Need help getting Flame eater running.

[olympic]

"Aha! An oiler on the cylinder. By all accounts, oil in cylinders kills flame eaters! "

My oiler is there just for looks.

My cylinder is polished, the piston (all three of them, aluminum, steel, and cast iron) fits just as it should, everything is "go"--except the engine....

 

[coulsea]

Aha! An oiler on the cylinder. By all accounts, oil in cylinders kills flame eaters! A chap in the local club has some good runners, he says let them be lubricated by the carbon from the flame -without oil. Even the lightest oil has too much drag for these gnat powered engines.

All of my flame eaters run with singer sewing machine oil, they will not run without it. cast iron piston in a cast iron bore.

 

[Steamchick]

Well done Coulsea, You have more success than I. I tried the "as suppllied" oil - incredibly thin, just about like water... - then read "don't use on piston and bore" in the instructions, so tried washing it off with WD 40 - to no avail. Next comes the ultrasonic cleaning to fully degrease, and I'll possibly try Diesel fuel as a piston-lube? - if anything is needed and it doesn't run with a "dry" bore. - Or I have an aerosol "silicon spray lube"... or a "PTFE spray lube".
thanks for advice.
K

 

[Jamie Barton]

All of my flame eaters run with singer sewing machine oil, they will not run without it. cast iron piston in a cast iron bore.

I second that. I have two Poppins which run for as long as I keep the oiler topped up and the burner full. My oil is just the old slop left over from motorbike oil changes. Just need a little clean between runs

 

[JaguarB]

I have mine running using graphite lock powder see

 

[minh-thanh]

More :
My engine runs without any oil, I just put some oil (sewing machine oil) - just a little bit - into the valve
Cylinder, piston : cast iron

 

[SailplaneDriver]

Check for taper in the cylinder. I made Jan Ridders graphite valved/piston flame and have not been able to get it to run except for a couple of seconds. The cylinder is well polished but I found it is tapered getting larger at the flywheel end where it looses vacuum near the end of its stroke. I either need to rebore the cylinder or more likely make a new one along with new pistons.

 

[werowance]

ok, so on my flame eater which was a imperial dimensioned version of Jan Ridders here is what i had to do.
cylinder 303 stainless steel, graphite piston and valve. it would not run with lapped in piston and valve to the cylinder. what i finally did was got the cylinder hot - running temperature hot and then cut the piston and valve to fit when it was hot.

when the engine is cold the valve and piston are siezed up and will not move until the flame warms the cylinder. it then runs like a top. takes about 30 to 45 seconds to come up to temperature before it will let you turn it over.

what was happening on mine is the expansion rate between the stainless steel vs the graphite was so much that it wasnt sealing good

i actually discoverd this by accident, not on purpose. my cylinder just happened to be hot when i re-measured to make another piston and valve which are cut at the same time them parted off

 

[D and D]

I, too, have a flame-eater. Made it myself. I think it looks all right, and that's good, because it doesn't run at all.

I made one of those "Poppen" it was called.