New I/C diesel project - ETA15d-x2

The exhaust width at the inner face looked very small but comparing it to the original liner it appears in reasonable proportion. It's fair to say I'm well pleased.

 

Not much more machining to do now - just the pistons and conrods plus the incidentals - needle valves and comp screws and the lapping in of pistons and liners of course.

 

Hope this is still interesting for some.

 

Regards - Ramon

Edited By Ramon Wilson on 08/05/2011 23:01:32

Personally I would begin with a diesel or a glow because petrol adds another dimension with the ignition but that's down to choice. I still have the pleasure of a first sparky to look forward too but whilst that was on the cards until recently there are now one or two other diesels that have somehow pushed their way into the queue

Edited By Ramon Wilson on 09/05/2011 20:54:19

Hi, first ADY dont make the Bolaero 18 off the MEN site, unless, like me do a scaled up drawing of the plans, because, I found that the bottom of the piston did not allow enough of an opening when the piston was at TDC, I had to file out sections of the skirt to get the timing right, then It could be just me not reading the plans properly.

Ramon, The engine is a David Anderson Satilite 1cc. After much thought and dilema I did not do as you suggested,and that was to bore out the cylinder first, then do the transfer ports after, cause as the transfer ports are on the inside wall of the cylinder, and the 2.5mm carbide end mill is too short to mill down to 10.28mm, So I brought 2 carbide drills, then drilled down to 10.5mm, followed with the other drill which I had sharpened on the T&C grinder as an end mill. there are two port opposite each other, 2.5mm diameter spaced 1.7mm apart, Then drilled out the cylinder 10.5mm, tried to bore out the hole, but as the only boring tool that would fit was a carbide tipped 3/8" tool, It seemed to hit hard spots, and was waisting the bore, THINKS???,. found some concrete reinforcing bar, (reo bar) 1/2" diameter, now reo is tough, and comes in various sizes (the ones with formed spirals and straights) its also cheap ie, free of building sites. DONT!!!! put it straight in the lathe and try to cut off the lumps with an indexable or carbide tipped tool, they shatter, which is not good for unprotected eyes, just use a heavy duty bench grinder or large hand grinder, to get it reasonably smooth, I did that and reduced it to 10mm, plus a further reduction to 9mm for about 50mm long, drill and tapped the end 5mm cap head screw and cross drilled to take a piece of 1/8" round, formed a knife edge tool shape, with the T&C grinder, Did it work YES!!! I started to bore it out, but only just taking out the waisted section, to start with, followed by finer cuts to get it all smooth, Just to see if it would work, I milled off a section off the other end, down to just above center hight, marked that out to take a very small diamond/trapesium shaped indexable bit, and screwed it down with a 3mm round head bolt.( the hole is 2.95 diameter) so be careful when drilling, The negative angle on my other indexable boring bars varies 5-10 degrees, But the tool bit bit is parrellel to the long axis next time I will leave the end 12mm so that there is a bigger landing for the bit, then take off the rear to give clearance.

They both work, with no chatter or undercutting, reo bar, when cut square also make very strong tool holders, (I have a crowbar 5/8" round which I cannot bend) and being an old age pensioner they are cheap as.

Sorry to be so long winded, but hope it helps someone out there.

John Holloway.

Ramon. Hi. First I dips me lid to you, cause my finishes are no where as good as yours. Maybe its because I get impatient and tend to cut off great chunks of swarf, and that does not leave enough metal to machine and file down for a fine finish.

Now, reo bar, Iv'e got two examples on how tough this stuff is, the first is a crow bar I used take with me when fossicking for Saphires, it does not flex as much as my other two good crowbars. The second, is when I made a draw bar for my indexer out of 6mm plain round rod, (which had been left outside for 20 years) and had very little pitting in it, I tried to cut a thread with a non adjustable die, it would not touch it !!!!! so I had to go and buy an adjustable die, and run that up and down a number of times just get a good thread. I have no idea what type of steel is in reo bar (concrete reinforcing rod), maybe some one out there knows ???? I think there is some for of rust inhibitor, combined with other stuff, cause it does not rust much, When I went to up grade my welding tickets, 30 years ago, we had to go to Woolongong, which is 350ks east of Canberra, one of the places we went to was a steel mill, they were running red hot rod through a former, to get the raised spiral on it, it then went past a cooling spray, So is it now forged and heat treated ???? Anyway I now know it makes good boring and other tool holders.

Ramon, I agree with other writers of posts, Why dont you submit your articles to Model engineer, you would make very very good replacement for Nemett ( Malcom Stride).

Thanks John Holloway

PS the weather down here in the Southern Tablelands is brilliant -5 degrees upto 19 degrees, but dont worry it will get colder.!!!

Ramon Hi. Ron Chernic has a good method for drilling the pistons, first before taking them out of the chuck he scribes a center line on the bottom of the piston, then on a face plate he has scribed a vertical line, he then aligns the piston marks with these on the face plate, lock the piston to the face plate, I did the same, but to align the piston properly, had drilled a small hole on the top edge of the face plate, then put the same drill in the mill chuck, and dropped it down into the previously drilled hole, In theory everthing now lines up. A small amount of Super glue allowed me to even things up before the glue dried, then clamped the piston to the face plate. Quicker to do it than write about it !!!!!!. The other thing is, Contra pistons. in the MEN articles Dave Owen " 2.5cc Mate" Dave machines the contra piston nearly down to the right diameter, then puts a taper on the INSIDE of the CP parts it off, glues the hollowed out section to stub mandrel, faces of the end, then using a thread die holder, which has a slotted and grooved aluminium lap in it (the tightening screw adjusts the lap in or out), and then laps the CP so that lower half just slips into the top of the bore, the top half is a tight fit, Now because the inside of the CP is tapered, it now gives a very good seal, Using this method you only have to do one ???, not half a dozen miss fits. I did try to find that article in MEN, BUT its not in the Owen files, I think from memory, its refered to in another article, for some other IC engine.

PS there is some good aricles in the COOKIES. and have you finished concreting, I have not, I did me back in when I fell of the small ladder, when I was cutting down trees. Thats my excuse,!!! im'e sticking to it, It gets me out of more work

John Holloway

Yes the groundworks are complete, not that there was much of it - just getting old and sedentiary. Far too much time in the workshop and not enough exercise (Exercise ?)

Edited By Ramon Wilson on 22/05/2011 23:44:41

Ramon, just to clarify a few thoughts in my head, First when drilling the pistons, I said that I use a drilled hole in the face plate? That should have read angle bracket, also instead of using a drill to align the bracket, the hole I drilled is big enough to fit a piece of drill rod or similar, that saves on breaking drills. To also get a fairly good center for the drill, I also put a 6" ruler below the drill, or a tapered piece of hard round bar and, carefuly traverse the mill table back and forth. When the rulers is parrallel to the table, you now have center, use a center drill to start the hole. Secondly the contra pistons I make, have an internal 5-10 taper, some times more, that gives enough meat around the base of the CP, I also try the CP in the bottom of the cylinder, as that should have a taper when they were lapped, the external taper is minimal, just enough to make a good gas tight fit. ie its very hard to push it down, If it looks right, it must be right.!!!!! If they are made properly when you screw the CP down, then release the pressure, one swing of the propeller you should hear the CP make a noise when it hits the adjusting screw.

An idea I saw for making conrods was to go down to your local bicycle repair shop and get some worn out/broken pedals, the good ones are forged aluminium alloy, I have no idea what they are made of ????, but they are tough, being forged, apparently the metal molecules are aligned length wise, which is good for conrods, and make a good bearing surfaces, the best thing is, they are generally free, you find lots of goodies in the scrap bin.

Its getting late at night, Im'e tired, so am I making sense.

John Holloway.

Hi Ramon and others. Iv'e been off the air for more than a week cause my ISP did an upgrade, and stuffed up the connection. So Ron Chernic, MEN, and Dave Fenner both had what looks like the DELIPINA external grinder and hones, Dave in his article on building the Sugden Special, mentioned the Grindall ??? that was an article by Allen Booth that was was in MEW. I asked Dave Clarke Feb 2010 if he could reprint that article, unfortunatly he could not get in touch with Allen Booth, but he did put up the digital MEW on this site, problem!!! I gave him the wrong number, Iv'e got a big gap in MEW around that area, So trolling the net, I found a site by Tom Blough. he built 3 external grinder/hones, he had modified them by adding a knurled, indexable screw, which gives minute adjustments to the tool, it seems a better item than the Delipina and the Grindall. Still on honing, I made an internal hone using 10mm round SS , machined a 3mm deep flat on one end, then Araldited a 4mmX4mm piece off a fine stone that I broken, and was for rubbing off the burrs from the deep grooves of a deep bowl, wood turning tool, these stones used to come in 3 sizes and 4 grades, one of them is 3" long 1 1/2" wide 1/4" at the thick side and tapered down to 1/16" on the narrow side, VERY fragile, To get it round I mounted the SS in the chuck and then with the Dremel with a 30mm diamond disc in it. mounted on the cross slide, traversed back and forth, and turning the chuck by hand, later switched the lathe on and got the hone round BUT 1mm higher than the SS. It worked????, engine oil, makes a messy sludge, Kero does a better job.

I know this might raise the copyrite bugbear again but is it possible to down load a copy of Allen Booths article.

Its been very cold down here lately, so have not been in the workshop. Bugger!!!!.

John Holloway