need help with my west bend i just got

[david a luciani]

hi guys,
heres my new west bend.
i need a refresher on this engine.

it seems ready to run but i know nothing about this model.
it'll be going on a historic looking just a little cleaning needed.

the funny looking box on the exhaust is a sort of manifold and i suppose it had two mufflers at some point in it's life.
it's direct drive and i might leave that too.

i think Al postilone is gonna have a heart attack when he sees this.

dave

[ted johnson]

Dave, is it a 580 or a 700? The five port engines run quite well for a cross-scavenged engine. The only thing you need to remember is that the PTO main bearing is held into the crankcase with a big snap ring. Other than that, it's like working on a Clinton. Ted

[Andy Symons]

Hey, just out of curiosity what's the tag say? (not that it's necessarily the correct tag of course). I love the old round head WBs - especially the five ports. You can tell the size simply by checking through the exhaust ports with a magnet - the 580s had a cast liner but the 700s were hard chrome on aluminum.

Nice find - love the muff and that chainguard.

BTW, they made good torque but if you do stay with that 11 (?) tooth direct drive sprocket, it won't win any drag races. We used to run 9 tooth directs with 72 on the wheel except on a real short track where we would try to fit 84s. It was a contest between bending the sprocket or grinding the chain flat on the outside. Great fireworks show on the turns when you ran at night!

[david a luciani]

opps forgot the tag.
says 58008 so i assume it's a 580.
carb is a tilly hl88a.

everything on this motor screams early vintage so i'm just gonna wash it good and reseal everything i guess.
the compression seems light so it may need rings.
Steve miller west bend owner extrodinare says it's a right handed motor.
if it is i'll be looking for a left to make duals.

i've been hunting up old pp's and clintons with fair luck the west bends seem harder to find.
it's all part of my side project building up a bunch of early karts with the less familiar motors.
i won't be changing anything on that motor except maybe the tooth count and depending i may install a clutch.
or i'll just push start it and chase it around when it gets away!!!

dave

[david a luciani]

Some general questions about motor,
first is there a thin ring version of the piston ?
if so where are they found ?
if not who sells rings??

second the exhaust ports are supposed to be round right?
mine were squared up a bit look to be done nicely.

are gaskets/ seals available and if so where?
what is the interchange number for the bearings and or are they available.
finally it seems in the ipo that theres only one crank bearing is the pto side a bushing?
did i see a mod somewhere to fix that?


dave

[Mike Reller]

Hey Dave, Wiseco made a 5 port piston that had .024" rings. I have no idea where you might find one. As you probably know the 3 port and 5 port use different pistons. Go Power made a nice dual carb intake for these critters and it does make a differece. Rickard Peck and I were talking about West Bends and he had some great stories about building them into really fast units. One problem he mentioned was that the flywheel can come apart at high rpm's. It would be great if you could find a pair of fifth port covers with the diverters cast into them. They help a little. In 63 and 64 West Bends were like the flathead Fords after the small block Chevies came out. People were doing crazy things in an attempt to get more power. I doubt that there are any examples of these monsters around because they were grenades.

[david a luciani]

the covers do have directional diverters cast in.
am thinking if i can't find the "fast" piston i may just razor edge a new stock set of rings.

i heard about a mcculloch flywheel conversion kit.
that might be a neat thing to find and install too.
seems i was not serious when i said i was just gonna run macs!!
dave

[Andy Symons]

Hey Dave,

If the tag is actually from your engine, it was not a 5 port when new. The 58008 was built as a 3 port kart engine rated at 4HP and 5500 rpm. However, lots of the 3 ports were converted to 5 ports by buying a kit which included the 5 port block. The purpose built 5 ports were numbers 58012 and 13.

It was recommended that the newer style V-reed manifold be used as well. Your engine has this newer manifold. The HL88A carb is the correct one for the 58008 or the 58012/13. There was a problem with the early flywheels but later ones seemed to be better. I wouldn't say they were all flying apart, however, and certainly there are still some out there - I have two 5 ports myself.

Some put Mac flywheels on but there are mods that must be done to make it work. Many of these engines are not run at really high rpm anymore - their strength was torque anyway, not high rpm horsepower. The pistons which were designed for the 5 ports had the deflection faces extended because of the 2 outside ports but those pistons can be used in the 3 ports too and were, in fact, the normal replacement piston when they came out.

By 1962 when the loop scavenged 610/820s came out, the old round heads were history.

You can find pistons/rings, etc. by watching the forums and eBay. Gotfishon43 on eBay still has some stuff for the older WBs, he was Bill's Vintage Kart Engines and had it all but is, unfortunately, not dealing through that outlet anymore. The ball bearing is the pto side, the "upper" bearing in the support plate is a needle bearing. Hope this helps a little; good luck!