RE: How do you identify a genuine Mills P-75 Diesel?
A couple of afterthoughts from my previous posting-should you have the misfortune to break either an original, Doonside or an Indian Mills crankshaft, be VERY careful when you attempt to withdraw the broken shaft rearwards out of the crankcase. You will have seen that the prop driver in a couple of the photos in my previous post has moved forward on the shaft-this is typical-the fit is relatively loose on the two shaft flats and the prop driver merely sits in position, keyed by the two flats. There is no locking force retaining it there. This makes it easily removed-the down side of it this-and the point of this post-is that with time-the hardened steel prop driver raises tiny burrs on the edges of the crankshaft flats. If you attempt to withdraw the broken crankshaft, these burrs will invariably badly score the bronze bush of the main bearing, ruining it. Your only safe option is to carefully withdraw the shaft slowly-and if any resistance is felt as the flats portion of the shaft enters the main bearing-then STOP-get out a swiss file (or a points file if you still have one!) and dress the flats carefully until any burrs are gone, and you can withdraw the broken shaft safely. Be warned that this may take a lot longer than you think-I found this when treating the afflicted Mk2 Doonside previously mentioned-by hell that shaft was hard! Ironically-that engine has run happily for the past 25+ years with an Indian 75 shaft in it! Yes-one of those maligned 'about as much strength as a carrot' ones........
On a more positive note-there is someone on Oz who can drill and tap your broken Mills shaft for a 3mm screw, so all is not lost if you break a shaft. Unfortuinately the name of this nonpareil escapes me, since I have never needed his services. David Owen, SGC-one of you Australians must know..........
ChrisM
'ffkiwi'