Member postings for GrahamS

Thanks Rod , some excellent and timely inspiration for machining setups there, especially the rockers!

After a break I am just starting the pistons, then onto the valve gear.

Have you settled on a carb yet? The design OS1A seems to be unobtainable , as is the OS21A Andrew Whale used.

Cheers Jason !

Have you sussed the design direction of rotation yet Rod?

My gut feel is its clockwise viewed from the cam side, but as usual with this design, nothing obvious in the plans.

Similarly I think the right cylinder when viewed from the cam side is what the Harley guys call the front or number 1 cylinder but not 100% sure.

Nice finish on your rods. I intend to go back through the engine when finished and spend some time getting a better finish on parts, to date I have just left them as is after machining.

Cheers

Graham

Looking good Rod,

After a lot of faf with that slot , I opted to pin it all together , followed by Loctite. Whatever works .....

Thanks for the added detail Jason, that makes complete sense and helps enormously.

I will be making this after finishing the cylinders.

Well maybe not quite. I have decided to get my 30 year old Sweet Pea in boiler certificate again. I use it occasionally on a length of track in my garden, but now having retired I want to visit some local tracks again. It used to be in certificate, but when my kids grew up and left home it just sort of got forgotten about , and only run once or twice a year if that. I have done a hydraulic test myself pending the boiler inspector doing same. Lots of maintenance work to get it back up to scratch !

Edited By Graham Sherwood 1 on 29/09/2022 17:01:50

Thanks Ian,

Its a great relief to hear you think he is wrong way round as well ! I was struggling to get past the fact his runs, but on the face of it the cam is reversed.

In my correspondence with Rod about this matter, to try and relate the drawing to photos we referred to the middle cam in the drawing being at 12 o 'clock, the cam gear end one at 8 o' clock and the crankcase end one at 4 o'clock. I have a suspicion if reversed and viewed from the other end 8 and 4 are not that different ( 12 degrees different ) and if compensated by valve setting , ignition timing etc it might just run like that. Who knows ? I bet someone has done it !

I do like your idea of trimming the bar to length after machining the cams, so you can machine while holding down from the 'short' end so it is oriented like the drawing. If I have the headroom in the mill I will probably do that.

Thanks again.

Graham

Ian,

Looks excellent, well done and in quick time as well ! I thought I was progressing quickly , having started in late Feb, but both you and Rod are steaming ahead.

I feel a right numpty over this, but I just cant get my head around the camshaft. The drawing dimensions the angles looking from the cam gear end with the middle cam being 101 degrees clockwise on from the cam closest to the cam gear , and the third one being 113 degrees further on from the second. Fine.

The obvious way to machine it using the Cox method is to hold the long cam gear end in a collet vertically as shown by Jason and Andrew Whale.

What I dont understand is in his video Andrew, working down the cams uses 0, 101, 113 as the lobe angles which surely is back to front ? Using the Cox method, starting at the highest cam ( the one at the crankcase end ) the separation angles should be the reverse of the drawing i.e. 0 ,113,101 ? Now Andrews engine clearly runs so I find it hard to discount his choice, it just seems to be at odds with the drawing.

Another thought is it might just run made either way !

Apologies for warbling on, but I have been mulling this over for months now, and I can see the camshaft being the last piece to make ! Can I ask you Ian, did you use the Cox method to make the camshaft , and what angles you choose working down the stack of cams?

Thanks

Hi Rod,

Great work on the camshaft.

Any chance of more pictures of your good one please , especially end on from the 'long end' to match the drawing and similar views to understand the cam orientation compared to the drawing.

I have pressed ahead with the cylinders , about to start cutting the fins.

Thanks

Graham

Thanks for the pics Jason, that is a help. I think I just need to man up and make a start !

My main question is about the angular relationship between the cams, and which one is which !

Referring to the Camshaft Assembly drawing ( side on view ) and the end on view with the separation angles, how do you link the two together?

Assuming the cam furthest from the cam gear is the first one to be machined ( the orientation you used to machine with the long part of the camshaft in the collet ) , is the next one at 101 degrees further on or 113 or 214 ?

Mu guess is the first one is at roughly 8 o clock on the drawing , the large middle one at 12 o clock and the last one at about 4 o clock?

Hope that makes sense and thanks

Looks excellent Rod, I will find the pictures for machining the heads very useful !

Looks like you are rapidly catching me up !

Having done everything else in the bottom end , I am going to try a set up for the cam shaft next , on scrap first as I am confident there will be a few practice runs.

This is where I am up to , with the bottom end complete except for the camshaft which I have been dreading.

The length of 3/8 bar poking through both crankwebs is an alignment aid I have built in , given I had little confidence in the pinch method of holding it all together while I pinned things together.

One of the crank pins was pinned first , followed by both crankshaft pieces. Then with the alignment bar in place, the other side of the crankpin was pinned. The pins are 3mm grub screws so removeable. When I am happy with it I will go back and loctite as well as pin. So far it all runs sweet so happy. Another advantage of this alignment bar is I can check everything is as it should be at any time , as in the picture the alignment bar passes through after assembly.

A view of the con rods in place before crankshaft assembly.

In this one you can see I extended the split in the crankweb to try and get more grip , to no avail

Please keep posting pictures of your build, thanks!

Good work Rod, looks spot on.

I am not too far behind you with my Hoglet build , I am finishing up the connecting rods then onto assembling the crankshaft then the bottom end is complete.

Like a lot of posts I see, I am not happy with the design method of a 'grab' fit of the crank webs to the shaft. I am planning using grub screws between the crank pin and webs to lock them, but cant decide on a method for the crank shafts to webs as after locking the pin there is no access. As a last resort I could just loctite them I guess, but not happy with this - Can I ask how did you do this assembly? Thanks

I started the P&W , but to date have not finished it.

After making the bedplate through to top of cylinder I knew I was on an uphill battle without a mill and rotary table. I am happy with what I have made to date but equally happy to play the long game and get it how I want it when I am ready. I went down the road of UNC to BA with the fasteners on this, imperial and BA gear being the best I had at that time.

I could have progressed , but prior to retirement with a lot of other stuff going on the sensible thing at that time seemed to be to park it. Post retirement I joined the engineering crew on the Daniel Adamson heritage steam tug, which I really enjoy and feeds the engineering bug as well as being a social thing, and keeps me fit !

Recently I have bought a mill and and few supporting bits of kit and am ready to have a serious go again. Another retirement project was also running a Morgan three wheeler, yes it had a big V twin up front. So you can see the connection to the Hoglet, not identical but perfect as a demonstration piece and an incentive to make it. Also a good opportunity to pick up some skills and try new things out like camshafts. I am about to have a go making a test Hoglet camshaft out of scrap - I am still getting my head around the rotary table movements required.

Thanks

Thanks Jason, this will be my first IC engine build , previous projects all steam, so I am sure I will have lots of follow up questions !

At this early stage a 'metric fasteners only' build for me looks like the way to go.

I have a set of quality metric taps and dies, and have recently bought metric change wheels for my imperial Boxford lathe, so I think I have the threading gear sorted. If I do have to buy anything else metric at this time it feels like it will get reuse in the future, not so with tooling up with UNC / UNF gear !

I have a metric mill ( with DRO which can flip to imperial ) , so part dimensions in imperial are no problem.

I am now investigating if buying material in metric ( for cost saving ) but building in imperial ( to match the plans ) makes sense, certainly for the ally parts and possibly the cast iron. Even if it makes extra machining - all part of the fun.

What effect does moving the cam shaft to suit metric timing gears have on the valve push rods? or is it so slight the adjusters can compensate with no other dimensional changes ? Details of this change in this area would be very interesting and welcome, thank you.

Thanks Jason

Good food for thought.

Hi

I am interested in building a Hoglet , have purchased the MEB plans and am working through whats needed to build, and trawling the internet looking at previous builds etc.

I have seen a few mentions of a Metric set of drawings for this, which I would seriously consider as most of my gear is metric, and metric metal and hardware seems cheaper !

But I cant find any metric drawings being offered for sale - any ideas?

Thanks