I feel a project coming on, maybe too daft?

[John Hill]

I feel a project coming on but the idea may be too daft to be practical.

Can I make a very slow reving internal combustion engine?

The idea is to make a two cylinder direct drive motorised bicycle!
There will be one cylinder each side of the rear wheel with a crank on the ends of a 'live' axle.  The cylinders will oscilate with the piston rod coming through a sealing gland like on a double acting steam engine,  the 'lower' side of the piston will be the induction chamber for a two stroke with the combustion chamber being at the 'top' of the cylinder.

Obviously the engine has to be very low revving, something like 100 rpm flat out!  I need ideas how to make an engine that will do that,  long stroke I presume, maybe a seperate combustion space like on the semi-diesel marine and tractor engines?

Any ideas for a slow revving internal combustion engine?

P.S. Obviously this is a novelty machine so please dont fret about road legality etc etc.

[BillTodd]

Doug's Museum of Retrotech my provide inspiration :

http://www.douglas-self.com/MUSEUM/museum.htm


Your separate combustion chamber is a good idea, but may only work well if you have some kind of fuel injection.

A long stroke 2-stoke will probably require some kind of deflector piston if cylinder ported, but I wonder if it is possible to arrange to have the scavenge blast shot up from the centre of the piston? (your fixed con-rod  may help)


Or.How about something wild ? 
Have the combustion chamber at the 'bottom' and use the con-rod to control the scavenge (making the cylinder uni-flow)  making the engine pull on the con-rod

Bill

[Fergus OMore]

BSA produced a Winged Wheel in 1953. I believe it had a single pot! Worth looking at- tho' it wasn't a raving success.

The French- eh, bien , mon ami had the cyclomoteur. Ah, las bas! but every little creep of 14 or whatever, bombed around with gay( not that sort) abandon.

The NSU had the 50cc Quickly which was quite refined.

I rather think that a friend has still got one- in her cellar.

So good luck.

[Bluechip]

Here you are John.

Vincent Firefly. If you wander down the link there is one in NZ apparently ...

Track it down and make a sharp offer ...

http://cyclemaster.wordpress.com/page-14-vincent-firefly/

I'm not sure why it was called 'Firefly'. The example I knew was incapable of either ...

BC

[Fergus OMore]

Firefly as in Fairey Firefly, Comet as DH Comet- which was 1949- Farnborough, DH Rapide was the Dominie-Rapide and Vincent himself was  ex-Royal Flying Corps.

The Firefly was slow as well.

[John Hill]

Thanks Bill...

Doug's Museum of Retrotech my provide inspiration :

Everytime I look there I am tempted by the Brennon gyrocars!.

Your separate combustion chamber is a good idea, but may only work well if you have some kind of fuel injection.

A long stroke 2-stoke will probably require some kind of deflector piston if cylinder ported, but I wonder if it is possible to arrange to have the scavenge blast shot up from the centre of the piston? (your fixed con-rod  may help)

I had been pondering self a operating poppet valve(s) in the piston crown..

Or.How about something wild ? 
Have the combustion chamber at the 'bottom' and use the con-rod to control the scavenge (making the cylinder uni-flow)  making the engine pull on the con-rod

Thats worth a thought, doing it that way around would make it easy to mount the carb. on the end of the engine..

[John Hill]

Fergus, BC,  I have often admired such machines and noticed two very lightweight mopeds for sale just last week but my friends dragged me away before I could fall victim to their faded, but still very obvious, charms.

I want to make something that will be totally different and as quirky as possible.

[Fergus OMore]

I'm over 81 but I recall my father who claimed that he had a motor cycle which had no kick start. It had running boards and an exhaust valve lifter. One simply ran along with the valve lifted- until it fired- and then one was too exhausted to jump on.

Again, I had a Silent Lee Velocette complete with hand start-- and a rather watercooled radiator to keep legs warm in winter.

Mind you, I was watching the Antiques Road Show and some one had a set of paintings of Noddy and his little car.
Seat made only 27 of them from the original Fiat 500 or 600 Little Mouse. I found one in deplorable state in Menorca but the price was daft. I was going to buy a pair of ordinary ones and bring them back in a furniture van to the UK, do it up body wise, get the wicker work done by the local blind school and give it to the kids who at 14 were already driving- on the back of the beach! And then the bloke ' Welshed' and finally it is buried in a football field.

Oddly, next door to a cave belonging to a deaf Arab who abducted a local Spanish virgin( her story) and he was finally tracked down- in the snow- on a Spanish Island- and he jumped off a 300 foot cliff- later to be followed by a Brit-- on one of your bloody daft bikes.

Well, it is a  true story- or mine is. Go buy your confounded bike-- and have fun!

Cheers
F O'M

[John Hill]

Fergus, I aint buying nothing!  If I cant find the bits I need at the landfill the job will not go ahead!

I wondered about those old bikes, how did one ever manage in town if you had to stop at an intersection etc,  maybe like those cyclists I saw in Beijing?  They came up to the corner and if the lights were against them they all went into a sort of 'holding pattern', a dozen or so cyclists riding in a tight circle until the lights changed.

One of my first projects was a Noddy car, cold molded ply on a Triumph Herald chassis,  it went rather well with the light body but the proportions were all wrong with the motor making the front too heavy.  So I rebuilt it...


P1010033 by aardvark_akubra, on Flickr


Incidently, when I was building this one I took the old 'Noddy' body to the landfill.  Two guys in a pick up truck saw me heading that way and did a u-turn obviously hoping to 'score' a vintage car and being careful not to get too close in case I might try to sell it to them.  I had cruel pleasure heaving it off the trailer and sending it tumbling down the mountain of household rubbish and used disposable nappies.  I hung around just long enough to see them jump out of their truck and start scrambling down.....

[Fergus OMore]

Great story! Proves that there is initiative left. Oddly, I watched British TV with a symphony orchestra playing '1812' at the Royal Albert Hall but with instruments made from scrapyards.

And they got a standing ovation!!!!

Keep at it, the 'Empire' depends on you!

Cheers

Fergus---- and that's a daft name. Comes from a mythical ghost - a long grey man that lives on a Scottish mountain. Near a whisky trail and Loch Ness, I have to confess!

[BillTodd]

Everytime I look there I am tempted by the Brennon gyrocars!.

Snap! 

If I had the money I'd love to build a working replica of the Ford Gyrocar

BTW have you seen this:
http://www.me.berkeley.edu/one_wheel_vehicle/Movie.htm

Bill

[BillTodd]

This is what I had in mind:

[John Hill]

Yep, thats the general idea Bill......

[Stilldrillin]

For the last couple of days, I've been half remembering an article in the "The Motorcycle/ ing", back in the early 1960's.   

A drawing of a man jumping a ditch, scaring the horses etc..... "The Daring Young Man on his flying ????????".            

Staggered to the bathroom, 2:10 this morning....... Just taking aim, when I thought,  PENNINGTON!     

Wonderful thing the human brain! (My aim was on target, too)!       


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._J._Pennington

http://www.ozebook.com/azk/kane-pennington.htm

http://www.flashbackfab.com/pages/1895_Pennington.html



Feel I can get on with my life again, now........

Good luck with the project John!

David D

[Kjelle]

John, I just read through this, and remembered seeing something in Classic Bike (the Swedish one, not the UK mag), but I cant remember when

I THINK there is a German contraption in the Motorcycle Collection in Sollentuna (near Stockholm), Sweden... I remember the article from somewhere, but no names...
<http://www.mc-collection.com/mc-eng/index.php>

Can't find it right now... D-rn!

Kjelle

[John Hill]

Thanks Dave, that is the sort of thing I had in mind, except I thought of having vertical cylinders, or maybe canted out the rear a bit.

I just need to figure out how to make an internal combustion engine pull from zero rpm?

It would be all very well having something that could scare the wits out of the rider as it belted along at 100kmph but not really much use for phuttering around in the town parade if it has to be pedalled up to 30kmph to get it started!

Thanks Kjelle, yes 'contraption' the very word I had in mind!

[Stilldrillin]

It would be all very well having something that could scare the wits out of the rider as it belted along at 100kmph but not really much use for phuttering around in the town parade if it has to be pedalled up to 30kmph to get it started!

John.

What about a clutch, in the wheel hub? 

David D

[BillTodd]

I just need to figure out how to make an internal combustion engine pull from zero rpm?

They do.  Just not that much.

A compressed air engine is a pressure engine. The energy is stored as gas pressure (static pressure) it will produce a force on the piston as long as the inlet is open. Once the inlet is closed the pressure will drop as the gas expands (pinching energy from the surrounding to do so).

A steam engine has the static pressure from the boiler, but it also has a lot of energy stored as heat that allows the gas (water vapour) to continue expanding without the pressure dropping much (it has enough energy to be expanded two or three times while still doing useful work) 

An internal combustion engine has some of pressure form the chemical conversion of liquid fuel in to gas, but most of the energy comes from the heat of combustion. If you can keep the heat in the cylinder, the gas will continue to push on the piston.

Of course the dilemma is that while a steam engine will never get hotter than the steam, an IC engine will get to a very high temperature if not cooled in some way.

So, how about a total loss internal water spray cooling system?

Bill

[John Hill]

It would be all very well having something that could scare the wits out of the rider as it belted along at 100kmph but not really much use for phuttering around in the town parade if it has to be pedalled up to 30kmph to get it started!

John.

What about a clutch, in the wheel hub? 

David D

The wheel is the flywheel so I dont think the engine would idle very well, if at all...

[John Hill]

Some good thoughts there Bill. 

I did have an idea some time ago of arranging an 'air' cylinder to be charged from the combustion chamber when a vehicle engine was in 'over run'.  Then when the car stopped, at say traffic lights, the engine would stop completely and when the driver pressed the gas pedal the stored 'air' would start the engine smoothly and almost silently.  If it was a 6 cylinder engine there would always be one cylinder ready to be the 'power' cylinder.

Getting back to this crazy bike idea, I wonder if that scheme could be used?

Cooling, what do you think of the idea of wrapping the cylinders in cotton rope and using capilary action to keep it wet from a water resevoir?  The cooling would come from evaporation, it might be tricky to arrange the cotton covering for the head.

[DMIOM]

.....
Cooling, what do you think of the idea of wrapping the cylinders in cotton rope and using capilary action to keep it wet from a water resevoir?  The cooling would come from evaporation, it might be tricky to arrange the cotton covering for the head.

interesting idea, cooling would increase with RPM/speed; but might be somewhat variable depending on the temperature & humidity (and beware a muddy puddle that caked them in mud!) - and you'd probably need to impregnate them with Proban or similar beforehand ...

Dave

[BillTodd]

Cooling, what do you think of the idea of wrapping the cylinders in cotton rope and using capilary action to keep it wet from a water resevoir?

No no, cooling the cylinder on the outside will only reduce the internal pressure (which is very important for your slow rev'ing engine).

However, if you could cool the cylinder walls & piston from the inside but without cooling the gas too much ( a tall order but...) then the liberated steam could be made to do useful work. Perhaps your capillary action device but inside, wrapped around the piston, cooling the cylinder walls by wiping them with water  ???? 

Bill

[John Hill]

However, if you could cool the cylinder walls & piston from the inside but without cooling the gas too much ( a tall order but...) then the liberated steam could be made to do useful work. Perhaps your capillary action device but inside, wrapped around the piston, cooling the cylinder walls by wiping them with water  ???? 

Bill

Alcohol water mix for fuel?  Water injection? Water mist injected in the induction tract?

CCV(?) Suzuki two stroke cars had oil fed directly to the piston via a port in the cylinder wall, how about water instead of oil?

[BillTodd]

Water mist injected in the induction tract?

Trouble with a general mist is that it'll cool the combustion gases which is not what you want.

What is required, is to keep the gas hot while keeping the metal parts to a workable temperature and to make use some of the otherwise wasted heat.

Bill