Leaderboard

No Norm, I would not dare to do a blind 2 stroke cylinder with large transfer ports. Don't have the gear. It should be done properly on a machine that limits the oscillating travel of the rotating (multi) stones at the right point and that the stones can't catch on the ports. It should only really be done when the bore can be measured accurately to fit new rings so end clearance is minimal. This bore surprisingly only had staining with no rust pitting or scoring, despite the engine being locked solid until my releasing fluid did the job and freed it up. Thought I had a pic of the cleaned up bore, but can only find this one from after removing the cylinder- I was really quite impressed with the smoothness of the cleaned up bore and struggled to find any wear lips or tram lines. I think the low skirt piston ring served to maintain even bore wear and prevented piston slap wear. The single replacement ring will have to bed in as is, but will be assisted with increase of Petroil ratio and 40 weight oil instead of 30 wt. I was not happy with my attempts to clean the crank case out as much as possible without splitting the cases. After several attempts to remove the drive sprocket from the Crank, I gave up. It is worn, but serviceable for now and I could not position it in my 12 ton press to apply correct force properly without risk of strain or damage to it. So I split the cases which showed the cleaning limit lines- Just as well I split them, as the oil galleries to the Crank bushings were solidly blocked with carbon, as well as the surfaces . Armed with a few old toothbrushes etc, it all cleaned up nicely and very smooth shiny surfaces at the contact points. Next pic shows that this engine was designed to run with the cylinder vertically. The recessed valleys each side above the shaft bushings collect and channel oil to the galleries for lubrication. They can't do that so well when it's in a horizontal plane. The other point is that the crank case drain plug is rendered useless!. Another observation is the design of a separate lubrication facility where oil is passed into the crankcase via a hollow mounting stud or bolt, you can see the recess around the bolt hole in lower left and right positions of the case halves in the pic below- The separate oil system is not used on this application, so uses premixed petrol and oil (petroil). I checked the crankshaft end float before splitting the cases (0.0055" or 0.15mm), it's well within limits, so I measured the old washer (gasket) thickness and cut out a new one. Quality brown paper was used with a thickness of 0.0045". Thought I'd stick to tradition and use shellac to dress the washer/gasket and bolted up the cases. Left to set overnight, tweaked the bolts and checked the end float and got 0.006" . Real happy with that, so gave it some oil in the important bits. Now that it was all clean, I could check the wear limits of the crank bushings. up, down, left and right movement on both sides using about 20 ft lbs (27.12 Nm) pressure. Flywheel side was good with only around 0.005" in all points. Drive side was a bit excessive on the chain strain line (0.010") , but good up down and right. Just as well as only option would be to make new one(s)......no thanks!. Established the type of bronze I needed and ordered some PB104................................... TB Cont'd .

Hi Norm, I know which plastic toy snakes your talking about, the ones with lots and lots of bendy joints.. Used to have one a a kid.. And yes I see why the exhaust reminds you of one.. You were lucky with the adder, that could of hurt a bit! Hi John, good to see you back... I'm also struggling to find forum time at the mo.. Why does life has to be so busy??? The finished product isn't too far away now as you will see. Glad you liked the camera motion thingy, it's gets some more use in the next video For a few days there wasn't anything I could do on MadTrax until the paint I had ordered turned up, so..... I had a bit of a tidy and clean up in the lathe corner of the workshop. The white doored paint cupboard came out from the corner behind the lathe and now lives in a place I can actually reach it. The "lathe shelf" now looks a lot neater and emptier.. As most of the smaller tools now live in this labeled cabinet.. And to finish off the lathe got a much overdue clean up.. Finally last weekend my long awaited paint turned up, so Monday was paint the frame and engine day Which made Tuesday "get the engine, transfer box and rear end in" day.. A bit thank you to Rob for all your help with this.. Ta muchly mate.. More parts bolted back on the frame, most of the front end.. A "few" freshly painted parts hanging about the place drying.. And that is where the rebuild has got to as of yesterday.. To finish off this update have a couple of videos.. Enjoy

Well, I hope it provides some reading entertainment for you Gents. Afraid a simple 'Oily Rag' refurb has escaped me again Norm. The cylinder had to have the various bits removed from it. Luckily, the completely blocked Decompression Valve relented ok and the bypass tube plug in the head undid, but the eroded exhaust flange nuts had to be cut and split- While still dealing with the Cylinder bits, I had to start searching for somewhere to have new Rings made. A few hours interweb searching later, I'd found reference to a restoration of a 1922 CWS Federal Motor bicycle. It had the same engine as this one and reference was made to an engineering firm that did all the work including making new Rings!. So I fired off an enquiry and received a good reply with price estimates for each item of work, i.e, a cylinder hone and 3 piston rings to fit. Long story short, I built a strong protective box to transport the parts and to return them in it- Disappointed to say the least after receiving an email saying 'all done' and sorry for the cost/charge as was more difficult than he expected!. When it arrived, all they had done was to make one piston ring!. They left the 2 old rings on which I sent for their pattern reference, did not hone the bore and charged double for one ring. So with fingers burnt again (as some here will know) from remote commission work, despite endorsements, my faith in British engineering firms has diminished completely and will now only deal with 'face to face' arrangements. No option but to proceed and have faith that the wear, although greater than stated limits, will be ok for it to run ok. The point being that it has been fully de carbonised and so loses some assistance the carbon can offer in compression retention. Onward's we go, and started the servicing of the De-Comp valve. Solid with carbon and parts rusted away. Cleaned up and made new clamping screw for the lever pivot collar and pivot pin- Valve seat and face cleaned up ok and only needed lapping with scrapings from p600 emery and 'T' cut. New valve nut, 1/16" cotter/split pin and will have new copper washer. Lever pivot hole egg shaped, so bored it out larger and fitted a bronze bush (not in pic). Next job was to obtain the correct type of bronze rod for the small end bushing................................... T B Cont'd

We were caught out by the snow last year and had to rush around getting the snow blade out of storage. Joseph wanted us to be prepared this year just in case we get snow. He had made a video of the preparation

Well you do need both.

Richard this was really informative and I look forward to seeing the completion of your miracle restoration!

The start of another masterpiece. I'll go better than Norm and will be watching with both eye's.

Methinks your a glutton for punishment, Richard. I'll be keeping an eye on your progress.

NICE!!!!! I love everything about it. Been "out of the loop" for a bit since work takes up too much time but it's fantastic to come back and see this stuff. Can't wait to see the finished product. Ian, you're getting pretty good at that video stuff and that camera motion thingy was a really cool effect.

The right hand side reminds me of one of those plastic toy snakes. Nearly picked one up of the steps leading to the farm house one summer, many moons ago. As I bent down to get hold of it, I suddenly realised it was an ADDER, basking in the sun.