Hydraulic lash adjusters
Manufacturing lash adjusters at volume
An engine programme wants adjusters in the millions, with every one tested and none of them different. The chain that does that is not a scaled-up prototype line; it is built for volume from the first step.
Bar to tested part
Eight steps, and what each one has to prove
- 01 Bar
- Case hardening steel from the mill, with its certificate. The material is chosen for the case it will take and the core it will keep.
- 02 Turn and mill
- Body and plunger turned and milled in one clamping wherever the part allows it, oil holes drilled in the same setup. Every setup removed is a source of error removed with it.
- 03 Heat treat
- Case hardened, cores left tough, closed out by hardness testing on site rather than on a third-party certificate.
- 04 Finish
- Bores honed and plungers superfinished to size, on site, with the roughness tester behind the operation.
- 05 Match
- Every bore and every plunger air gauged, sorted into classes, and paired. The fit that decides the part is made deliberately, not found by chance.
- 06 Clean
- Washed to the cleanliness specification the drawing calls, because a particle on the check valve seat is a collapsed adjuster.
- 07 Assemble
- Check ball, spring, retainer and plunger spring assembled in a clean cell, with poka-yoke on the line so a missed spring cannot leave it.
- 08 Test
- Leak-down on every part, in test oil at a controlled temperature, against the specification. Then packed.
Why the chain holds at volume
The difference between a thousand and a million
- Air gauging, not sampling
- Air gauges are quick enough to measure every bore and every plunger in a batch. That is what makes matching by class possible at programme volume, and it is what turns a capability study into a confirmed result on each part.
- Control charts on the fit
- The characteristics that decide the part are charted, so a drift in the honing or the finishing is acted on as a trend rather than found as a batch of rejects.
- One clamping, fewer hands
- Turning and milling in one setup means fewer operations, fewer transfers and fewer chances for a part to be dropped or mixed. At volume, the handling operations you remove matter more than the ones you speed up.
- Finishing on site
- Honing and superfinishing in-house means the fit is under the same control plan as everything else, and a programme is not exposed to a subcontractor’s lead time.
- Test as a gate
- The leak-down rig is the last operation, not an audit. A part that has not been through it does not exist as far as despatch is concerned.
Certification and supply
The route, stated plainly
- ISO 9001:2015
- Held by Anicon Flowcontrols LLP.
- IATF 16949
- Where the programme calls for it, adjusters are supplied through Versatile Equipments Pvt Ltd under its IATF 16949 certification, with Anicon as the manufacturing and assembly arm.
- With the parts
- Dimensional reports, material certificates, hardness results, leak-down records, and PPAP where the programme requires it.
- As an assembly
- End pivot and rocker elements are supplied loose or built into the valve train assembly, on the arrangement already running for rocker arm assemblies.
Send the drawing
A clear answer inside a working day
A 2D or 3D file, the quantity and the date you need it. You will get a considered reply within one working day, including the reply that we are not the right shop for the part, which is worth knowing early. A mutual NDA is issued first on request.