I don't know, but I would have called it something catchy like "Rub-a-dub-dub";)

Lustrox?

That's it! I never used it. Often wondered what it was. I suspect it was the stuff body shops use to rub paint out.

CR

I would hope it was a finer grade than the rubbing compound for auto paint. I think that is fairly coarse. Then there is the swirl mark remover that is finer. I always used Brasso or Silvo to lap out piston/cylinders. It isn't really needed any more now that CNC lathes have taken over the machining world. I have had a few pretty tight ones new. Norvels and CS come to mind. I think old Duke Fox put some fine dust in the carb, or fuel to help wear it in faster. I bet he sold a few extra parts because of that. I am sure it worked great if you watched what you were doing.

No your not.

I have a package of that around here somewhere.

Found it!

It's labeled Lustrox M. (The M may indicate grit size, though I don't remember different grits being available?

Never used it myself, as I can't see dumping abrasive materials inside my tight new engines.

Bill

Yes you only used the Fox Lustrox abrasive compound as a last resort, and it had to be very carefully applied and used. otherwise as mentioned you would wear out the engine a lot more than you wanted to. I do have some, but I never used it though.

I replaced the head bolts on my 45 with new allen heads and torqued them down good. I brushed soapy water again and checked for leaks. No bubbles from the head or glowplug (I replaced it)!!! However, I see that there is a leak from the top of the backplate. I will replace the backplate bolts with new allen bolts too. The compression feels better now, though.

FrankenFox update: dropped the liner in the case to get the piston to the top of the liner as it ran in the original case. Head clearance is now .013" from the .033" it was to begin with and got 12,750rpm on 10% nitro 20% oil on a 10x6APC. Fox EZ .330" carb and 12F air temp. I think warmer weather will net more power. More to come.

Warmer weather results in less power not more.

Yeah, but the fuel isn't pumping through the line at the consistency of honey either. Thick oil gets thicker when it's cold.

If it were 30-40F today, it would be a different story.

No you are not the only one who remebers that, it was meant to be fead into a running engine, as I remember it. Overhere that still gives a Fox a somewhat bad reputation...

Fox has a bad reputation everywhere it seems. I'm unimpressed with nearly everything about them when compared to even a cheap Taiwanese engine. There are casting flaws in every Fox engine I own. If Fox was selling their engines today, with the same flaws and quality control issues that I see in the older engines that I own, at the prices they have on their website.... They wouldn't sell anything to me, trade-in or not.

My little lapped .40 BB runs o.k., and my .19rc runs good. The rest of them I plan to leave in the boxes. My Fox .50 with MDS .40 parts in it will keep getting worked on until it's running close to what the .50 was supposed to do in the first place.
The fact that Duke sold stuff to hasten the break-in of his engines just floors me. That just screams trouble, especially in this day and age. Might be a good thing stuff like that isn't around much anymore.

The Lustrox is a really finely ground garnet powder. I only used it one time on a Fox .35 engine. I can't say it helped speed the break in process though as that engine still took a long time breaking in. I have used it on other things like manually lapping in a piston before though. But what it was mainly intended for was smoothing out some high spots that might be in the engine causing the break in to take longer. I think just going for the patience method and take one's time doing it. I think that heat cycling the engine works better for breaking them in. This is where you run the engine for a few minutes to get it hot, then turn it off and let it get cold, Then start it again and repeat the process. The hot and cold running wears the engine in much better and faster too. If you just start the engine and run a gallon through it without stopping it, doesn't really wear it in or break it in much.

What the Lustrox does is because it is so finely ground as a powder, the particles float in a normal oil film. Thus no wear on the engine. But where the high spots are inside the engine, the lustrox makes contact with the metal and grinds it in. But as soon as the high spot gets ground in some, the oil film keeps the particles from grinding it more. So the polishing stops. So technically the lustrox would only work on the high spots and won't wear out a engine. The stuff eventually gets expelled from the engine, so you don't need to do anything to flush out the engine after using it.

The Lustrox polishing powder was used with the bushed crankshaft lapped piston engines of that time period. I do not think that you would want to use the stuff on a ball bearing engine or a engine with piston rings.


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I don't want to get into the Fox reputation, as this is the Fox club thread. Very little was changed since Duke passed on. I am fairly sure there were no newly designed motors since then, maybe carb refinements. He did make competitively priced average motors in his time. That time was decades ago. They compared well to what was available then, at least for the price. I kind of liked his advertising methods too. Cartoons and frank talk. He did innovate on his own, not like the far east companies which just copied OS. I really like my BB Fox .15, all my other older designs just sit around. (.35 stunts, .15X, .25, .36 rc etc). just can't see building a plane for them, and mufflers won't fit right etc.

I suppose that's true. I got into collecting Foxes because so many hailed them as being good runners and lasting seemingly forever. A couple of mine run okay now, but they're not stellar performers. The .19rc is probably the best. That is a low time used one I got from an estate for $5. With an Enya muffler and a good old idle bar plug, it really revs a 7x4 and 7x5. I don't recall the peak revs, but my buddy said it was doing pretty good. The idle speed and quality was very good for a .19 too. My .40 doesn't throttle and idle as well as this engine does. Maybe Duke's baffle engines are the better of the Fox variants? I'm not impressed with the performance or workmanship of the others.

Things start acting stupid when it's that cold, including myself. My tach was acting funny because of the cold too. I bench ran my Fox 45 with new bolts and backplate gasket yesterday. It had the new Fox TN carb, MA 11x6 S2 prop, Merlin 2003 glowplug, OS #873 muffler with homemade adapter, 0% nitro and 20% oil blend. I got 11,500+ rpm out of it. The ambient temperature was in the mid-low 30s. I was hoping for 12k+ rpms, maybe with more nitro and/or smaller prop. But I am willing to lose some RPMs to keep the 11x6 prop though.

I have to admit, nowadays, you can get a decent general-use engine dirt cheap from China. I have had good results from ASP, SK, and JBA. I suppose they have had a few extra decades to catch up. The 2 Fox engines I own idle and throttle as good or better than the best modern brands out there. The top end might be less, but then they use almost no nitro and save $$ on that. So, pick your preference.

Most of those "flaws" are discoloration where the molten aluminum contacted the mold and solidified earlier than the rest of the aluminum. This is not really a flaw and are mostly hidden by the finish of OS and almost all other brands. The newer Fox's seem to have less of this not because there is less but they also have a satin roughened finish.

My Fox .50 pulls less RPM on the bench than my TT .46, but in the air it seems to outperform it a bit. But even with a smaller prop it will not do as well as the TT .46 on the ground. Not sure why. However it is old and needs a new ring and sleeve. I suppose the lower load makes less difference on the compression.

No, they're flaws. Places where there is no aluminum. It looks like corrosion, but it isn't. There is metal missing where there shouldn't be any metal missing. Most is cosmetic, but still looks second rate. It just adds to the "ugly" factor that Foxes exude. If they run, it's function over form.

That's where manufacturers use bead-blasting to texture the finish and "beautify" these engines.

OS started the bead blasted gray color look on the model engines, and everyone else pretty much had to follow suit then. Fox used to be shiny aluminum color and one could see swirls in the outside surface of the engine in some cases from when they cast the crankcase, etc. But after they started bead blasting the parts then you don't see that then.

Also yes the Fox engines haven't changed much over the years. But there wasn't much reason to change them. If it runs good, why dink around with it every year or so and make a new version obsoleting the old version? I know some major brands seemingly redesign their engines almost every year using different parts even.

It is quite fascinating to me, how one person will have trouble with a Fox engine and another doesn't. They are using old technology so to speak for manufacturing the engines.. But I do have a few flaky engines. I think they have carbs that need a good cleaning and that will fix them up. But since I had other engines, I didn't persue it at the time. It is if one engine acts up swap it out for another one instead and keep on truck'in.

So it doesn't really surprise me if someone has problems with a Fox engine. There may be engines that do have problems with them. Plus even the big name brands have shipped engines with problems in them too. But when Fox was making and selling engines, they used to be really good on warranty stuff, They pretty much took care of the customer.

Fox Lustrox
 

They remove material only on the protrusions that cause surface roughness....:)

I've got one of his 78's but I haven't run it yet. I'd like to find the correct Fox muffler for it but they're unobtainium.




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I like how the bore and stroke are both exactly 1 inch.

It's a neat old engine. It takes a special muffler with two tabs that fit into the exhaust port. Fox #90264 or 90265. They look like the regular Fox "Blimp" mufflers but it's a little larger. I could make an adapter and run an aftermarket muffler....