# new side valve engine fom home made castings



## fourstroke

Hi everyone

After finishing my "Bill" engine I was scratching around for something to do.
Looking through my collection of engine castings nothing caught my attention but gave me the basis of an idea.

A side valve, single cylinder of decent proportions made from home made castings, big enough to be noticed but within my furnace capacities.

I looked around for side valve pictures for inspiration and took various ideas from different engines to merge them into what you see here. A lot of ideas came from the Westbury model engines book

It took a week or so to finish the patterns, another week to finalise the core pattern boxes and get everything painted. In this past week I have managed to cast two crankcases from seven attempts, the first one was perfect, the next six had various faults till I straghtened them out. Also three sets of the remaining castings for cylinder head, headcover, gear cover, access door plate and front bearing housing. I cant melt iron so have made the first flywheel from bronze for the weight, it took three attempts to get that one right

The engine stands around seven inches tall, has a flywheel of five and a half inches diameter and will have a bore of 36-38mm and stroke of 40mm 
( plan A )

Anyway, enough of my ramblings, here are some of the results so far, first the patterns and then some pics of the castings

If all goes well I hope to start cutting metal this weekend and plan to document the build here. It might not be very regular but I hope to keep anyone interested updated with the results, good or bad

Regards

Dougie


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## Swifty

Very nice job on the castings.

Paul.


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## ironman

Got my attention.
Ray


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## kvom

Great start!


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## charlesfitton

It looks very Whippet - esque, I like it a lot and will be following.


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## Gedeon Spilett

Wow, great start with the castings, nice pictures too, thanks. I did a SV engine last year, smaller , (20 mm bore), it runs now, after I had troubles with the shape of the combustion chamber.
Is your plan already finished ?


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## BronxFigs

Interesting process to view on a forum.  Totally different patterns from what I thought they would be, e.g....I would have thought the cylinder assembly would be a separate casting, and would be bolted to the top of the crankcase after machining.  But, what do I know.

Love it.  Good luck with the build.  I am sure you will end up with a great little engine.


Frank


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## deverett

I admire anyone who undertakes their own casting.  It is yet another of those black arts as far as I'm concerned.

Dave
The Emerald Isle


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## PaPaMitch

Very Impressive!


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## fourstroke

OK
So here is the progress so far
I dont know how to interspace the descriptions in between each picture so I will give the description first followed by the pics

I set ip the casting on the mill using an angle plate set square to line up the base for milling, clamped it and cut the base I also squared the ends of the feet to allow setting it square later

Two pieces of 10x150mm steel were milled square and the two castings were mounted on these, this makes life so more easy when setting up to cut each side
The core holes were filled with wood to mark the centres and the centre for the main bearing was set up using a wiggler, a long home made centre drill was used to start the rear hole for the back bearing, this was drilled and reamed to size. The next job involved using my boring head to cut the casting to size, this was a first for me, I've had the head for a few years but this was its first use, once that was done I cut the internal boss to size measured from the centre line

The casting was set upright and again the boring head was used to cut the central hole and lip for the clinder liner. The casting was finished to size on the cylinder head face

Filpping the casting back onto is side and using the angle plate the inlet face and tappet access face were finished to size and the access hole milled, rotating the casting 90 deg and using a 5/16 packing piece the crankcase access hole was faced and the internal sides milled smooth

The comment that this engine looks very whippet esque is not far from the truth, I took a lot of inspiration from that little engine and the internals on my engine will be very similar, I should also say that I dont work from plans prefering to make it up as I go, I like to keep the design evolving but I have to check myself sometimes as I can get carried away adding this and that till the project never gets completed, I plan to keep this one short(I hope)
Anyway enjoy these pics and I will post more in the next post

Dougie


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## fourstroke

The next job was the head covers, these were drilled through the bolt bosses and two holes were tapped 6BA, these holes were transferred  onto another piece of 10x150mm plate and the covers fixed using countersunk screws. using this method allows quick clamping to the mill table, the underside was skimmed ant the covers flipped over onto the oposite side of the 10mm plate and a light cut taken over the bolt bosses and water outlet

The covers were clamped to the cylinder head and the holes spotted through and again two holes were tapped 6BA. The heads were scewed to the plate, clamped to the milland the cylinder side was faced, both heads were flipped over and cut to finished size

Any comments or suggestions will be very welcome
Regards
Dougie


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## Terryt

Hi:

A great job. I am enjoying you progress very much.

Would you share with us that do not know how to make patterns on how or where to look for advise?

Thanks,

Terryt


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## bmac2

Hi fourestroke (Dougie)
Love the patterns. The castings look great. It was thoughts of making a (as charlesfitton put it) Whippet-esque engine that got me to take the plunge into casting. So Far Ive done about 6 hours of pouring metal and 6 months of reading. I figure another 6 months of reading and I might be ready to start. Keep up the good work Ill be following along.


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## fourstroke

Hello again
I made some progress on the engine that I wanted to share and I also hit my first snag, details to follow

After finishing the cylinder heads to height I clamped the first one to the main casting and spotted through to mark the stud positions, the same with the second. The first casting went smoothly drilling the holes into the top face, the second was going well till the drill hit a hard spot, probably a bit of slag and wandered off to the side, not by much but enough to mess up the spacing. My solution after a bit of thought was to centre the offending hole on the mill and using a solid carbide cutter I cut through the hard spot to leave an 8mm hole. This was filled with a bit of aluminium bar secured with loctite, once it cured the hole was re spotted, drilled and all the holes tapped 4BA, the head was given a light skim to level it off

The next thing was to cut the water space slots to allow the water to circulate . The edge of heads were cut back to get to the correct wall thickness in the areas required then both of them were marked out and milled. These areas were copied onto the top of the main casting and slots milled to match the ones in the head

The clinder head and top cover casting are both a bit oversize so they were clamped to their respective casting and marked to size then ground back to match the main body casting

The next picture in the list shows the gear train to operate the cams, these are 0.5 module, 25,30,30 50 teeth respectively, the 25 tooth gear needs to fit on the reduced diameter of the rear portion of the crank which will be 1/4", the boss is 6mm as supplied so I had to make a bush to attatch to the gear that will allow the fitting of a grub screw to secure it. This bush has a tight fitting 6mm hole to fix it centrally to the gear and then the two were silver soldered together, once it was cool and had been cleaned in the pickle the central hole was opened up to 1/4"

I hope you enjoy these pics, there are a few more in the next post along with an answer to the question about pattern making
Dougie


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## fourstroke

The first picture in this next set shows the bearings for the rear section of the crankcase, these are 13mm OD x 10mm ID and 25mm over the flange, the flat is to collect oil and direct it to the hole into the bearing, most of the lubrication will be by splash but I plan to design an oil pump worked from the rear crankshaft, thats what the boss under the rear bearing hole is for, again, plan A.
The next is the start of the machining of the front main bearing, this is as far as I got tonight as I need to give it some thought as to how to procede

The next picture is in response to the question from Terryt about pattern making, its the very first pattern I ever made and it was the base for a twin cylinder vertical steam engine. I was fortunate enough to go to school at a time (1970's) when the metalwork class had a forge and a furnace and the teachers wern't afraid of being sued if me or someone else went home with  a hole burnt in their clothing or a cut from a bit of swarf. I got the basics about casting there when one of my classmates cast a set of "trucks" for his skateboard. the picture shows the one important thing about pattern, they must have "draw" angle built in to allow them to be removed form the sand, I used this picture as I went overboard with the draw angle but you get the drift. 
There are more knowlegeable people than me on here who can probably tell you the rules but in my case all I do is make sure that each pattern has enough bulk to allow metal removal where required, I dont worry about shrinkage, if I make all the patterns to the same size then they will all shrink at the same rate I assume.
The patterns are made from whatever comes to hand, plywood and  MDF usually. The fillets around the corners are auto body filler which is easy to smooth before it sets with a little cellulose thinners, the paint is high build primer, again from the car spares shop, if its a split pattern then the most important thing to remember is to fit the register pegs at the start of the build.
My furnace is homemade as are the casting boxes, an empty butane cylinder cut and lined is the main body, the picture shows the first melt for this engine, the flames are from the old oil still sticking to the aluminium, it was an old engine crankcase I cut up, I would normally do this outdoors but it was blowing a gale and raining heavilly, the one thing I have learnt is that molten metal and water definately dont mix
Regards
Dougie


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## gbritnell

Excellent work on your engine, especially the castings.
gbritnell


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## stevehuckss396

Cool build so far!!!


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## BronxFigs

Very interesting to witness the birth of a new-and-improved version of the "old-style" Whippet-ish engine.  A lot of hard work and considerable thinking went into this project.  I wish you well.

Frank


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## fourstroke

Thanks Frank
I spent all of today trying to machine the front bearings concentrically with the crankcase register, it should have taken less than an hour
I didn't put enough thought into the bearing casting, the chucking piece should have been on the front face of the casting, that would have let me bore the hole for the bearings and machine the crankcase register at the same time, the solution involved various mandrels and a holder machined to sit the crankcase register in

Hey ho, thats what I get for winging it

Dougie


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## bmac2

Hi Dougie
Thats one of my mysteries solved. The boss under the rear bearing hole is for an oil pump. That only leaves the 2 at the top . . . . Radiator mounting? Fuel tank? Water pump?
Ive just started casting some practice patterns I made up so is going its going to be a while before I can get started on the 10cc version.
Thanks for posting this build.


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## fourstroke

Hello again

I've made some progress on the engine so I thought I would share it with you, the pictures are a bit sparce as I got caried away machining and didnt take as many pictures as normal

I made a start on the gear train for the camshaft, first I turned a short shaft to fit through the main bearing with a 10mm section for the rear bearing and a stub of 1/4" dia for the crank gear, you can see it sticking through the casting on the first couple of pictures. I scribed a line along the centre of the gear side of the casing then spacing the gears with a bit of cigarette paper between each pair I used a close fitting shaft with a point turned on it to scribe the centre point. This was centred using a wiggler, drilled and reamed 5/32". Each gear was done individually to keep errors and play to a minimum. the next picture shows the three gears in train to check the movement

After the last gear was reamed the hole in the casting was opened up to 16mm and using my home made centre the back of the casting was centred, drilled and reamed 10mm. The centre line for the valve guide holes was marked out on the cylinder head at this stage also

The next job was the gear covers, the casting was held in the chuck using the chucking piece and the base turned level. The holes on the bolting bosses were marked and drilled then the tops skimmed level. I drilled and reamed the small boss 1/4" to fit on the stub shaft used to centre the gears, this let me line up the casting as best as possible knowing that the gear boss was central, the holes were spotted through drilled and tapped 7 BA

Bushes were turned for each side of the camshaft and another shaft with a centre turned on it made. The cover was screwed to the casting with the shafts in place and a centre punched onto the gear cover, this was removed centred and drilled.

 The casings were then mounted on a mandrel and the chucking piece was turned to length and diameter, this was intended to take the holder for the hall sensor I plan to use for ignition, to allow ignition timing alterations. The magnet will be mounted on the periphery of a bush on the camshaft but today I have been pondering the addition of a dummy magneto, chain driven fom the shaft, which might hide some of the electrical gubbins. Anyway, the covers were reversed and a start made to hollowing them out, they were then transfered to the mill and the hollowing completed

Comments and/or suggestions appreciated

You're right Bob, the top two bosses are for mounting the fuel tank, nice job on the cad drawing

Dougie


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## stevehuckss396

Looks cool daddyo!


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## fourstroke

Hello again
I have some progress to share on this project, and a tale of woe
I found that, as cast, the cylinder head did not have enough clearance in the combustion chamber for the valves, no problem, I just mounted a burr in the drill and started to grind away the sides of the combustion chamber. Winging it and not paying enough attention resulted in the c**k up you see in the first picture. Look to the lower right of the casting, I cleverly ground too close to the stud hole, not satisfied with this,I did the same to the other one !!
This resulted in an afternoon re casting the heads and starting over

The next pics show the main casting set up to machine the valve guide holes
The casting was drilled and reamed and then the underside of the casting was spot faced to provide a flat seating for the valve springs, the option of running the mill in reverse came in handy and is the first time I have used this in the 17 years I have had the machine. The holes were opened up to 16mm to finish the job
The valve guides were turned from homemade bronze bar and fitted to the casting, the bushes for the tappets were turned and fitted at the same time, the valves were made from stainless steel, 5/32 shafts and a 14mm head, sorry for the lack of pics here but I got carried away and forgot to take any

The next set of pics show my method of making the cams, I want a 3mm lift. I always start by making a couple of filing buttons the size of the base circle and hardening them right out, next I make a master cam with the material sandwiched between the buttons, filed carefully to size, and again hardened right out.
The next pics show the blanks for the cams set up for filing, I cut away most of the waste with a hacksaw before filing to shape, the hardened buttons and master cam ensure that each cam turns out the same as the last. The last pic shows one of the finished cams after polishing with emery

Another post to follow with more pics of the progress
As always, comments or suggestions are always welcome
Dougie


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## fourstroke

More progress again

This time I have some pictures of the cylinder liner, piston, crank webs and crank follower

I started with a chunk of 45mm CI bar, rough turned to the OD of the main body and top lip. Lots of drilling and boring resulted in a big pile of pound notes in the form of cast iron dust, the next pic shows taking the final cut on the liner to leave a couple of thou' clearance for the sealant once its put into the casting for good. The finished part, along with the piston are shown next, again, sorry for the lack of pics of the piston being turned and milled

Next I made a start on the crank, I settled on a bore and stroke of 36x44mm. 10mm steel was cut to rough shape, the two pieces for the crank were glued together with superglue, marked out, clamped to the mill table and both parts drilled and reamed, first for the crankshaft hole, 1/2" and then indexed 22mm, drilled and reamed 10mm for the crank pin
The crank followers were machined individually, marked out for the central, gear driver shaft,both were drilled and reamed 10mm. The mill was indexed 17mm from this centre and a 5/16" slot cut for the crank pin
A  finished pair of webs are shown in the next picture and the finished crankpin in the next. The 10mm crankpin was set up  in a rotary table on the mill and the sides machined 180 deg apart to finish 8mm across the flats. I plan to harden the crankpin and case harden the slot
Thanks for reading to my ramblings
Regards
Dougie


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## fourstroke

Made some progress on the engine I wanted to share with those of you interested
I ran into a couple of problems along the way, first I discovered that the stroke of 44mm was too big, things kept bumping into one another inside the crankcase so I had a rethunk and remade the webs with a stroke of 40mm, this got the clearance I needed but I also had to add a weight to one of the webs to balance the conrod and piston weights, thats the first couple of pics.
The first con rod I made is  shown next, it was drilled and reamed 10mm for the big end and 1/4" for the gudgeon pin, it was set up in the rotary table and the ends and middle section cut by turning the rod by hand, carefully

I had been going over the designs for the oil pump for a while in my head so I decided to make a start on this, after a few false starts the basis of the main body is shown in the next pic, I silver soldered the half round piece to a chunk of 10mm brass. A few, (lots) of milling and drilling operations later the finished, MK1, version is shown in the next few pics
The connecting link from the crank to the pump is shown in the last picture having the slots milled, the rest was done with files and emery

Enjoy, comment or advise.
Regards
Dougie


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## bmac2

Hi Dougie
Just wondering, the oil system on the Whippet is basically just splash it around enough and its got to leek in some ware. Well except on the follower where the holes dont look like it lines up. Im guessing about a 3/16 (4.7mm) stroke on the pump so am I safe to assume that there is no need for any bypass valve? Im wondering just how the oil path is changed in your engine, and do you see any need to take it up to the gudgeon pin? Great build Im really enjoying this. Ive got a start (with a very small s) on my patterns put it was so much easier on the computer.


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## fourstroke

Hi Bob
I have been wondering myself whether to fit a bypasss valve or not.
 The stroke of the pump is about 7mm near as I can measure from a 14mm offset at the crank
Even with a short stroke the engine may be turning around 6-700 rpm which is a lot of oil. I have designed the crankcase to hold a fair bit of oil so that the pump dosent run short due to the splash system but I am concerned that it might lock up and bend one of the connecting links if the pressure builds. All the bearings have oil grooves cut into them to give the oil somewhere to flow
My options are to fit a bypass or to tee one of the pump outlets and run an oil line to the top of the gear case allowing any excess pressure to vent there, this would also supply the gear train with oil
The pump was originally intended just for the main bearings, everything else was just splash, the gudgeon pin included, both main bearings also have oil collecting points cut into them as in the whippet, a bit of a belt and braces approach
Any thoughts or advice would be appreciated

Dougie


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## charlesfitton

Hi Dougie - really enjoy this build, thanks.

Just a thought here - for future plans you may have....

Seems to me that that the timing gear train could be worked into a very serviceable oil pump, if one were to think it through...


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## fourstroke

Your'e right Charles
Now Iv'e got something else to roll around my head. I mentioned earlier that my projects can keep morphing as I think of something else to add or fit
I have a long drive tonight and that little gem will keep the old grey matter active.
Dougie


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## fourstroke

I have been trying to think of something to call this engine and nothing I have come up with has taken my fancy
Can I ask for some suggestions from anyone reading this thread? 
Regards
Dougie


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## Charles Lamont

fourstroke said:


> I have been trying to think of something to call this engine and nothing I have come up with has taken my fancy
> Can I ask for some suggestions from anyone reading this thread?


Well, it is pretty much an up-scaled Whippet, so _Greyhound_? Seems a bit overblown for a single-pot side-valve job, but you could always claim it was ironic.


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## Mechanicboy

Lever oil pump can break off in case overpressure in the lubrication system. Install a pressure relief valve as well in case it would be too high to lever snap off. I've never seen problem with splash lubrication in small 4-stroke engines found in Briggs and Stratton engines and they last long lifetime.


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## Brian40

Hi Dugie.
 I have just read your thread about wanting a propane carb. I have just finished my engine   see  32x40 gas engine   in the work in progress section  it has a propane carb that I designed it has adjustable idle and main jets and works very well, I also made the demand valve from Howell plans  If you think I can help just ask,
.
Brian.


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## fourstroke

Hello again

I havent had much workshop time lately due to life getting in the way but I have had a little progress
In the first post I showed the brass flywheels I cast at home, after thinking about it I decided brass would look out of place and had some flywheels cast in iron using my patterns at a local foundry. This instalment shows two of them being machined, not a lot of interesting detail in the pictures I'm afraid. The keway slot was cut using a home made keway cutter
Hope you enjoy

Dougie


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## fourstroke

I havent had much workshop time lately but I had been thinking about the design of the camshaft bush on the gear side. This was made big enough to let the cams slide into the crankase with the gear fixed to the shaft, three countersunk screws held it in place, so far so good. What I hadnt considered was the size of the gear itself, the first two pictures show the problem, the gear when fitted would cover the screw heads preventing removal or re assembly, also one of the intermediate gears would have to be removed to get the bush out.
So when I got into the shop today I had to alter the bush and the securing method.
I cut an arc out of the flange to pass the idler gear, fitted a pin in place of one of the screws to stop it rotating and drilled and tapped a 6BA hole to take a screw that  fixed the flange under its head, the next two pics show the modifications
I have decided to fit the magnet for the hall system ignition I plan to use inside a dummy magneto. It will be chain driven from the camshaft, the last set of pictures show the basic frame with the brass bushes yet to be cut to size and the  unit with the sprocket fitted, its not finished and I will post pictures of the interior and
 advance / retard lever in my next post
Anyway I hope you enjoy
Dougie


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## Chiptosser

Just picked up on this build.
Great job, on making the patterns!  
That is a nice size engine,  good job on all of it .
I really like the mini Mag!
Excellent!


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## fourstroke

I made some progress on the engine tonight that I wanted to share. I also have a request for help from somone reading this in the US
The first pictures are of the completed dummy magneto, the dimple on the rotor is where the magnet for the hall sensor to go later, its 2mm dia by 1mm thick. Attached to the brass advance/retard lever is an angle cut from tufnol sheet, this has the hall sensor, a OH090U glued to it, more on this later. 
The view from the other side shows the leads ready to be soldered to their respective wires. the cover has been cut to clear the lever and limit its travel

The bracket for the mag was cut and bent to suit and a web was silver soldered to the underside to stifen it. This is held to the cam gear case with three screws

 I also cut the spacers needed to set the cam position on the shaft from brass tube, the main bearings have been cut to allow oil to collect and lubricate the shaft

The last few pictures show the magneto in position with the sprockets and chain drive. The wires for the sensor and the lead for the spark plug will be fed through a hole in the base and routed to the ignition box, the spark lead will come through a hole in the rear of the mag.

Now more on the hall sensor, the OH090U and my request for help
These sensors are almost indestructable compared with some I have tried, I can get them in Scotland but only if they are shipped from the US from digikey or farnell and the shipping is the killer. Both companies want between £12-15 shipping, I guess thats about $18-20.
 Is there anybody willing to post some of these to me if I pay all the costs? They will fit in a normal envolope and having had a small jiffy bag sent from California for just $5 I think I can save a fair bit of money. They cost a couple of dollars each and I can paypal any money required beforehand. Anybody who thinks they can help please PM me

Enjoy and as always comments and suggestions will be welcome
Regards
Dougie


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## fourstroke

I was finally ready to set the cams onto the camshaft in their correct positions and angles
I set up the camshaft in the rotary table, one of the spacers had previously been glued to the shaft with loctite so that I knew where the first cam had to sit
I made a simple jig from a stip of brass with a cutout that matched the cam profile filed into it. This was set up on packing to bring the tip of the cam to centre height. The rotary table was zeroed and the cam was given a good coating of glue, spread evenly and then set using the jig. A couple of minuites set the loctite.
The spacer and the second cam were slid onto the shaft, the rotary table was rotated 110 deg and the process repeated. The final spacer was loctited into place and now it just needs to cure

Enjoy

Dougie


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## bmac2

Hi Dougie
I feel your pain when it comes to sourcing electronic parts. There used to be a strong electronics industry in Alberta but its gone now and most anything I want I have to bring in from the states. Back when I was building my Webster-ish engine I had gone into the only electronics supplier left in the city and the girl at the counter looked at me like Id grown a third eye when I asked about hall effect sensors.oh:
Enough of my ranting . . . 

That has to be about the slickest way to set up a cam I think I have ever seen. Being a newb to IC engines it takes some of the fear out of it for me. Thanks for posting it.


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## fourstroke

After searching the internet for suitable carb designs and getting some advice and plans from members on here I found a couple of drawings in old books that look took my fancy. I settled on the design shown here and made a few changes to suit my engine and wanted to show you what I did and ask for comments

It is described as a "floatless" carb which is what I wanted, it may also be suitable for use with propane which is a bonus. The first picture is the drawing I found in the book, the next is the basic parts of my version, the two brass tubes silver soldered at an angle are the fuel inlet and the needle valve housing, the two other pieces are the basic main body, these are 5/8" dia with an 11mm shoulder. The next pic shows the three cutouts for the bolting bosses being cut, followed by the bodies with the mounting flanges and bosses silver soldered into place, the needle valves are shown to the side.
The bodies were bored to size and the taper for the valve seat cut in the three jaw chuck, the fuel/needle valve assembly was soldered to the main body to complete the assembly. The next picture shows the hole for the fuel cut through to meet the valve seat. Now, this is where it gets a bit experimental, I have made two carbs, one for each engine. One carb has a 1mm fuel hole cut into the seat, the other has a 1.4mm hole. I did this because I wasnt sure how much fuel would be atomised and can try both carbs on the one engine to see if there is a difference, any comments or advice will be appreciated
A veiw ito the main body with the valve in place is next

The valve is shown next followed by the valve guide, these are held in place by the pressure of the spring on the valve shaft pulling it onto its seat, the knurled nut is to adjust the spring tension and the steel handle allows the air hole to be closed or opened. The next pic shows the carb cap, the screw is to adjust the amount of lift the valve has. The cap is held to the body by three 10BA screws.

The final pictures show the complete assembly from different angles

I hope you enjoy these pics and as always, comments, suggestions or advice will be greatly appreciated
Regards

Dougie


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## charlesfitton

that is pretty - I have a drawing somewhere where the fuel intake is worked into the intake valve seat..


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## fourstroke

A little more progress on this engine to share
I drilled tapped and counterbored the spark plug holes, fixed the valve seats into the head with loctite then drilled the passageways into the valves
The carb has been mounted and an exhaust was fabricated fron stainless steel and mounted to the cylinder

I think its getting close to the end now
Regards
Dougie


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## fourstroke

I am at the stage with this engine where I am ready to put it together and see if everything went round and round without any bits bumping into each other that wern't meant to.

Before I could do that I had to set the cam timing, here are some pictures of the method I used.

First pic shows the timing gears with alignment marks, the engine was set to TDC and the crank gear and the two idlers were punch marked.

 To set the cams in the correct position I made a small plate to join the two tappets together, thats the second pic.When this plate is pushed down onto the flank of each cam it sets the camshaft in the correct TDC position with the exhaust closing and the intake opening.
With the cams secured the portion of the shaft where the cam gear will sit was coated with loctite and the cam gear slid into place.

Once the loctite set I could fit the valves and check that everything rotated freely, it did!!

The next pics show the fuel tank. the main body was bent around a hardwood former, the filler cap, outlet and the ends were silver soldered together. The sides were shaped on the sander and the cross formed into them, these were given a coat of tipex round the edges, fluxed on top of that  and the ends soft soldered into position
Once it cooled the flux was removed with warm water and the tipex with cellulose thinners.

As allways, comments or suggestions greatly appreciated

Dougie


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## werowance

its all looking really nice.  what type of tool did you use to form the "X" in the side of the gas tank?  id like to see more about that if you have any pictures?

really sharp work!


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## fourstroke

I discovered I still had one or two small add ons to make before I can put it together

Tonight I made the combined oil filler/crankase breather
The first pics are the three basic components, the cup valve, stainless ball and the retaining cover. The next are the valve assembled and then fitted to the street elbow which will be fixed to the cam cover plate

The cover plate was originally aluminium but tonight I changed it to brass and etched my name and date into it, I will post some pictures tomorrow

Werowance, the cross was formed by cutting grooves in the form of the cross into a block of aluminium with a 3/16 ball nosed end mill, this was marked with the outline of the end plates. The plates were then laid on the ally and a piece of 3/32 silver steel, cut to the size of the cross, laid above the grooves and hit with a hammer to set the copper into the groove. A little on one then the other till the steel will sit on its own without moving then given a good whack to finish
This method also slightly domed the end plates, it was unintentional but turned out ok
I will post a pic of the former tomorrow

Regards

Dougie


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## fourstroke

This is the cover for the cams, I etched it with ferric chloride for about three hours. Once the etched area has been painted the lettering will stand out a bit more. The last pic shows the crankcase vent fitted to the plate

Dougie


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## fourstroke

These next pictures are in resonse to the question from werowance about forming the cross on the fuel tank end plates

The first pic is the block of aluminium with the cross cut into it, next is a scrap of copper laid on the block with the forming pin laid on top over the cutout in the ally. A couple of taps starts to push the copper into the form, first one side then the next. The second last pic shows the cross starting to form on the outside.

Once the pin will sit on the copper without rolling off a couple of good whacks finish the job, the last pic shows the finished plate.
All this took less than five minutes

Regards
Dougie


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## bmac2

Hi Dougie
The more I look at the fuel tank the more I like it. To me the copper gives it sort of a warm agricultural feel like something off an antique tractor or utility engine. Your etched cam cover has me wanting to remake a couple of steam chest covers. scratch.gif


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## fourstroke

Well, a couple of nights in the shed bending 1/16th copper oil pipe, making some pipe unions and assembling the first of the pair of engines with only one strip down to fit a bit I forgot and here we are.

This is the first full assembly and it is now ready to test

The crankcase has 35ml of oil, that brings it up to just kiss the crank balance weight. The part I forgot was the con rod dipper to splash the oil about, I had to take the engine apart and solder the dipper to the big end, that is no easy task. It is quite a complicated procedure to fit the crank through the main bearing hole, line up the bigend and slip it onto the crankpin. Then fit the balance weight and gear driver web through the access hole, all bloody fiddly and designed to test my patience!!

All I have to do now is solder together the leads for the hall sensor and make the ignition circuit to the design on this forum by J Geddes

I hope you enjoy

All comments and suggestions greatly appreciated

Dougie


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## Charles Lamont

fourstroke said:


> All comments and suggestions greatly appreciated
> Dougie



With all the fiddly little fittings it is looking very authentic. Dark green?


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## fourstroke

Thanks Charles
I was thinking more of maroon
Dougie


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## fourstroke

Here are some pictures of the ignition setup I plan to use

The first is the coil attached to the ignition circuit which is fixed to the top of the box, next is the box with everything inside.
I set everything up with the engine clamped to the bench to test. I would like to say it ran after a couple of flicks but it didnt. A leaky head gasket and flooding were the main problems, I changed the gasket to silicon sealant and let it set overnight

Testing the following day, progress was in the form of a few short runs then loss of compression through the exhaust valve, this meant stripping the head and splitting the gasket. The culprit was a bit of cured silicon that stuck on the valve seat

This meant a rethink so all the silicon was removed and a thicker gasket was cut from gasket paper and and the engine re assembled, can you see a pattern evolving?

This was a definite improvement, a lot of fiddling with fuel needle, fuel seat settings and we have liftoff. I found the engine wont run with the air shutter more than a quarter open but it runs all the same

If I have done this right there should be a link to the engine running on youtube
Hope you enjoy

Dougie
[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kf1wD8aCzjU[/ame]


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## bmac2

Dougie 
  Compression and valves must be the bane of a model engineers existence.
  Well done and congratulations on a runner. Its great to see all the work youve none come together.Thm:


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## Cogsy

Congrats on a runner! Sounds great and so easy to start. You should be very proud.


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## Brian Rupnow

Very nicely done!!! Congratulations!!----Brian


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## Swifty

That certainly starts easily, very well done on a nice engine.

Paul.


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## fourstroke

I have been messing around with the carb settings on the engine and have got it to run with the air shutter fully open, this gives a degree of speed control but it has a bit of a delay. The best speed control is by using the spark advance or retard.
I lashed up a cooling system from an old mapp gas can which works well but I think the water tank could do with being a bit bigger
The oil pump I designed into this engine has proved to be very effetive, too effective as when it runs oil is pumped out of the main bearing, I now plan to either block off the feed to the main bearing and have it feed only the gearbox  or just leave it as a manual pump 
The engine was burning a lot of oil at first which seems to have settled and the oil level inside the crankcase has dropped, I think I had too much in there to begin with. All the parts designed to be lubricated by splash seem to be being so, a fair bit of oil comes out of the inlet tappet bush but not the exhaust so when I come to strip this for paint I will make a new bush
Hopefully this link will show the engine running with the cooling sytem and is I hope a bit clearer than the last one

Thanks for all the kind comments

regards

Dougie
[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cb23_W5kzWY[/ame]


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## fourstroke

You were right Charles
After an unsuccessfull search for a maroon colour I settled on mid brunswick green
I can use this colour on some of my full size Listers
Dougie


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## Charles Lamont

Tried these?

http://www.stationaryengineparts.com/Stationary-Engine-Colours/

http://www.phoenix-paints.co.uk/precision-paints.html


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## BronxFigs

Re-visited the thread and read through the whole process.  From front to back....and excellent tutorial, and interesting fabrication of this classic engine design.  Congrats!

Can't wait to see the engine wearing some lipstick.


Frank


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