Building the Morton M5

Last Update: July 9, 2002. See the M5 Reference Page for a description and history of this engine.   No battle plan ever survives first contact with the enemy... that's an aphorism I've heard attributed variously to Julius Caeser, von Klauswitz and Sun Tzu. Regardless of the correct source, it is very true and my plan for both building a Morton M5 and documenting the build is a fine example! Initially, I intended to do a quickie completion of a partially machined Morton factory kit and "save" the beautiful Satra investment castings I had for another day. As I got into some of the repitition work, I realized this was dumb and knowing my own intrinsic limitations, I suspect that having done it once, I probably would not be able to face it again and the Satra castings would remain sadly unbuilt. The only sensible decision is that both should be completed together to save on set-up times and effort. However, the Morton parts would get first attention, becoming trail-breakers for the Satra parts. But this late decision causes problems with writing up the build as the project would dance around until the Satra castings catch up with the Morton castings, while some common parts would be made in a single run. Further complications arise as I know there people following the saga who don't want to re-read the entire article if I insert a bit here or there, while readers of the completed article (some time in the future as I write this), won't give a flying fig about updated passages. What to do? The solution I've decided on is this: This page contains introductory material and links to the Morton specific operations, the Satra specific operations, and the common operations. The "Log" link allows visitors who are tracking the project in real time to see what has happened since their last visit (by date) and go direct to the new parts. Hopefully, this results in the best experience for everbody and the least work for me. Time will tell... Machining the original Morton components Machining the Satra components Machining the Common components Progress log and links       Home This page designed to look best when using anything but IE! Please submit all questions and comments to [email protected]