WCE4:
Never having built this engine and after looking at the picture of your engine and comparing it to the drawings, a couple of things just don't look right - but you said you made some changes. You didn't mention it, but you also appear to have flipped the direction that the rotary valve is installed. Couple of questions: 1) Did you keep the steam inlet on the original side - as per the drawings? 2) When you machined the grooves in the rotary valve did you machine them according to the drawings?
My guess is that by turning the rotary valve around the timing of the engine has been severely affected and the engine will never run with its' current timing. You should be able to get a running engine by making a new rotary valve. This engine was designed to be built without a lot of tools or complicated setups. You don't need to measure angles for valve timing, it can all done by scribing the valve block port locations onto the rotary valve. The instructions in the text aren't that clear, but by reading the text and combining it with the section views shown on the valve operation section of the drawing we can figure it out - I think!
I'm not going to call them Groove A and Groove B because that's just confusing, let's call them the steam groove and the exhaust groove - because that's what they do. Beyond that we're going to keep the same layout and names as the drawings, it'll make things simpler. You'll need to scribe the centerline of both the grooves onto the rotary valve, either by using the dimensions on the drawing, or by using the steam port and exhaust port to scribe the centerlines as described in the text.
I'm assuming that you kept the valve block steam inlet port in the same location, the port closest to the cylinder. That would mean that your steam groove will be the groove closest to the shoulder of the rotary valve.
The valve operation drawing shows us a section view thru the valve block and the rotary valve at 4 different piston locations: Position J - piston at TDC, Position K - crank at 90 degrees after TDC, Position L - piston at BDC, and Position M - crank at 90 degrees before TDC. Now for the tricky part, let's start with the steam groove, that will be the groove closest to the cylinder. The left side of the valve operation drawing is all about the steam side. You can see the steam groove, and more importantly you can see where that groove starts and stops in relation to the piston location. With the piston at TDC scribe through the port to the cylinder, onto the rotary valve to show where the steam groove should start. From the valve operation drawing you can see that the steam groove should start slightly before the piston reaches TDC. You should be able to look into the port to the cylinder on the valve block and with the piston at TDC the beginning of the steam groove should just be visible. The text says the grooves run halfway around the rotary valve, so make the steam groove look like the cross-section in the drawing.
The exhaust groove is the groove closest to the flywheel and its' operation is similar to the steam side, but its' start and stop points are different. According to the valve operation section the exhaust groove is just starting to open when the piston is at BDC. The exhaust groove also goes halfway around the rotary valve so make the groove look like what's shown in the valve operation drawing. Remember all those section views are looking from the cylinder towards the flywheel.
You should be able to look into the port on the valve block that goes to the cylinder and with the piston at TDC you should just be able to see the beginning of the steam groove. You should be able to rotate the crankshaft in a clockwise direction, when viewed from the cylinder looking towards the flywheel, and with the piston somewhere around halfway between BDC and 90 degrees before TDC the end of the steam groove should no longer be visible through the cylinder port of the valve block.
Looking into the exhaust port on the valve block, the exhaust groove should just start to become visible with the piston at BDC. The exhaust groove should remain visible until the piston is somewhere around halfway between TDC and 90 degrees after TDC.
These timing settings should get the engine running, it may not be at peak performance, but it should run. Every time you take the rotary valve off the crank shaft you are going to have to re-time the engine.
Don
