About six weeks ago Pete and I decided to give the 216 it’s first run by the end of September, well we are burning the midnight oil to get it ready for it’s first run in a long time, and Brian Mills is bringing along his 216 . so with a bit of luck the sound of a pair of Bristol Hercules will be heard again in the Val of York. There is quite a bit to do and a lot of jobs are running alongside each other so I will touch base on a few of them.

Oil Priming the engine before a start up after laying dormant for so long is essential,

Basically we rigged up a Plessey pump to the priming port on the oil pump and fit a pressure gauge, fill the oil tank inlet pipe and start to prime.

After about ten ltr’s of oil it started to come out of the sump and CSU conections and oil pressure started to build up to over 20 psi.

We need a good ignition sparks, so after cleaning the points and checking the time with a special tool I managed to find on Ebay a few months ago, and using a brand new Rotax booster coil, we get a good spark while cranking.

 

After Pete spent a lot of time cleaning and painting the Rotal prop hub and blades, it was finally ready to have the blades refitted and the whole assembly fitted back on the engine.

First thing tighten the blades by hand.

Then tighten them up using Brian’s Big Spanner!

 

Once all the blades are fitted , with the help from a willing customer Andrew, we gently rotated the whole prop and eased it onto the engine.

 

And once on we tighten up the securing nut and stood back to admire..

 

For the first few runs we lifted the engine and stand onto a plant trailer and secured it down. We will be make a new stand to fit the trailer over winter, we are making it demountable because we may have three engines in total that will run and it’s the most cost effective way of doing it.

 

with the aid of Grahams  Manitou we lifted the Engine and frame onto the trailer.

When Gill was’t looking I borrowed the wife’s car to move it back into the workshop.

The control and monitoring of the engine is done electrically, I have used linear actuators for the engine controls , these have a 10k built in position feed back. The starter solenoid is from a large marine engine.

Cylinder head temperature monitoring is vital, after a bit of Googling  I came across this system that has been put together for VW air cooled engines, so we ordered a pair with extra long sensor wires. The type K sensors replace the sealing washer under the Spark plugs.

 

After a full weekends wiring , we have a fully working control panel and remote control station.

 

Just the tachometer  to fit in the center of the panel.