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I was always under the impression that Italian endplates were matched to the case in the factory but have swapped endplates in the past without problems.

My question comes about as I have been considering the Casa Performance endplate and this obviously wont be matched to a specific case so this makes me wonder if the whole matching thing was a myth ?

What do you think ?

Also - Are any of you running the Casa endplate in an Italian crank case ?

I am sure this is the case with Indian cases and that the case and endplate should be kept together. You always got an endplate and casing together and they had a number painted on both parts.

The usual reason given for this is that the endplate and casing are machined together.

I'm less sure about this being an issue with Italian cases. I've fitted mix and match Li endplates into GP cases and and never found a problem with that.

I’ve worked on a few engines of all the common manufacture & always fitted preferable Innocenti or Serveta end-plates regardless because of their perceived quality. However, as the consequence, I have several SIL end-plates that I would use if I had to with ‘proper’ bearings & journals fitted.

On one occasion, I went through the tedium of checking the dowel hole positions relative to the journal for the rear hub position (as best I could with limited resources) & found no significant variation. My cynicism amounts to wondering if there was an attempt to ‘fix’ a problem that didn’t exist, but my findings are by no means absolutely finite.

In other words, I don’t know the justification as to why the boring of the SIL cases would be out of the OEM (Innocenti or Serveta) specification or ever witnessed a problem, but, as ever, I stand to be corrected....

I have a Spanish engine case that had no endplate when i got it. So sourced a few spanish endplates, some didnt match the dowels, some didnt look like the layshaft lined up with the race (with the bearing removed) i fitted the best fitting one.
I ran the engine for a couple of years (RB225) . When it was stripped, for a one reason or another , i found the bearing face on the cluster had worn excessively ? Indian GP200 box , i put it down to either a foreign body trapped in the bearing or poor indian manufacturing ??

Anyway, i rebuilt it with a Pacemaker box.........18 month later ...and another rebuild ....and the same had happened to the Pacemaker box ...... I suspected something not lining up ??
So i machined a blank up, its a tight fit in the case race, and a loose fit in the endplate bearing.
The original endplate was out of line and can be clearly seen in the pic.

Tried a few more endplates inc. Indian and Italian until i found one that was the best fit.

Now i cant say that this is a particularity of Spanish cases , i have tried the same thing with a couple of italian cases and found the Italian endplates swappable, but that was just a couple of cases checked.
So , people do say they have swapped endplates and had no problems ....but who has actually checked alignment ? ...they may of been lucky ? and i may of been unlucky ??
I always check now before i build an engine.
Russ

Seen this problem myself when trying to marry spanish casings with italian endplates. Gives bearings a very hard time.

It came as a surprise to me when I discovered that the end plates were supposedly matched the casing. I and many others would happily swop gear box bits around without problems but I suppose back then all end plates and casing were Italian.

Thanks for all the replies - very interesting

Thats a great tool you have made there Carlos - very nice

carlos fandango wrote:I have a Spanish engine case that had no endplate when i got it. So sourced a few spanish endplates, some didnt match the dowels, some didnt look like the layshaft lined up with the race (with the bearing removed) i fitted the best fitting one.
I ran the engine for a couple of years (RB225) . When it was stripped, for a one reason or another , i found the bearing face on the cluster had worn excessively ? Indian GP200 box , i put it down to either a foreign body trapped in the bearing or poor indian manufacturing ??

20151209_164941.jpg

Anyway, i rebuilt it with a Pacemaker box.........18 month later ...and another rebuild ....and the same had happened to the Pacemaker box ...... I suspected something not lining up ??
So i machined a blank up, its a tight fit in the case race, and a loose fit in the endplate bearing.
The original endplate was out of line and can be clearly seen in the pic.

20151209_164754.jpg

Tried a few more endplates inc. Indian and Italian until i found one that was the best fit.

20151209_164644.jpg

Now i cant say that this is a particularity of Spanish cases , i have tried the same thing with a couple of italian cases and found the Italian endplates swappable, but that was just a couple of cases checked.
So , people do say they have swapped endplates and had no problems ....but who has actually checked alignment ? ...they may of been lucky ? and i may of been unlucky ??
I always check now before i build an engine.
Russ

When it was all tightened up,did the gear cluster spin ok by hand ?.I always tighten and torque the endplate and clutch spider and then remove the spider and spin the cluster by hand,if it doesn't spin freely,there's something wrong and it needs stripping to find out the cause.

carlos fandango wrote:I have a Spanish engine case that had no endplate when i got it. So sourced a few spanish endplates, some didnt match the dowels, some didnt look like the layshaft lined up with the race (with the bearing removed) i fitted the best fitting one.
I ran the engine for a couple of years (RB225) . When it was stripped, for a one reason or another , i found the bearing face on the cluster had worn excessively ? Indian GP200 box , i put it down to either a foreign body trapped in the bearing or poor indian manufacturing ??

20151209_164941.jpg

Anyway, i rebuilt it with a Pacemaker box.........18 month later ...and another rebuild ....and the same had happened to the Pacemaker box ...... I suspected something not lining up ??
So i machined a blank up, its a tight fit in the case race, and a loose fit in the endplate bearing.
The original endplate was out of line and can be clearly seen in the pic.

20151209_164754.jpg

Tried a few more endplates inc. Indian and Italian until i found one that was the best fit.

20151209_164644.jpg

Now i cant say that this is a particularity of Spanish cases , i have tried the same thing with a couple of italian cases and found the Italian endplates swappable, but that was just a couple of cases checked.
So , people do say they have swapped endplates and had no problems ....but who has actually checked alignment ? ...they may of been lucky ? and i may of been unlucky ??
I always check now before i build an engine.
Russ

That is a very thorough process that goes to show that variations do exist. As I indicated, my experience has been fortunate in that the couple of Serveta end-plates I acquired weren’t anywhere near as bad as the example shown. In fact, the next time I do a build I will emulate (steal! ) that precise process by utilising a lay-shaft/gear cluster but replace (temporarily) the end-plate bearing(s) with another/ring with a marginally greater bore.

Please excuse my earlier cynicism as, for once, I may have just been lucky with the components I have had.

interesting to see this question up here, I like the checking tool Carlos.

I had the same issue with an endplate change on my Italian TV gearbox. Original plate was worn so fitted a replacement from a parts fair and wore out the lower race.
Cant remember how tight the cluster felt as it was a few years ago now.
At the time I thought it was down to the fact that I had built up the area around the EP dowels (which had previously been loose) I used Devon metal filler to float them in with the gearbox assembled. With hindsight I should have made up a similar tool to Carlos and investigated further, instead I built the engine into a spare casing bit extreme but I was at the end of my tether.

As for the Casa endplate I had one delivered recently and it didn't even fit into the aperture with the dowels fitted, so if you do get one id check it thoroughly! I have yet to return it to the supplier but I intend to.