Local bring & buy

Someone's been on the lucky pills! Where does this one come in the date and serial number range?

Reasonably pleased with my ebay Villiers purchase - it has compression, good spark and a healthy sounding transfer 'chuff' when turned over. The only potential problem is a fair bit of aluminium corrosion at the head/hopper interface. The bottom of the hopper appears to have distorted so that the head bolts don't pull down quite square and the whole thing has been sealed with some sort of muckite. I'm tempted to take it off and attempt a proper repair but, knowing the unpredictability of old aluminium alloys, it's probably best left alone. Anybody out there particularly experienced with the W-XII range?

Someone enlighten us, is that WX 2 or WX 11 or W (as in water-cooled, I suspect) XII & if the latter, what happened to the eleven models that preceded it?

They are easy to start & a quirky device, quite unlike other Villiers products. I've had a couple of them since the 1970's, one on its own with a bronze head (obviously a TT racing engine!) and another with an ali head as part of a complete compressor set.

The latter is past its best & slowly fades away as the tank pressure rises, only coming back to life if you squirt oxygen into the carb!

If I'm faced with a rotten ali casting, I wire brush back to clean metal & key the surface with a sharp punch. Then David's Plastic Metal or similar and some careful work with a belt sander and finish on a glass plate & coarse grinding paste. I've retrieved cylinder heads like this & a water hopper should easily be recovered.

Regards,

Kim Siddorn

The seriel number of my "new" Stuart Turner flat twin is 8174 but the plate is missing & I have no date for it. The other one I have is just 450 units away being S/N 7724.

Nick Highfield has sought out serial numbers of extant examples and these are the ones we know of 19/09/1927 - s/n 7077. 29/09/1927 - s/n 7100. Mine is 19/12/35 - s/n 7724 and now 8174 & I'd guess at 1938. 03/07/1939 - s/n

8265. 17/08/1939 - s/n 8298. 19/04/1943 - s/n 28460. Nick thinks the apparent jump in numbers was a change in the numbering system, not a huge jump in production because of The Unpleasantness. Other ST models were numbered in the 8,000 range & the addition of a 2 is simply to avoid confusion. That's what we think, anyway!

There are now seven known to us & it surprises me that they are emerging from the woodwork steadily now. Two years ago they were virtually unknown.

I've removed 8174 from its bed plate & also the steel framing - some of it cleverly reproduced in copper - made a starting handle for it & started it without any trouble or stripping apart from the plugs needing cleaning. It runs well enough, but briefly & had a nasty clanking sound. It sounds like something hitting the flywheel/fan, but I've had the barrels & heads off to be certain & there is no discernable wear in big ends, mains, pistons, rings or bore. One bore is so good, the piston took some removing & came out with an audible PLOP! I'll get it back together tomorrow, but I need to buy some Hylomar first.

One thing, in common with the other that I have, the aluminium has suffered badly from corrosion (especially around studs and bolts) & I notice this one too is treated with etching primer to make the paint (no traces left) stick better to the ali. Although it's been in the workshop two days now, the metal was still damp & water oozed out of the gap between base plate & sump. I'm suspicious that a chemical reaction is pulling water out of the air & depositing it on the surface & thus the casting is always damp. I used a gas torch to free off the mounting bolts & the damp fled away from the torch. As I came up to the house, I noticed the surface was wet again & my workshop is as dry as a bone, bare steel not rusting in thirty years. The other ST flat twin I've wire brushed & is now dull polished aluminium. It sits there with no dampness upon the surface.

The comments of wiser heads is eagerly sought ;o))

Time for food & TV

Regards,

Kim Siddorn,

(snip)

KS> Someone enlighten us, is that WX 2 or WX 11 or W (as in water-cooled, KS> I suspect) XII & if the latter, what happened to the eleven models KS> that preceded it?

With a few exeptions Villiers seems to have favoured the use of roman numerals to identify its pre WW2 motorcycle engines (running from I, being the first two-stroke in 1913, to XVIII in 1939) often with a letter suffix for different capacities. According to the late Jack Sizer's marque history, the XII C was a 148cc (53x67mm) unit current from 1934 to 1940. No other sizes are listed but, if they followed the same pattern as some others, an XII A would probably have been 247cc (67x70mm) and an XII B

342cc (79x70mm), which are indeed the cylinder dimensions of the 1 1/2 and 2 1/2hp W XII enngines.

nickh=== Posted with Qusnetsoft NewsReader 2.2.0.8

Kim, Surely two dissimilar metals will produce a battery effect especially in a damp atmosphere and as you had burnt off any oil residue this would help it. If you severely clean any metal aggressively which then removes its oil or naturally created oxide you can actually stand and watch it react, especially steel regardless of weather will rust very quickly.

Martin P

Here is a pic of the XII C motorcycle engine:-

Hard to see what, if any relationship this might have to the stationary W-XII range.

True. However, the engine is all ali (except for the barrels, heads & moving parts inside and is bolted to an ali bed plate.

Within four feet of it is my other ST flat twin, bare polished aluminium & free of damp. It's raining here today & when I went into the workshop this morning, the new acquisition was damp to the touch & had water actually dripping off the sump! The bedplate BTW too , hard by & bare ali, is dry.

I'm now convinced that it's the action of the chromate primer, but whether it is because of chemical action or just an increase in surface area, I'm unsure.

Interesting though .......