# Two Projects: A Two-Stroke and a Four-Stroke Made Out of Beer Cans



## BCE (Jun 24, 2012)

A while back we had a major problem at the airport. At the end-of-flying-day meetings the beer cans were piling up too quickly and required too many trips to the dumpster. So a hydraulic can-smasher was built. What else could be done with some angle iron, a hydraulic ram, a spare electrical motor and too many cans?

That solved the problem temporarily. Now we had a bunch of flat cans, but they were still going to the dumpster. So, we figured out a way to smelt them in a pottery kiln and pour them into ingots.

Pretty soon the cardboard box next to the can smasher had 40 or 50 pounds of beer can aluminum ingots in it. What're a couple of drunk pilots and gear heads supposed to do with all that aluminum other than start building an engine?

So we robbed a crankshaft, flywheel, and coil off a weed whacker and started cutting beer can aluminum on a milling machine (actually a crooked, glorified drill press). The thing with working with beer can aluminum, though, is that you tend to replace your stock while you are using existing stock. That leaves a fine window of opportunity between progress and bad ideas.

So, after a time period longer than it should have been, we had a two-stroke engine with no rings and no cooling to speak of. But, we could put it in the vice and start it with a drill (we use a pull cord now) and laugh at it for hours.











Video of our first good run: http://beercanengines.info/videos/two.html

Well, time and some other projects pass, and we realize that, in addition to more beer can aluminum ingots, there were the beginnings of a new engine lying around. There was a beer can aluminum water pump, a couple beer can aluminum radiators, and other odds and ends that we could incorporate into something that would run longer than 10 minutes.

Since there was a real milling machine and a lathe in the hangar, now, and both had been trued and re-trued (and re-trued and...), what're a couple of drunk pilots and gear heads supposed to do other than start building another engine?

So, we grabbed the biggest ingots we could pour out of that little pottery kiln and went to work designing an engine around them. We knew we could get a 2" bore and 3" stroke out of the ingot we selected for the cylinder, but we couldn't pour an ingot big enough to make the block without sand casting, and things like sand casting don't happen in that fine window between good ideas and really bad ideas when you're working with beer cans.

Short story long, we decided to break with our beer can heritage, and build a nice engine out of the materials we needed, with first preference given to beer can aluminum.

14 months later, we have a scratch-built, 155cc, 4-stroke, water-cooled engine, where the cylinder, head, intake plenum, rocker tower, cam housing, front crankshaft housing, water pump and impeller, radiators, water manifolds, and countless brackets, spacers, and pulleys are made from beer can aluminum.










videos: http://beercanengines.info/videos/four.html

I have so many pictures and videos of these two engines that I finally decided to organize them into one website this week, so I genned up http://beercanengines.info with photo and video galleries. I've got hundreds of photos to name, tag, and write descriptions for, but I'm getting a handle on it slowly but surely.

The craftsman motors you all display are so gorgeous that I hesitated to put these engines next to them, but I am a proud papa, and I've got the pictures, so...


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## metalmad (Jun 24, 2012)

Wow I love it
I gotta have some gauges too :big:
some Karma from me 
Pete


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## BCE (Jun 24, 2012)

Thanks, Pete!


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## steamer (Jun 25, 2012)

Hey BCE

Took a look at your website! Nice! 

Nice Engines!

Welcome!

Dave


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## BCE (Jun 25, 2012)

Thank you, Dave. And, thank you, and thank you! 

The little girls sure are fun to play with. Almost as fun as the anticipation when you're 90% done with the project and thinking through TODO lists and realizing you're 90% to go.


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## vcutajar (Jun 27, 2012)

BCE

Very, very nice. :bow: :bow:

So did you build your engine on the fly (sorry for the pun) or were you following a plan?
Does it run on avgas? ;D

Vince


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## BCE (Jun 28, 2012)

vcutajar  said:
			
		

> So did you build your engine on the fly (sorry for the pun) or were you following a plan?



No plan other than the one we made.



> Does it run on avgas? ;D



No, this engine actually runs. At $6 per gallon, nothing that burns avgas is running. ;D


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