New Project Started!

[NickG]

Thanks David,

will try the engine oil. Don't have any fully synthetic at the moment but probably will when I service the car in a couple of months!

Will have a look for this meths!

Nick

[NickG]

Hi all - update on the engine:

I had to come home early from work yesterday afternoon so I took the opportunity to go and buy some Industrial Denatured Alcohol (Industrial Meths, which is 99% ethanol). Luckily there is an oil / paint / chemical merchant near by called Smith & Allan. Cost me £16.02 for 5 litres.

Tried the engine last night with the new fuel and with the wick in the strange position that I found best before. With the tiniest touch of the flywheel it burst into life straight from lighting the burner! I was gobsmacked, it was running away with itself, never seen it going so fast, but then it stopped. Partly because the flame was twitching around so much at that speed and partly because some condensation built up.

I restarted it, here is the video - it didn't go for long but probably longer than it had done, still going at a fair rate! This was with the oil that was left from the previous run a couple of days before, but I'd run out of that electric razor oil now:



After this it was a bit of a pain and I was fiddling around for quite a bit to get it started again, probably took a while to warm up. But then i decided to try some engine oil as suggested by David D and Mike R C  on HMEM. I only had 10w40 semi synthetic which is a bit thicker than the 5w30 suggested. Anyway, I tried some of that as well as messing around with flame positions again. I also put a drop of oil down each side of the flywheel and on the push rod etc.

Bizzarely I then found a bit of a sweet spot for the burner that seems to make it run not as fast, but more consistently - funnily enough, this was where Jan Ridders suggests and Jeroen Jonkman and Bogs have theirs on the other side of the port.

This is the longest video I captured as before whenever I reached for the camera it stopped! It had fun for a couple of minutes before I started this video and it only stopped because it ran out of fuel this time! You will notice the different flame position and you might notice that it is running in the opposite direction. It seems to run the same in either direction, it’s just that this one tends to try to tighten the crankpin rather than loosen it.


 



I then filled the burner back up and tried again, it ran until the burner ran out,  which was probably over 20 mins only stopping a couple of times on the way due to the flame fluttering a bit too much. I think a larger wick would give a more stable and wider flame which would help a bit. What also happens is the engine speeds up, then the flame gets blown around a bit and it slows down, flame stabilises and it picks back up again. Anyway, it did a stint of over 15 minutes continuously.

I tried to run it again today but because the oil had thickened up with reduced temperature it took a few minutes to warm up but then settled into that steady rhythm again.   I’m absolutely chuffed with this project now and I consider it complete. I was going to open some Cava we have in the fridge to celebrate but the wife wouldn’t let me

Only problem now is, what to do with all that metal I bought for ‘Poppin’. I might try to design a Hit & Miss IC engine based on the design of poppin.

Nick

[NickG]

I'd just like to give a big thank you to everybody for their interest, support, encouragement and advice!       

Nick

[Gerhard Olivier]

Well done Nick -fab engine

Gerhard

[Powder Keg]

I'm glad you got it running Nick! Way to go!!!!!

[madjackghengis]

Hi Nick,
     I'm brand new on this forum, having just found it, and I've been following your project with great enthusiasm, because I built a much smaller engine of that type years ago and never got it to even consider running.  In reading all the posts, I've seen a couple of things which might be part of your difficulties, all through the beginning, it seemed like the normal having to work out the bugs, but when you got the new iron piston and valve in, and it started up, only to quit, it seems to me you are dealing with the real bugger of these engines, friction.  The note of condensation suggests where a good part of the friction comes from, and pre-heating it would probably eliminate that.  I found in my own engine, any oil at all stopped everything dead up.  The instructions on the engine I built said to use a pencil and rub the lead all over the piston and cylinder (both were made of aluminum), as graphite is a great lubricant and dry powder.
    With your success, I'm going to go back and build the one I tried before, again, only with your experiences in mind to help me get it to actually run.  It has a sliding valve cam operated, but I think the piston type valve is a better idea, and will be using iron for cylinder, piston and valve, rather than the ali specified.  I'm really looking forward to your post saying it runs as long as you want, and its a go.
    I'm an engine rebuilder as a job, I work on old and antique engines, mostly motorcycles, but tractors and farm equipment, having a shop out in the country surrounded by woods and fields of farms.  This is my first ever post on any forum, as I am rather new with the internet other than reading news and finding parts and material for projects.
Mad Jack

[sbwhart]

Hi Nick

Cracking job with that engine I bet you're really chuffed.
 

I've filed away your experiences with this engine for when I get round to building one, thanks for passing on the info.

Have fun

Stew

[Stilldrillin]

That`s great Nick! 

So very pleased for you...... Also that my "two pennorth", helped a little..... 

David D

[NickG]

Mad Jack,

Thanks for the interest and comments. The engine does run until the fuel runs out now. The oil used on mine actually helps keep any deposits from unburnt parts of the fuel building up and causing excess friction. I am going to try a run with it completely dry once again with the new, purer alcohol though. It will run faster without the oil but probably not for as long. The designer of the 'poppin' engine I keep talking about swears by oil and he has a constant drip feed on that design which works well, however, others say they don't run with oil. From my experiences, my engine seems to prefer running with oil. I guess a lot of this depends on clearances of individual engines though and it's the balance between making a good seal and keeping friction down.

I think cast iron is a good way to go though becaue of the self lubricating properties. I don't necessarily think the piston valve is better. In my opinion it's easier to get two surfaces flat and smooth than two as near cylindrical and round and smooth as possible. The little 'poppin' design uses a very thin spring steel valve which because of its flexibility seats very well, especially as the vacuum starts to pull it against the port face. It also means very very low friction and hence a very small amount of force to drive it. This takes the criticality straight out of the valve and means you only need to get a flat port face, which is easy just lapping on a surface plate and a bit of emery. Those are just my opinions based on experience during this build anyway. I might yet build the poppin as an exercise more than anything to see the different characteristics of the two types of engine, afterall, I already have all the materials now!

Your work sounds very interesting we'd love to see some of that posted on here! I was into stationary engines and the like when I was a teenager, which is probably what got me interested in this hobby.

Stew, David, Wes and Gerhard -  thanks very much! Chuffed is an understatement  - there were times when I thought it was not going to show any sign of life!  

Nick

[madjackghengis]

Thanks for the nice welcome to the forum, and I'm glad to know your engine is running completely now, I think you are exactly right in that some engines like oil, and some won't tolerate it at all, and it is frequently little things which determine the outcome.
    I have to say how much I enjoy the forum if for no other reason than seeing a different attitude among those who are from a different country, and have differing resources.  I have a radial engine I bought plans for a year or so ago, which I made good progress on for a while, and got side-tracked by work, and seeing the pictures and reading the posts has re-motivated me, I've got back to work on it, and will be posting pictures of it soon.  I have to learn how to use the forum, as in how to put pictures in, and the like, as it is entirely new to me, and a challenge.  I will get pics of what I've got done posted in the next few days, and get this engine running as soon as I get the thousand parts or so made.  It is a scale model of a nine cylinder Pratt and Whitney radial of about eight cubic inches.
Thanks much, Mad Jack

[NickG]

No problem Mad Jack. To let you in on a little secret, we all get side tracked at some point, well I do quite often anyway! I was into this hobby before I started university and it took around 8 years for me to get started back up in it, it took a couple of years to get sort of up to speed, I was a bit rusty on basic skills and I knew an awful lot less than I thought I did! I still grossly underestimate the time and effort it takes to make things and don't allow enough contingency plans! I originally took a weeks leave to do this and got side tracked rehashing the bedroom - 2 months later and it's working!

There are plenty of people to help out on the IT side of things.

Wow, the radial engine will be an impressive model. If my grandad was still with us he would have loved to see it. He used to rebuild them during the war, remember him telling me the stories of them washing parts down in baths of trichlorethylene - nice and healthy!

Nick