factory

I don't have liquid tape but as I also collect & repair vintage electronics I have a box full of various different sized heat-shrink tubing, I used a piece of 3:1 or 4:1 ratio heat-shrink tubing that just fits over the crimp terminal, thinking about it I could have removed the terminal & used smaller diameter heat-shrink, got to remind myself I have a good supply of ring crimp terminals I could have used. David

We could change it to something like "portable ventilation fan" if you want, I'm sure these portable fans could have been used for lots of things such as ventilation, cooling, etc. David

It does turn over fine, I have noticed in a certain position the end play you normally get with the shafts disappears, I put a used PTO shaft in the engine, but have now noticed the counter weight of the only NOS one that came with these parts is very slightly thinner than the older ones. I had a quick look inside another late engine with that type of feather valve assembly and noticed there also seems to be a slight difference in how far they bored out the crankcase for the feather valve. David.

I forgot to mention that this had been apart in that tin for at least 4 years, the last time when my health was poor & I couldn't work on anything, that very nice trimmer you sent will be one of the next projects once this one is back together (which hopefully should be more straight forward than some of the other projects). Still got to sort out one of these generators for you too. The extension contains a mix of what is probably asbestos with steel wire mesh, will try a get a picture with the end removed, but will be leaving the core inside the tube when it gets the chrome cleaned. Fairly certain it's only found on some UK tools. David

Nice to see a later one of these fans, I'm fairly certain it would have been used for ventilation purposes by the fire department not fighting as CNew said, they used large fans after a fire where I work to clear the smoke & fumes out of the building after the fire had been put out. AEP closed down in 1978, if you want to know when the engine was made let us know the details on the cylinder plate, the first bit is the model number (starts with 13B) and the second is the serial number which has the date coded into it (only for engines made from June 1967 & later). The decals are a bit fragile on the later engines (paper with plastic film), be very careful if you clean the decal, it would be nice to see a clear picture of the decal as it's one I've not seen before, AEP engines are quite hard to search for & find. CNew has sorted you out with the fuel mix, 32:1 with non-ethanol (aka non-oxy) gas & good quality mineral 2-stroke oil. And a reminder of why you should remove all traces of any original filter foam before attempting to start the engine. David

Something else I noticed when I took it apart further, the wire for the coil primary to the points/condenser had been incorrectly routed & had got crushed between the magneto plate & cylinder, this will need sleeving. The HT lead also has damage to the insulation. Most of the parts got cleaned outside earlier, apart from the rusty exhaust it's all cleaned up nicely. David

I've had this for some time, it was seized & a previous owner had removed the cylinder without freeing up the piston resulting in a snapped con-rod. I dissembled it a few years ago & managed to remove the piston intact, unfortunately the rings are stuck for good, I suspect it got run without any oil. The engine has been in bits in this biscuit tin for far too long, it's time to clean & rebuild it. David

More progress & problems with this engine, the magneto & flywheel got assembled with no problem, the coil is currently still the wireless model (I intend to repair a couple at the same time to avoid wasting too much araldite). The induction/PTO assembly is where the problems are, it got assembled but when fitting it to the crankcase I found that it doesn't go in far enough, there appears to be minor differences in the crankcase (older) & induction/feather valve assemblies (newer). I'm really not sure what to do at the moment, it's been shelved while I have a think, I'll probably need to disassemble it again to investigate. David P.S. I though I had plenty of screws for the induction housing/mounting flange but turns out the size I ordered doesn't fit every type.

That looks very nice. The dynamo & lights look to be standard accessories available at the time for fitting to any bicycles, I had a few bike dynamos like the one shown on that original mini-bike here years ago but they had been drowned. The mini-bike I bought has brackets on the front for attaching a headlight & dynamo. David

No I was referring to the handle screwed into the gearbox, I missed it in picture #4 in the first post, I thought it was missing. It looks like a tiny bit of the Orion decal is still present on the tank. This is how it would have looked (picture archived from ePay). David

The early drills don't have the throttle control and the missing screw in handle on early ones matches the grip on the frame. Looking at my archived pictures the early red Orion Drillgine & the Comet Tote-N Tools version are identical apart from the decal on the tank. David

That's what I thought you meant, just wanted to clarify for others that may read this thread in the future and start searching for a non-existent attachment. Here are some pictures of the inside of the clutch unit for the O&R Tarpen Mini Engine power-head, the rear housing & clutch drum are the OEM parts for this... ... and the rest of the clutch & engine mounting are standard O&R parts. This threaded adaptor fits in the end on the clutch unit, if you have one of these and it's not seized, add some fresh grease to it to prevent this. David

I've no idea what the terminal blocks are from, I got given them and they've been waiting in one of the parts boxes on the shelf ever since. No progress yesterday, got very distracted by the arrival of a scarce HP oscilloscope from the late 1950's. David

Just a reminder, the compressors were sold without a power source, so any motor fitted might not be original anyway. David

The other red drill is branded Drillgine by Orion Manufacturing Co. I've seen at least one red Orion Drillgine in the UK, but Comet tools don't appear over here. David

Thanks Terry, there's no rush scan them when you have time, I usually scan in high resolution to PNG files, but JPG files would probably be better for email. David

I thought that would be simply to figure out. ( some people are left handed) It's shown fitted on both sides in the manual, I don't have any original combined manuals that cover the four Comet Tote'N Tools, there are two versions (still looking), the C/Saw did come with a manual that only covers the C/saw. The other version of the Comet manual below was originally posted by @neons . David P.S. the only Comet tool I'm missing is still the chainsaw, OK I don't have the Comet drill but do have a much later Drillgine version.

Do you mean another company made an outboard attachment or are you referring to the Aquabug that R. Perry sold over here in the UK? @CNew you do have the Polaris power head & attachments over in the US, probably just as hard to find as the Tarpen Mini engine power head is over here. David

Good to hear you've got the Drillgine running again. David

Good to see you got the wiring sorted & it's back together. David

I've had one of those days where you go one step forward & two or three back. Here are most of the parts I had found for building this engine, the new parts are outside the trays on the right. The crankcase was assembled with the crankshaft, con-rod, piston & magneto coil plate, then came the first problem, I would normally hold the crankcase in the vice when screwing the cylinder down, unfortunately the port tube in the crankcase mounting flange prevented me from using the pieces of wood I usually fit to prevent damage from the vice jaws. A lot of searching for something else I could use found a brass earth terminal strip, removing one of the screws allowed the tube to be protected. Here's where things went a bit wrong, I found I couldn't get the cylinder to screw down fully, I tried several times but it kept getting stuck part way. I then thought either the crankcase or cylinder might have damaged threads, I first tried the cylinder on another crankcase and it fitted fine. The part built engine got stripped down again & I went through the other used cylinders I had, eventually I found one that fitted, ironically it was the one that originally came with the crankcase, I had picked another because the top fin had a piece broken off. After this I needed to clean some of the parts again, it got reassembled to the point I was at before and this time thankfully the cylinder screwed all the way down with no problems. The exhaust collector was positioned at 90 degrees and I checked a starter would fit, this is as far as I've got today. David

The Tarpen Flex attachments aren't too hard to find, apart from certain ones. Tarpen made PTO units to fit a lot of machinery that used the flexible drive to the attachments, the O&R engine & an electric power head are the only handheld versions. This is how I acquired the Tarpen O&R, it was in this Keil Kraft boat. When I told the previous owner I was interested in O&R tools he said he still had some of the parts that were removed to put it in the boat, he originally bought it from a surplus shop (which had two of them) in the 1970's. The only part it needs is a replacement clutch bearing assembly, if you have a look at the propshaft coupling you'll see the bronze bearing got brazed together along with part of the clutch. I'm also not 100% sure the clutch shoe assembly I fitted is correct but that was all I had. David

Probably a high chance this vulture wouldn't be able to buy any of them, most sales of collections on ePay are always US only and the other vultures usually buy them all up before I see them. My memory must be bad too, there is an early starter sitting on the shelf & I cant remember what it belongs too, it might end up on my Kenco pump if I don't' remember soon. David

That would be very useful if you can remember, I've looked at lots of impellers and have so far been unable to find one of either the correct size or shaft fitting. David P.S. Odd that the engines are labelled B as that is supposed to be the standard engine supplied with an O&R base tank.

That's the second O&R pump Cnew has that's missing the pump section, I don't think mine has an intact impeller either, being made of rubber they dry out & crack up with age, as well as fail if run dry. I do have at least one pump with a good impeller here somewhere. The handle is attached on the other side of mine, it's also one of the few older engines I have with the Model letter printed on the decal, I had to fit a new set of feet as the originals were falling apart; David