[malc9141]

Chapter 2

I was lucky in making friends with a Senior Lecturer at Sheffield Hallam University. He had several good ideas. He suggested a Lister-Petter gutsy engine to work from, I had had some dealings with that firm and rang for advice. We learned we wanted an AC1 and an afternoon on eBay located one. This is a 6 hp diesel, floor mounted, to drive things like barges, or concrete mixers.
I proposed getting some 3rd year students to help with the project.
The engine cost about £100 but on dismanting, carried out by one of the students, it proved to have a cracked piston and scratched big-end bearings. Another £100 to replace those, but quickly done. The student then dropped out of the project, getting no support from the University Machine Workshops.
Meanwhile, I designed the layout of the new cylinder-head.
Another student modelled the gas-flow, using Computerised Fluid Dynamics (FLUENT program) and we learned of a problem, which was readily designed out.
This was a big leap forward and on discussing and searching, it seemed we might have something quite novel. Now, the chance of coming up with something new in Engine Design must be close to zero, so I phoned and chatted to a veteran of diesel engine know-how who worked in the Glasgow Lister-Petter agency where I got the spares from. He described something crudely on the same lines, but I couldn't even find reference to that on searching.

I'll talk about this concept in my next post. It's quite exciting and a patent search is in progress.

Meanwhile, there was a lot of serious time-wasting. The students went off to find employment, and our proposal to get a Masters project going fell apart. There were University officers who would talk, but when it came to doing anything, it was always manana (tomorrow). I realised I had been misled.

So the University and I parted company.

Then an ex-student came forward, signed on at Cranfield for a Masters Degree in Mech Eng, and who had his own workshop. He had plenty of ideas, but unbelievably, did nothing. Absolutely nothing. Surrounded by lathes, TIG welders, turret milling machines etc, he did nothing. Another 8 months went by, with promises being excused.

But I had found a machine shop in Sheffield which was willing to build the cylinder head. In the end, however, an order from, say, BMW would always push my job to the back of the queue, and I was lucky to get a block of aluminium squared off with a a few holes drilled at the right place. Nothing happened unless I went and stood there. Clearly, this was not going to be a goer.

The other people I found in Sheffield was a super Cylinder Head Repair firm, over in Wincobank. The boss was very enthusiastic and I learned details of where to source valves, guides etc. He said he should fit the valve seats, guides etc when the time came, but then he got too enthusiastic and wanted me to redesign everything. Where he was wrong, was in not keeping everything in his mind at the same time, so he wanted to take an easier path in one sense, overlooking the fact that it would cancel some other essential. He just wanted a diesel two-stroke. I wanted a certain power output. Twelve point five bar piston pressure, or bust.

Strange happening: a firm of ageing residual Master Cutlers outside Sheffield, open to visitors, proved to have a superb under-used workshop. "No, I could not use it, but perhaps a firm across town could help." They'd done a superb job making part of a huge candelabra for the city cathedral.
And there, finally, I met someone, half my age, highly intelligent, totally at home with his machine tools, who could usefully advance my ideas.

Next post:
The cylinder head design.

Malc