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Egge Machine Company - Shop Tour
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Follow along as we document the making of a piston.
(Click here for a slide show video of the complete process.)
Many people, including some of our most seasoned customers don't believe that we actually manufacture pistons here in Santa Fe Springs, California let alone in the western hemisphere. Not only are we the oldest American manufacturer of engine parts, but we are the ONLY manufacturer of cast aluminum pistons. This month, we present a shop tour as we follow the production of the E279 piston for 1942-54 Desotos with a 236 or 250 cubic inch 6 cylinder engines, from a raw ingot of A-332 aluminum to loading on the delivery truck to your door. A-332 aluminum is a high silicone mix aluminum perfect for piston manufacturing.
Did you know? We can produce 13.3 pistons from one 27lb ingot.
Dan Martin, Egge Machine Shop Manager is pleased to share the shop with our customers. He offers an open invitation to all to come by and get a tour of the shop. For those of you who cannot make it here to Southern California, we offer this on-line tour.
 We first visit Andres in the foundry where he is melting the aluminum ingots to 1250 degrees Fahrenheit. He sprays the permanent steel hydraulic mold with a non-stick paint material and adjusts the set of molds to fit together and slowly pours the material in the mold. Caution is to be taken when pouring. Too fast and it can explode up, too slow and you get un-even drying producing an inferior product. After the pistons are poured and released from the mold they cool a bit before the "horns" are taken off with either a chop saw or band saw. During the pour sequence they take a piston and cut it in half to check for hidden porosity issues that may occur. We also machine sample pistons to blueprint specs to insure the quality of the pour. The pistons then go into an oven for heat treatment making the aluminum harder.
 Next, Ubaldo takes the piston to our old reliable Sundtrund automatic lathe to get the rough material cut off. Next it is taken to a CNC "Tree" lathe to have the skirt base finished so it can be properly fitted on the Takisawa CNC Lathe for rough bore, and final ring groove machining. Brandon inspects the piston for any porosity issues. The approved piston moves over to the 5-axis VMC machine to get the oil slots milled and pin bore finished. All finish machining operations are performed with diamond cutting tools. Inspected again and the part goes to Gonzalo at the Cincinnati grinder to give the skirt a "cam-grind". The cam-grind will ensure that the piston doesn't rub against the cylinder sleeve when expanded in the heat.
 Upon inspection the piston then goes to Mark and Chris at the Quality Assurance desk to do the final weight, size and visual inspection. The pistons are weighed and boxed in groups with no more than 8 grams of difference between them.
Did you know? Our piston sets include the wrist pin and necessary clips.
The boxes are placed in our piston warehouse adjacent to the shipping department where the pistons are collected with the rest of your order, packaged together and sent on their way with our reliable courier to your door.
Click here for a slide show of the complete process.
This is part of the magic here at Egge. If you get into an area of the re-building of your motor where you need a little extra help or guidance, give our Egge Experts a call to help you through the problem. Working late at night? Visit our website for fantastic tech articles and answers to others' who have "Asked Bob" for help.
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NEW EGGE WEBSITE HAS LAUNCHED!!!
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Have you seen our new website? It went live last week with many new features.
Here are some of the latest features:
- Downloadable Catalogs and Order Forms. We split our current catalog in two parts; engine kits and aftermarket performance parts. Need more order forms? Download our order form as well.
- Extended Gallery sections. This section will grow as more customers send us photos of their Egge Equipped cars. We will also add photos of our Egge Employee Enthusiast cars and lifestyle images here as well.
- Enhanced Tech Tips. The Egge Tech section has three areas of tech and interesting articles.
- The popular "Ask Bob" section is where customers send in their question to Bob Egge and he replies with tips and suggestions answering their unique requests.
- Tech Article section has a listing of detailed tech articles from our buddy Doc at www.WebRodder.com.
- The Miscellaneous Articles section has published articles about Egge Machine Company and it's products and services.
Find it all at www.EGGE.com
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Partner Profile: Best Gasket
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 Best Gasket is our Egge Expert chosen gasket manufacturer. Best makes engine, transmission and rear axle gaskets for vintage American automobiles from the 1930's through the 1960's with few exceptions. In a discussion with our Egge Experts John and Jim here are reasons why they prefer Best Gasket: Coverage; Best offers kits for models other gasket companies don't stock. Quality; Their GraphTite rear main seals work really well especially over the conventional rope seals. Likability; People like them. The folks at Best Gasket are easy to work with and if there is a problem they are proactive in finding a solution.
We had the opportunity to take our cameras behind the scenes and meet with owner Armin Brown as he gave us a tour of their facility.
Click on the photo or click here to read more and watch a short video tour. |
