Babbitt - pouring and tinning

[Hoodeleydoo]

anyone here repair the old brass backed connecting rod bearings?
I have an Mccormick Deering 10-20 and need to undersize my bearings.
I have grade 2 babbitt in wire and ingot.

looks like the old babbitt has lead in it. and the bond isn't so great

I found a place to redo the bearings ( and machine them) for 140$ each.

I would really like to repair these myself or is it such a pain in the butt I should just pay the 560$ ????

thanks!

[Rick Strobel]

It's not a pain and I consider it a great learning experience in this ole iron hobby. One thing about it, you can't screw it up, other than get the babbitt too hot. You MUST also get all the moisture out of the casting's as steam is not desired here. A firepot is handy for melting the babbitt but not mandatory. Babbitrite damming puddy is probably the preferred, I've heard Play-dough works just as well. I used plumbers putty with fairly good results. There are many good books out there that cover this subject. Scrappers are almost a must but there's ways around it.
Building the jig and getting everything perfectly aligned is probably the biggest chore and one can get inventive here.

Here's how Curt Holland does mains and it's hard to find better quality control than him.

http://www.oldengine.org/members/hol...humbnails.html

Have a nice pour
RickinMt.