I took my ex B17 APU Homelite (as in this month's SEM) for walkies on Sunday and went to my club's crank up at Nunney Catch in Somerset. It was one of those brilliant hard winter days that make engines run well and the exhibitors look for their Thermos and gloves. As usual, it was well attended and I counted eighty cheerful people and thirty nine engines. There was the usual broad selection of engine types present from a JAP outboard engine to a very nice Blackstone amid the usual plethora of Listers and Wolseleys. There are always bits for sale and I bought a 1930's bolt-on-the-wall garage equipment type battery charger for the fun of seeing if it works and a cheap Dremel type tool (seven quid!) which had lots of unused cutters, pads, wheels, and a wide range of tiny diamond tipped grinders of every shape in geometry.
I think a number of us try to take something unusual along in addition to an engine - there's the petrol tin man with his dedicated trailer display that opens up like a Tardis, the oil can man, the chap that collects insulators and the rarely seen plug man with his huge collection of spark plugs. Last time, I took along a barrel off a Bristol Aero Engines Pegasus XVIII, but on Sunday I took the three cased instruments I've started to collect, a laboratory vane capacitor, a Wheatstone Bridge and my aluminium cased Lightning servo tester. They certainly attracted attention and comment and this has spurred me on to go and look at some more this evening! If anyone on this NG has similar stuff they might want to get rid of for not a lot, please let me know off list. Similarly, I've seen a trader several times at the Sodbury Sortout who always has these instruments for sale and if anyone can tell me who he is and has contact details, I'd be most obliged.
Anyway, the Homelite was not behaving itself at all well. It ran flat out OK, but would not easily respond to regulation of the carburettor. Being a direct lift carb, there is only the one screw which controls the fuel flow and the most careful adjustment would only make it hunt from a couple of hundred rpm to (say) 3,000. It ran like this for a while after I'd decreased the oil/petrol ratio, thus richening the mixture, but no-one could describe it as happy. For the record, flat out is generating over 35 volts, so it is not designed to run that way.
I'd had the carb apart the night before and it is a very well made piece of kit and complicated for one of its type. I found some dirt, but nothing desperate and the non return valves were working fine, so now I'm rather stumped. Any ideas anyone?
Following the usual raffle in aid of club funds, we all went home, all packed up and on the road before dusk.
Regards,
Kim Siddorn