Broken Wings

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It's the same... [&o] I believe its all about how you take care of your engine and what you choose to run through it. There are plenty of these engines still running, they're old school, don't make a lot of power but I think they've got soul...

Hence the title, "My Rube Goldberg Device" I'm only doing it for kicks and because I have the available resources.

I wouldn't even bother if it wasn't fun.

Broken Wings

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I think the only thing I'll do is a coat it with castor and let it cure for a while. It's round. there's really nothing more than I can do for it.

Because my current employer manufactures firearms, we do some pretty cool stuff.

There are some Nano Technologies that are REALLY fascinating. Boron Carbide is the hardest man made material available that features the ultimate strength to density ratio, exceptional high hardness, very high melting and oxidation temperatures, and a low coefficient of friction. Since the material is ceramic, it is chemically inert and suitable for harsh chemical environments. The extreme thinness of the coatings means no modification of original part dimensions.

I'm going to horse around with some of the other parts.

jeffie8696

Now you are teasing.
Ceramic

earlwb

Broken Wings, have you test run the engine yet?

Broken Wings

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Not yet.

Sport_Pilot

Sometimes the harder cylinder will wear the rings out somewhat faster but the sleeve last longer.  Howver some hardened steel is harder than chrome, especially nitrided steel, which from your test this obviously isn't.

Also OS typically has softer metal to speed up the break in period.</p>

Broken Wings

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Why is that?

Broken Wings

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Apparently O.S. uses a hard steel ring, I can't be certain but I looked at it under the scope and it appears to be chrome. I didn't want to test it with the diamond as it's still a good part and I thought that I may ruin it. It's not cast iron.

You can use chrome rings on steel cylinder, but chrome plated liners need cast iron rings.

I took the rest of the engine apart today and we are looking at the parts to see what's next.

kenh3497

How about "nickasil"? Or a variation of a similar material? I know in the power sports realm, nickasil rules.

Ken

FWIW.... Some of the smaller lawn mower engines run a chrome ring in an aluminum bore. Sounds bass ackwards to me but it's worked for a "hundred" years.

Broken Wings

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The cylinders on my Ducati motorcycle are Nikasil. I don't have access to that technology so I'm using what I've got available. It's not like I've got to use this engine to get back and forth to work... I'm just "horsing around".

I think it was the Chevy Vega that used an aluminum block with out any cylinder liners and I believe the K&B Sportster series engines use an aluminum cylinder/liner and a chrome piston.

earlwb

I think the Chevy Vega used some sort of a thin silica or silicon coating with embedded iron particles in it for their cylinders. If the engine overheated the cylinders distorted and the piston rings wore through the high spots, leading to lots of blue smoke out of the exhaust then.

K&amp;B Sportsters used a high silicon content special alloy aluminum for the cylinder and crankcase. With a chrome piston it is sort of a reverse AAC kind of a engine. It does seem to wear really well though, as long as it gets plenty of oil. The engines tend to last a amazingly long time as long as they have decent oil in the fuel.

Fox does sell a couple three engines with ceramic coated cylinder liners. These seem to work really well.
I think Norvel uses a similar if not the same process on some of their engines too.

blw

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If it was on a Vega, I don't want it.

Broken Wings

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On the rear end of the engine there's a plug with the OS emblem on it. I was thinking about machining a rotor and a mount for the electronic ignition pick-up. The end of the cam shaft is held in a bearing at the rear end and the left hand thread slotted screw holds it in place.

My electronic ignition is a "auto-advance" type and is meant to attach to the front end of the crank shaft that uses an aluminum collar/magnet that attaches to the propeller hub.

I assume that the ignition fires on every stroke when it's attached to the crank and will only fire once every four strokes when attached to the cam. (maybe its half as fast...I'll have to look at it again)

My question is, will it still advance the timing? How do these things work? I remember the very early electronic ignition versions used a mechanical advance with linkage to the carburetor.

The magnet has two sides, one is red. Does the red side go toward the pick-up?

Hobbsy

My Feedback: (102)

Earl, I had a 1973 Chevy Vega Kamback wagon with the 110 hp engine and a BorgWarner 3 speed automatic. I installed Koni shocks and made my own 2.5" exhaust system from the engine back. It had a Thrush Turbo muffler on the end. (the one with Woody Wood Pecker smoking a cigar) When driving north on I 77 from Parkersburg, W Va. there are shear rock walls in a couple of places and I could clearly hear that exhaust echoing off of the rock wall. I ran Arco graphite oil in to 197,000 miles. It was good one. That thing could corner as if on rails.

John, I'm anxious to see a piston in one of those. Thanks, Dave

Broken Wings

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The HB 40 & 61 PDP "Blitz" engines were chrome liner/ringed.

I hope it works... I'm getting antsy to see it run as well.

aspeed

You were lucky to get 200,000 mi. They had such a bad rep. that they had to change the motor to the "Iron Duke", and then change the car name to Monza. I had one of those with a V8.Then they kind of remodelled it later and called it a Camaro.The Vega's were a good candidate for the V8 too. You could get a cheap one with 40,000 miles with a worn out motor. A guy in town used to chrome plate cyl. for Supertiger and Rossi .15's and he always kissed them with a hone to make sure they were perfectly round. There was always a buildup around the ports and edges. A four stroke has no ports, so it should be ok.

blw

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Dave,

I had a 73 Vega GT 4 speed. I didn't have the good experiences that you did. It was a good looking car with black stripes on white paint. It also had white letter Firestone Wide Ovals. It handled okay from what I remember. The rubber timing belt is what gave me problems. The distributor cap was barely snugged up because I had to get out often and either advance or retard it depending on weather in Atlanta. Also, the unibody construction was a major pain if you needed body work done.

Didn't you have to jack up the engine on the original Monza to get to a spark plug?

Broken Wings

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Ahhh... The Vega GT, that was the High Performance model. I remember the commercials "Feel the power of a Thousand Horse Flies" or something of the sort.

jeffie8696

Iunderstand some Porsche flat 6 engines were aluminum bores with plated pistons.

kenh3497

The Vega engine used this. I remember cause I was working in a GM dealership at the time.

It used a special hone to strip the aluminum away while leaving the silicon "sticking out" for the piston & rings to rub on....... or something like that[&:]

Ken

aspeed

The Monza spark plugs were hard to get out.  I had trouble, I am not sure but I may have left one old one in for the 5 years or so that I had it.  My 67 Cougar was even worse from what I remember.(which isn't much from 1976 man)

SrTelemaster150

It was the V8 in the 928 back in the early/mid '80s.

They didn't stay W/that design long.

Broken Wings

My Feedback: (20)

I put the engine back together and it feels pretty good turning over. I'm itching to see how/if the liner holds up.

jeffie8696

So are we BW.

Broken Wings

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I braved the Florida Heat today and ran six tanks of Power Master GMA 10/22 through the engine.

I had a wonderful time, ....Glow fuel and oil all over my hands that I wiped on my T-shirt that was then used to wipe the sweat off my face. Before you know it I was covered in smokey exhaust fumes from a Way Too Rich miniature engine belting out a mufflerless song...Good Times.


I'll take the top end off tonight and have a look at the liner. I didn't find any particles or anything unusual. It runs like a champ.

A couple blurry photo's .......

I didn't expect to see much if any wear. I wanted to see if the chrome was going to come off and it didn't so I think I'm OK. I couldn't find any particles.

While I had the head off I checked the spark plug fit for the ignition. There's an OS F Glow Plug, a RCEXL (the short thread) and a Rimfire VR2L that has longer threads and a little more reach.

I want to use the longer reach plug as the RCEXL plug looks too short.

I'm glad I took the head off because the head isn't threaded all the way through to the combustion chamber. I ordered a new OSG 1/4-32 plug tap to finish cutting the threads in the head.