It has taken me over a year to restore an engine! Mind you, it did stand as a centrepiece in a garden for over 33 years, complete with hopper full of ivy. Then I spotted it and after a quick word with the owner (Who happened to be a friend of mine.) the words "Take it away" were uttered. I then found out that the ivy was an attempt to hide what Colin saw as a very large and heavy lump of iron which he did not want and could not move out of the garden. That soon changed!
It came apart with spanners and a socket set. After all this time the sump still contained some oil. Took it home in bits. Cleaning up the parts was a slow process and a few bits were either too far gone or had just "Gone" anyway (Like the magneto). I had to remake/replace: short D petrol tank, exhaust muffler, ML MCK magneto, fuel tank brackets, tapered pins and a flywheel key. The original flywheel key had defeated all attempts to remove it over a six week period.In the end it was a long drill bit that rudely intruded into the keyway and that sorted out that.
Today I started a rebuild with the aim of completing it tomorrow (Sunday). However things went along rather faster than I expected and about six o'clock (or there about, I knew the sun was about to go abroad) I fed it oil, water and petrol and decided to give the handle a try.
Cats were watching with disinterest.
I have never started anything like this before. The feeling I had was half excitement that it would start and half frightened that it would take my bloody arm off!!!!! I put the handle onto the crankshaft.
Cats were more interested.
"Rotate flywheel backwards until compression felt, turn wheel on suction carb to somewhere near full open, turn handle bloody quick." Turn ........... turn......turn...tu-BANG!......bang!..bang!.......rattle......rattle.....rat tle......bang!..bang!........rattle.......rattle......rattle...bang! (ad infinitum).
Two more bangs from the cat flap in the back door as moggies fled indoors!
My neighbour said that I looked as if I had borrowed the smile from the Cheshire Cat!
I will be taking some pictures soon and hope to put them up on the web, will let you know when they are done.
THANKS go to Chris "Lister" Bedo, for invaluable advice over the last year and also to all on this newsgroup who have helped either knowingly by taking the time to reply to my sometimes basic questions or unknowingly by helping the hobby in general through informative websites which I have found invaluable in finding those "Hard to get" bits of technical data.
Well it is running and I must say that I am really pleased after all the time it has taken. I wonder if I ask Chris nicely, if he will copy that manual for me now!
I am going to put it to bed now.
Simon Taylor