Enstone

Hi Tony The event starts from about 0800 and takes place on an old airfield. It costs £2.00 to get in and is very much another version of Old Sodbury. When I've been before there have been a few engines running but they were usually for sale and not any sort of rally or display as such.

If you want to go as a seller, cars cost £5.00 which is what it costs to get into Old Sod.

All in all its been an excellent event with all sorts of surprises on sale from model rail, meccano, stationary engine and tractor stuff etc

Regards

Ian R See you all there!

Happy hunting at Enstone. I look forward to tales of treasures successfully landed and the ones that got away ;-)

Hello all,

I to thought that there was a lot of stuff but nothing to buy, I did find a No 21 Record Vice with quick release for £8.00 in very good order. Will go well in my van for small jobs and maybe work :-)) I also bought a a small hand winch to mount in the Van to assist loading and I must get the relays for the Trailer winch before I have a Hernia, also bought a pack of 10 industrial gloves for general use. The best bit was when I met John Manders who has given me another stove for my collection, thanks John. The Volvo suspention tester was there and I must admit he is getting slender like me, it wont be long Kim before we can hide behind the silthe like Roland :-)) Also got to ride in my mates Sherpa pick up as well and that was an experience, he has stiffened the suspension to help load carrying, god was it stiff.

Martin P

I must say I didn't make any major purchases but it was nice to be able to put faces to two names, Kim Siddorn and John Manders - nice to meet both of you. I ended up with a nice record vice on a stand at £15 , several radio things and loads of wish I'd bought things. There were some nice little charging sets and a nice Lister 6 hp CS at the top of my list but the shed is getting a little cramped, still it was a lovely day out in really nice weather. Who could wish for more?

regards Ian R

you got the jist of it didn't you :-)) A mate went to Cheffins, I will speak with him tomorrow and report.

Martin P

One daft question Roland! Whats gardening? is that where you shove an electric powered box over a green organic substance so the birds can find the worms easier. :-)) Or is there soething I'm missing here ?

Martin P

Electric! With 220' of heavily sloping garden the power source of choice for mowing (a Google search will tell you all about that) is a 2 stroke. For the digging the power source is a mammalian biped of the genus Primate. ttfn Roland Ps did you mean joust ;-)

I had a really good day out yesterday, a good thrash across country on roads I know well with virtually nothing to slow me down (stayed with a couple of guys on Ducatis for ages!) I met people I knew, put some faces to names and found some interesting bits and bobs to follow me home.

I'm being dragged out to lunch in a country pub on a sunny afternoon, so will elaborate later, but just to tease you all, one thingy was a SV four stroke engine I've never seen before and a small - less than a foot tall - pneumatic ram with a two way hand operated valve attached.

Could use it as an exhibition piece to crack walnuts!

Regards,

Kim Siddorn

We went to Cheffins (got up at 6am to leave from John Southall's at 7, bit of a shock to the system on a Saturday) but I was surprised at the prices some things made. First was a little engine trolley which while being a nice little steerable trolley with cast wheels, still looked home made which fetched £100 !! Then there was an Amanco,

1.5hp which on the face of it looked fully restored which made £900 and a nice New Holland, again looked fully restored which went up to £1600.

Bearing in mind there is an 11.5% buyers premium, this is more than you will see similar engines advertised on the rally field going for and at Cheffins it is difficult to make sure that a restoration is not just a cosmetic one. As I have not got room for what I currently have, I did not intend to buy anything in particular but was sorely tempted by a nice Lee Howell pump and figured I would give £100 for it but it went in the end for £120....but it looked as though the guy who bought it was going to have it whatever so I did not bother.

Having said all that, we had a nice morning out, had a wonderful bacon roll and met up with loads of old faces from the rally field so all in all not a wasted morning.

Enstone airfield was easy to find, but it was frustrating to arrive in good time and then spend 15 minutes driving round in bloody circles trying to get to the sale as it was accessed through a different entrance which bore a small sign saying "sale" - very low key, but I wasn't aware it was a test!

I've uploaded some pics onto Webshots and I'd like the assistance of the corporate mind if I may.

and look for Enstone Bits album.

I bought a absolutely bran new four cylinder WICO magneto which was, I'm sure, designed to run at engine speed. It has a clever little clip on device that contains a half speed gear and the outer bit holds the distributor cap and the rotor. I want it for my T600 Norman and have since been ruminating on its suitability as the magneto on the twin runs at half engine speed. If I run leads from (say) 1 & 3 and 2 & 4, joining them at the plug, that will fire them in the right places - turn and turn about - on a flat twin won't it? I've turned it over in my mind but I'd welcome your comments.

You will see several shots of the small engine I bought, purely out of curiosity and because it was cheap! Aside from the (I suspect) home made steel frame it sits on, the entire 4 Stroke SV engine is aluminium, sump, block with integral barrel and cylinder head. I think it's war department and, as it has a Tillitson carb, WW2 American. I've not seen anything quite like it. The application of some petrol made it go, BTW.

You know these little 300psi Bendix compressors that were fitted to the rear of the camshaft on the right hand bank of Merlin engines? I assumed they were rare and - being a Merlin nut - bought a couple over the last three years. I'm now beginning to think they are about as rare as beach sand as I found another three at Enstone, two mounted on an obviously homemade framework that must have taken hours to build. The wheel is a model steam engine flywheel and has little fins riveted to the spokes to provide a cooling flow of air. Very interesting.

The Homelite engine is actually a tank heater engine and I bought it out of curiosity to see how it differs from my generator.

Chris Bedo pointed out that the other little BTH compressor I'd ignored, mounted on a steel receiver and driven by an electric motor was, in fact used on ABC auxiliary engines. And he's absolutely right! I've uploaded a factory picture from around 1935 and you can see the stumpy finned beast mounted on the engine. I walk up to the next trailer - and there's another one! It's seized solid ("locked, not seized", the vendor told me seriously) so now I can restore them both and add them to my ABC engine. As far as I know, it will then be the only one in existence with both pumps, both compressors and its original dynastart. Neither RAF Heldon nor the Science Museum have a complete one.

See the interesting little pneumatic ram? I wonder what it was used for? Scratch built, I'd imagine - but why?

Prices at Enstone mirrored the gate price - reasonable. I didn't keep an accurate record, but I doubt if I spent seventy quid including the WICO magneto.

All in all it was a grand day out!

Regards,

Kim Siddorn

No doubt I am rising to the obvious here but; that would require the positional accuracy of hydraulics. Pneumatics would crack the shell then proceed to crush the remains.

John

I've not worked with many twins, flat or otherwise but here goes. My understanding is that the pistons move in opposition to maintain balance. They also fire at the same time for the same reason. That means you need to connect a mag to each plug or split the output from one mag, not something I can imagine working very well. I assume that your twin is nowt like this. How do the pistons move and fire?

John

Set off on Wednesday with the intent of getting to Enstone. Pulled a 3.5 ton trailer on the 500-mile round trip, but diverted via an old lock-up to collect some bits ....

By the time I'd added a couple of 5ft Blackstone flywheels

• crank, a FM Z 6hp, several smaller engines, umpteen bits of motorcycle, a cooling tank, 20 large boxes of GEM/SE & & various engineering books etc etc, the tyres on the trailer were a bit flat at the bottom .........

So, despite having spare volume, discretion became the better part of valour & I left Enstone goodies to everyone else!

BTW, part of that was 'cos I found long lost (& some forgotten) hidden treasure at the back of the lockup. Couple of compressors, including a scarce 30's National, boxes of Ducati single spares, Ducati single frame & forks, Duke 900SS frame, BSA RRT2 box, a Bamford 3hp & a Lister D, twin leading shoe front brakes -- with more yet to be uncovered (literally).

It's great when you collect (hoard?) over a period of 40 years. Stuff you bought a mere 20 years ago has become a vague memory, which troubles you gently as you try to remember what became of it! I did notice it was heavier now than when I stored it ....

Oh, & found the Blackstone Spring Injection Instruction & Spare Parts Book for which I had only the faintest recall, other than a photocopy which I'd made long ago of the page showing my portable .... no excuses left not to get on with the restoration now. Colin

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"John Manders" said >

to > connect a mag to each plug or split the output from one mag, not something I can imagine working very well.

On two stroke flat twins, the cylinders do fire together, but on fourstrokes, they all - in my experience, anyway - fire on one side whilst the other piston is at the top of its exhaust stroke. Thus, they have perfect primary balance but something of a rocking couple.

At least in theory, a flat four should do away with the rocking couple. When I get the CV4 running, I expect it to be smoothness personified!

Regards,

Kim Siddorn

How can anyone think of a VW Beetle engine as smooth? Just spoken to a friend of mine who has a BMW motorcycle. Flat twin running wasted spark ignition., ie there's a spark on the exhaust stroke as well as the compression. The main advantage for them is the elimination of a distributor. It could be done with your arrangement as well though. I would have to think more deeply about it than my brain will allow at the moment. Back to you.

John

The rocking couple is caused by the inertia force of one piston acting outwards while that from the other is acting inwards and at a distance, as the two crankpins are seperated by the thickness of the centre web. Nothing to do with firing order :-)

The two rocking couples act against each other, so yes, a flat four is very smooth.

Regards

Philip T-E

That's right, but on a flat four, one might expect better secondary balance, but as has been said, Veedubs are hardly vibration fee!

Regards,

Kim Siddorn