Well guys, you`ll be pleased to hear it is working!!! hurraaa
Although many issues that have been mentioned are problems related to my engine, I have worked on two things that eventually got it going.
As davesWimshurst mentioned in the last post, the flywheel is too large and when upright is bearing down too much weight on the crank shaft which has too much "give" in the frame hole, causing it to bend down. This little engine is very forgiving and later I will rebuild the flywheel but for now I just spun the flywheel on the crank shaft and tightened it up with the grub screw on the other side. This shifted the weight for the better and now the fact that the cam action of the off-centre flywheel is actually acting to pull the piston back down through the none powered phase of the cycle. This made my engine work.
Second thing I did was to put a bit of grease on the piston, reducing the air escaping from my tapered piston at the top of the cycle. Clearly this was causing a loss in power as this really improved the performance of the engine.
So lots of errors and of course all down to my poor machining - BUT it is running and I certainly have more confidence and can learn from my mistakes for the next one. I am going to spend a little longer on this one - I`ll polish it all up, make a new piston and also turn down the flywheel on a mandrel so that it is true to the centre drilled hole. Certainly very proud of my first runner!
And finally - big thanks to you lot - couldn`t have made it without your advice and help.
![:mmr:](https://madmodder.net/Smileys/default/madmodderrocks.png)
Chris