some other good stuff happened this weekend that will be revealed in due time. I'm kinda excited, but a lot has to happen first, so I can only do what I can do to make it so.