...continued from part eight.

For putting the holes through the crank case, a job I had not been relishing, I started off by making up a boring bar. Of course, I didn't have a piece of 7/16" long enough so I turned a bit of 1/2" down. This was the excuse I needed to try the traveling steady. I had it for years but never used it.

I set the crank case on the vertical slide and bolted it on making sure that the nuts were below the hole.

Then secured the sump using all of the bolt holes available.

Centred and the drilled through the first part with a nice new 5/16" drill.

I had previously made an extended centre drill for which I deliberately used 5/16" rod so that it would closely fit the hole. I very gingerly drilled the centre bearing by feel alone.

I drilled gently through, centred again and then used the extra long drill, kindly donated by a pal, to go right through.

As you can see, it did wander a bit.

Then I went through with the half-inch. This followed the hole, as you might expect.

Then it was out with the boring bar. This followed the correct alignment so if I bored it out enough, I would pull the exit hole back into line. However, it is proving to be a horrible thing to use, chattering terribly.

I persisted with the boring bar but it was ghastly. The hole will end up oversize for sure but at least they will be in line. The next problem will be the camshaft hole (5/16"dia) and the only thing I can do with that is drill it through. I will start at the timing gear end as at least the gears will mesh properly.

I indexed the case down and across and centred for the camshaft hole. A nice new drill soon sorted that.

Then I used my extended centre drill and very gingerly marked the centre bearing hole. My new drill sorted that one out.

I pulled the centre drill right out of the chuck to get the last hole through but found that it hit the inside of the crank case, pushing it over.

I tickled that out with the Dremel before centring that one as well.

An extra long drill I was given finally went through there.

Now, the moment of truth. My 8mm reamer fell through the first hole (0.007" oversize) but cleaned the other two nicely. I put a 9/16" reamer through the crank holes and it cleaned them up a bit. As they will be bushed they will be fine.

Part ten here