Single cylinder 4-stroke petrol engine

Take yourself to your nearest friendly municipal coup/tip/waste disposal centre, and ask the nice man dressed in the flourescent jacket if he has any lawnmowers in; our local tip invariably has at least half a dozen sitting in the scrap metal skip. Wave a fiver at him, or a crate of beer, and he'll probably let you take your pick and might even help you load them into your car...... Alternatively, if Mr. Waste-Management is a bit of a meanie, try your local mower servicing folk. They will likely have a ready supply of mowers with broken or terminally rusty cutting decks with perfectly serviceable B&S engines waiting to be turned into gocarts, perpetual motion machines, or whathaveyou. These aren't repairable economically so they tend to get skipped, so you should be able to get what you want for the price of a curry.

cheers, David

Rob> I've got a cunning project in mind regarding internal combustion

In message , Robin writes

The old 'Suffolk Punch' has a side valve 4-stroke engine.

Look for a Suffolk Colt or similar or a Honda 90 or similar. The first has a side valve 4-stroke single, the second has an OHC 4-stroke single.

Mark Rand RTFM

The small Honda motorbikes were all 4-strokes last time I looked (but that was a decade or so ago!) - as are the Honda lawnmowers/generators/...etc.

Regards, Tony

Avoid Tecumseh engines though, I've had nowt but trouble with old examples - and ( old ) spares aren't so easy to source. As David says, look out for a B&S ( Briggs and Stratton ) at your local tip.

Be careful though if you decide to test the motor by giving the cord a couple of pulls. If it starts you could find yourself being thrown out of the tip on H&S grounds ( the standard groveling rate starts at ten quid ), and if you break the cord you could be asked to pay the going rate ( usually a fiver ) for the mower...working or not.

Regards,

Simplest one to look out for is the Suffolk Punch engine.

Peter

-- Peter & Rita Forbes Email: snipped-for-privacy@easynet.co.uk Web:

As it happens, I'm going to the tip today to dispose of a perfectly servicable Miele dishwasher that no-one seems to want (I say "servicable" - there is a minor wiring fault that should be easy to fix

- probably where the wire goes under the door) so I'll have a look there.

If anyone is desperate for the dishwasher, call me on 07980 640 561 and you can have it - I'm in the Gatwick area...

so robin, whats the wee engine for? are you thinking of making a

"engine lathe",,,he,he,,sorry its my sence of humour again

-- blueswar

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I wish you luck! I worked for 7 years on the next best thing in engines, frankly it was a waste of a lot of time and other peoples money!

Beware that whatever you think of has probably already been done, maybe not recently either.

To be taken seriously in that business takes a lot, The thing I was involved in swallowed an awful lot of money, a lot of it going to the likes of Ricardo's and Lotus for various outside expertise.

In the end I bacame so cynical I had to get out of it.

But whatever have fun, because it is fun (at least for a while;-) )

Wayne....

Was that the servo powered F1 car with Gecko drives

-- Regards,

John Stevenson Nottingham, England.

Visit the new Model Engineering adverts page at:-

Na but we did have a servo controlled carb with it's own ecu for fuelling on JP8.

I've had a look on the internet for something similar to my idea and it has been done before, in 1961. To be honest, I don't think there is much scope left in the internal combustion arena. My idea will probably work but whether or not it will significantly improve things, we'll have to see. More of a project to see if it can be done. The only reason I wanted a small engine was the simplicity - the idea is scalable up to any size of engine...

robin, please e-mail me offline about small engines. i am a lawnmowe

mechanic

-- bolma

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Oddly, Google groups is quite happy about spreading my e-mail address around, but won't let me see anyone else's. If you can see my address, then please mail me!!

Robin

e-mail me at snipped-for-privacy@tiscali.co.u

-- bolma

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