Stuart Turner P55

Some months ago, I bought a ST P55 industrial engine. It has a HUGE radiator which took me aback until Roland Craven rightly pointed out that it is rated at 7 hp at 1,500 rpm and I'd not be surprised to see a radiator like that on a (say) 7HP Ruston Hornsby, would I?

Well, although I had the magneto to bits and Araldited the broken slip ring and filed the bottom of the groove smooth, I could not get it to run - or even fire come to that. I was a little doubtful about the repair, but I've done it frequently over the last thirty years with complete success, so I was fairly sanguine about it. Retiming the mag was a pain as the shaft kept turning in the taper as I locked the nut up, but I got it done in the end.

The real problem is I could not turn the stupid little handle quick enough to make it ingest the mixture and get it into the combustion chamber before it condensed out on the cold walls of the inlet tract, transfer ports and crank chamber. But yesterday I had a revelation. It needed a rope starter.

Setting aside the scary image of a bush on fire, I got the angle grinder and cut a short angled slot into the edge of the gert pulley that it has on the end of its crankshaft. Into this I placed the cord from my BSA Iron Horse and gave it a spin.

Bingo! Sparks at the plugs!

A squirt of gypsy's breath into the plug 'ole got me a "BERLooop" from the exhaust expansion chamber. Swapping the plug leads over made the cylinder fire.

Turn on the petrol, flood the carb, close the choke and a double handed pull (ST's are heavy!) and it pop-popped into life, the governor to and froing the throttle just as if it had last run yesterday instead of twenty odd years ago.

Then, of course, Hazel arrives to tell me tea is ready, returning to tell me five minutes later that I've a client on the phone. I was running about pouring in water, checking for leaks and trying to get it to tick over - not keen to do that, today's job - so the food got cold and the client got phoned at 9.00pm!

And so another problem bites the dust.......

Regards,

Kim Siddorn

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J K Siddorn
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