Gallery

Mike Walters, London Ontario Canada mikewal@sympatico.ca 7/4/2004

Powerhouse

1 cylinder 4 cycle 1 inch bore 1.375 stroke

This is my second engine by Jerry and my first 4 stroke. The design is very well put together by Jerry and there is lots of room to change the design to make it your own or to aid in ease of machining for people with limited machines/tooling in their shop.

As almost every engine builder will testify the rings were the most challenging part for me as I was given the wrong material for them right from the start. I asked for cast iron and got pre hard 4140.

Not having worked with cast iron at this point I was none the wiser, I made a minimum of 80 rings trying to get them to seal for more than one run. The only thing that saved me was getting a cast part to machine at work and realizing what I had been using before had cut totally different than what I was machining now.

I went back got cast iron re made the rings and cylinder head ( it was also made from pre hard ) and they sealed first try using a variety of peoples methods mixed together. My opinion on the difficulty of making rings has now changed , they are pretty easy when you use the right materials.

There are some paint touch ups from final assembly to put on and then it can go on the shelf as a completely finished product.

The engine runs for hours at a time every weekend never skipping a beat and has well over 65 hours on it at this point.

I would advise anyone looking to do long runs with this or any other type of engine to use hardened O/1 bushings and pins all over from the start to help reduce wear.

Should anyone wish to see a video of the engine running feel free to email me and I will send you a short clip and more pictures of any areas you may wish to see closer.

I recommend that any novice machinist build this engine as it is a great design.