I need some tips on rebuilding them. I do own some CNC machines.
When I was a kid that was all I could afford. Boy they were great for
the money.

I am sure someone can help you but remember that was the days of cast iron ringed pistons. Today it is aluminum pistons no rings. This is the age of the ABC/N engine. Even the ringed engines use aluminum pistons now. Unless you just gotta do it, I do not recommend it. Your engine will not perform as well, etc.

Good luck,

Cheers,

Chip

Which McCoys are you talking about. The very early ignition and Glow 60's were the standard of the world. So were ignition 49's and 29's. The all aluminum glow engines of the early 50's were good engines. Then Testors bought out Dick McCoy and it was all DOWNHILL from there. The redheads of the late 50's and 60's were at best fair. Joke was if you got one started you just wore it out. The 35 was $5.95 when the Johnson CS was $17.75 and the JBB was $24.95. Super Tigre G21/35 was $17.95. The piston and cylinders of this series was very soft on wore out very quickly. The best cnc machinery in the world isn't going to solve that problem. The bottom end of the rod also wore quickly.

Think about it. If the best engines of the time were between $18 and $25, what kind of quality do you think a $6 engine had? Even the Fox 36X was about $15.

The last McCoy sereis were the type 21's and in the words of George Aldrich "absolute junk". The McCoy name died with the type 21's.

I know that. I just want to keep the McCoy Line Up and runing.
I just can't let it die!!![&o]
Thank you
Hank

Chip:

I think he's talking about the "Testor's" McCoy engines, that weren't much of an engine to start with.

They used a very soft steel cylinder, so soft it could be ported with an Xacto knife. Running in this cylinder was a meehanite iron piston. The crank ran in the plain aluminum case, not even a brass bushing cast in.

My experience with them was after a gallon of fuel they were worn out. Of course a gallon of fuel and a new "Testor's McCoy Red-Head 35 Stunt Engine" cost $10 at the time, so we could easily afford to throw one away every week.
----------------------------------
704hank:

If you really want to bring one back to life, and have the capability, get a block of mild steel and just make a new cylinder. You can bore/hone to a near fit, then finish by lapping the piston fit. You can have your local friendly gun smith blue it before you do the final fitting.

If the crank is too loose in the case you can over bore it and press a bushing in place.

This will cost a lot more in time, effort, and materials than the engine will ever be worth. My advice is to put it on a shelf to remind you of times past, and fly a more modern engine that will last at least a full season, instead of just one weekend.

Bill.

Hank:

If you want to keep McCoy alive, at least get a "Real" McCoy instead of one from Testors.

Bill.

Bill
I have read your post's in the past, and you never have anything good to say
about McCoy engines. Why is that! All my McCoys never stopped running great!
I lost them all when I went in to the Air Force. My mom gave them all away when
I left. She said I was a man now and I did not need them! Most of all the ones I find
now need alot of work, but I want to do it right![8D]

Hank:

I've never had much chance to say anything about these engines except for the "Red Head Stunt" line. The others were all excellent, the one I posted the picture above won several speed contests for me, and I had excellent service from the Red Head 60 engines as well.

But I never saw one of the "Red Head Stunt" engines last more than a couple hours. All I am relating is my personal experience. Others have said theirs lasted longer. Maybe I was always getting the Monday and Friday engines. I just don't know.

If you make a new cylinder and bush the case I'm sure it will really last longer than just the weekend. It was never the piston that wore so badly, but it did lose its fit. With a new cylinder you can reestablish the fit, and given care and 100% castor oil it will probably run well.

Bill.

Bill
I have two 60's and they are both shot! I want to get All of the McCoy line
not just the tester's line rebuilt. Just for the He## of it.[8D]
Hank

Bill is right. The Duro-matic McCoys were excellent engines. Dick McCoy sold to Testors in 1955 and the quality went to zero. They were cheaply made and sold cheap. $5.95 for a 35 and 29 and $4.95 for the 19. You NEVER saw one at a contest unless it was a new guy that didn't know better. I bought my first one in 1960. A week later I bought a Johnson 32. A "good" engine in those days ran between $15 and $25. A McCoy was $6. You got exactly what you paid for. Actually almost no one has anything good to say about the Testors engines and some of the engine men like Geoge Aldrich even called them junk.

The Old 60 was THE class C speed engine for 20 years. They kept bringing it back for short runs every couple of years through the 60's. The only competition it had was the Dooling and they were REAL expensive.

If you want to get all the engines in the McCoy line you better start saving your pennies. You are talking THOUSANDS of dollars and that's just the ball bearing versions. The Sportsman's are cheaper but still not cheap

Bill
I was in the air force from 1964 to 1968 so I guess I have been in the hobby as long as
you have and I never got a bad McCoy Red Head. I still have one that runs great that
came back home with me. I do not know why you had such bad luck with them.[:-]
Hank

------------


My "problem" with the Testor's McCoys was self-induced.

I flew mostly by myself, with my little brother acting as my stooge. I was not aware of break-in back then. No one else that I knew was familiar with the concept either. It was out of the box, onto the model and then peaked out for max rpm.

Not until I was in the Air Force and was in Arizona (Buckeye Southwest Regionals - 1966) did I discover that engines carrying the "Stunt" designation had to be broken-in properly AND ran in a fast four-cycle. I had never heard of either practice before. Apparently, most others that ran these engines hadn't heard of them either. I attribute the poor reputation for those engines as being due to our ignorance.

I never had one of those painted head engines let me down as far as breaking any major component (or minor - now that I think of it) just from being ran improperly.

Hank:

You should have no trouble at all bringing the 60s back to life. Frank Bowman can make the rings for you if you don't want to make your own, the rod can be rebushed, and the bearings are standard. You might find the rotary valve a little loose, but a light tap on the pivot pin usually corrects that.

The 29 Red Head came in both a ringed and a lapped piston version. The lapped version was faster than the ringed engine, the one I still have is a lapped piston. At the time we called it a "Slug" piston.

I had several of the McCoy "Sportsman" engines also. Two rear rotary "S" engines powered my very first twin, or maybe I should say underpowered it. Not that the Macs were weak, the plane was supposed to have a pair of 29 engines. But I had two 19s.

One of the nicest sport engines I had back in the 50s was a Sportsman 29. It was rear rotary also, but the rear cover was cast in one piece with the case, and the carb angled up about 45 degrees, like the Dooling 61 did.

The only "Small" McCoy I had was an 0.09, and I had the Testor's "Senior 09" stunt plane for it. Never finished the plane, sold the engine a few years ago.

The later Testor's engines may well have been better than the early ones, I was buying and tossing them in 1960 and 61. I was also in the USAF at the time. Went back to SE Asia before the '62 summer season, so I was out of it for a while.

Bill.

I think you hit the nail on the (red ) head Ed...
When my nephew and I were first learning to fly C/L with "big" engines, (we were about 13 ) we had my brother's McCoy Red Head .35 in a (I think it was a Scientific?) P-40...
We used to peak it right out, and wonder why it would only go for about 15-20 laps before over-heating and quit.

We finally got some advice from another guy who told us about the 4 cycle to 2 cycle "break"...
Unfortunately, it was too late for that red head... cuz we over-heated it a few too many times...

I got my own McCoy shortly after that...one of the bulky, square cased "Series 21" .29's and put it in a CG Shoestring Stunter.

It has maybe a half a gallon thru it and the rod is real sloppy loose

I digressed a bit for awhile there...memories, ya know?

Didn't do much to answer the question...sorry

Well... We knew about the 4-2-4 break, and a gentle run-in before flight. They still were good for one week end or one gallon of fuel.

Bill.

Bill...is the cylinder/fins made out of leaded steel? (like the Cox .049's etc?)

Ed
You hit the nail right smack on the head! I ran at lest 3/4 of a gal. of all
caster before I would put it on the plane. That is the way my father told
me to do it, and make it rich. I never had a bad red head. I know it cost
more at the time but Dad paid for the fuel. It was cheeper then buying
new engines. He aso mixed his own fuel at the time.
Hank[8D]

PT:

Reasonably certain it was leaded steel, if Hank decides to make a new cylinder he should use a different alloy though, similar to what John Brodbeck used in the K&B Green Head engines. They lasted very well, and were also very similar to the Testor's sport Red Head engines in design.

Bill.

PS: Hank, maybe you can ask Randy Linsalato what alloy is used in the K&B engines. He owns the company now - MECoA. wr.

Bill
Just how did you brake in your Red Head's??[:-]
Hank

Bill
Didn't Mecoa. buy the McCoy line??
Hank

Hank:

It's been more than 40 years, but I think it was an eight ounce tank on the bench. Might have been ten ounce, that's the part I'm not sure of. Started slobbery, and gradually leaned it until it would hold a peak at the rich end of two stroking. In the plane, on the ground set the needle at the rich end of two stroke, then in level flight it (they)dropped into four stroke in level flight, with a nice break when nosed up.

Bill.

Hank:

McCoy is one of the seemingly very few engines that MECoA didn't buy.

Dick McCoy, who died just a year or two ago, started the company before WW II, after the war the company became "Duromatic," this name was stamped on the end of the right engine lug of the 49 and 60 engines for a while.

When Testor's bought them out they continued making the Red Head 60 engines to the same standard as the older ones, I bought my last new one in that 60-61 period. The 19 and 29 racing Red Heads had been discontinued a few years before, along with the 49 Red Head.

The 19 and 49 were discontinued when the c/l speed classes were changed, class A went from 19 down to 15 maximum size, and the old class C with a 49 size limit was dropped, combining the old class C and D into one class C with a 0.65 limit.

The racing 29 Red Head was dropped in the early to middle 50s when the K&B Green Head 29 engine was beating all the Doolings and McCoys. McCoy tried to keep up by going to the slug piston, but it wasn't enough. The Dooling brothers hung on for a while longer (bought my last new Dooling in 1960 - $24.95 - makes me sick to think I sold it) but eventually they quit too. Their 61 hadn't been competitive for a good while before that.

Enough for now, far more than just an answer to MECo and McCoy.

Bill.

Bill
Thank's for the input, but who owns the right's for the McCoy line now? I know Tester sold
them, but to who??
Hank[:-]

Hank:

I plain don't know who now owns the McCoy name. Just looked at MECoA again, no mention of McCoy there.

Bill.

I don't know about the McCoys, but when I was a kid, and I wore out a Fox or Johnson, we would do a frezer rebuild. Put a piece of dowl in the wrist pin hole on the piston, fill the piston with water, clamp a piece of wood on the bottom, and throw it in the freezer for a day. The freezing water would expand the piston a tiny amount, htem we used jewelers rouge to lap the piston into the cylinder. Worked pretty good.