fire eater won't run

[dparker]

Lyle: Good looking engine! When I made mine several years ago I could not get it to run and after much headscratching I found that I had made a mirror image of the cam wheel. It will run now pretty good if I pre-warm the cylinder before trying to start it. I also built a hood for the flame around the inlet port and that helped speed the engine up a bit. I use lamp kerosene as the fuel but it smokes the house up enough that I do not run the engine very long at a time.
[youtube=425,350]XSaT_lAJ46k=p[/youtube]
Good luck---don

 

[kustomkb]

It sounds the same as mine when you free-wheel it. I also dumped some powdered graphite in mine the first few times.

I also had trouble at first but after running it in it starts alot better.

Keep at her.

http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=6887826881014803554&hl=en#

 

[LyleM]

dparker, thanks for the reply. not sure i understand what you mean with the mirror image. Also this may sound stupid, but the piston does stop short of the inlet on the cylinder right?

 

[dparker]

Lyle: When I made the cam disk I looked at the drawing and made it as I thought I saw it and when I mounted the disk the cam part was way out of time. In other words I put the cam on the wrong side of the disk. The valve opened early as I remember (long time ago) and would not suck in the flame. The cam was at the correct degrees but the cam action was on the wrong side of top dead center. I hope this explanation makes sense.
I'm sorry but I cannot seem to get the picture or video of mine running to show up, will need to do some more studying or call the kids and have them run through the procedure for me on the phone.
I will try this ffor the picture and hope it works---I keep getting "fetching preview" when I click on Preview.

If you are interested, you could look at You Tube under [ parkerdjte] "model engines"
Good Luck -----don

 

[Engine maker]

Mine stops just at the inlet or maybe .010 beyond.

 

[Stan]

Also this may sound stupid, but the piston does stop short of the inlet on the cylinder right?

Does this mean that the piston never goes to the top of the cylinder?

 

[Engine maker]

Yes, My piston stops - going up in the cylinder- just as it gets to the inlet opening. It never closes the port off.