STUART Twin Cylinder Engine Problem?

Hi All,

Just had a clearance guy I know drop this round to me, asking was it any good to me!

Covered in flffy oikly rubbish as shown at one end.

Quite hard to turn butall seem OK except there was this really loose bolt on the front eccentric which I think is something to do with the reversing gear.

I want to try and get this running on air to see how it goes before selling it and of course give it a bit of a tidy up which I have started on already.

I do not want to do any damage without first sorting out this loose bolt problem, any help would be most welcome, it seems like a nice find and quite a big lump! Cheers, Martin

this is the site you may want to visit
**LINK**

BobH

Just nip it up but not so tight that the strap starts to bind on te eccentric, ideally add locknuts to all these fixings.

Hi Jason, So this being loose will not have affected the timing?

Am I correct in thinking that his is a Stuart No:3?

Will it run on air from my Axminster small compressor, about 90psi?

Cheers, Martin

Not timing should be OK, if the actual eccentric had moved on the crankshaft then it could have affected things.

Looks like a No3 with reversing gear.

Should be able to run on a lot less pressure which will allow a small compressor to keep up but being a compound won't run any where near as well as it would on steam

always wanted one.....you v

can run a lathe/boat/cinema on that !!

Hi all,

Well today I spent some time cleaning the unit up and then improvised a crank handle and turned it over by hand for about 10mins which made things a lot smoother and easier.

I then oiled everything in sight and found that my compressor air fitting matched the intake thread perfectly. So taking that as a sign from above I let some air in very gently via the gate valve and bugger me if it didn't start to turn over very slowly and smoothly indeed! Ran it that way for about 5 mins then let some more air in and it speeded up very nicely. Only did this for about 30 secs as I was worried about it getting enough oil.

You certainly would not want to get anything caught up in it when running as it seems very powerful indeed.

I have no idea how the displacement lubricator should be set or how it works, ditto for the reversing gear.

I just want to get this in good running order and then get it off to a new home!

Cheers, Martin

The displacement lubricator will only work when running on steam as it works by condensate falling to the bottom of the container which makes the oil rise and that is then carried into the valve chest and cylinder.

Short of fitting an inline oiler to your air line a few drops of oil into the inlet and a drop into each drain cock before a run will be fine.

Reverser is really just a case of loosening the small ball ended locking lever and then lift the big lever up. This will move the two quadrants (expansion links) so that the other eccentric rods line up with the valve rods. Hopefully these two eccentrics are timed for running in the opposite direction.

Edited By JasonB on 21/05/2018 15:55:49

Hi all,

Finally got it running and managed a small Youtube video:

Hope it works!

Cheers, Martin

Edited By JasonB on 23/05/2018 18:32:42

Edited By MichaelR on 23/05/2018 18:34:00

Sounds good on air should be even nicer on steam