More Fun with Foxes !

shawn cook wrote: Wilf, I believe the fellow is Doug Martin. I do not have contact info but probably could find someone who knows. Virginia Hobbysports, had a great control line hobby shop a few years back. Henry Werner and his brother owned it and I believe he was selling entire.049 engines from Doug. Henry unfortunately retired. I saw him a few years ago at the Brodak Fly In. He had a beautiful scale twin running large four strokes. Ken

That sounds like him, don't know why I had the idea it was Geoff! I seem to remember that his email was something like "Dougsengines" but can't remember the rest.

dougsengines@hotmail.com

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Doug Martin Colorado dougs engines Fox

Roberts yer muvvas bruvva

John Goddard wrote:dougsengines@hotmail.com

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Doug Martin Colorado dougs engines Fox

Roberts yer muvvas bruvva

Yeah, thanks, I was about to post the same, having just found it!

Got my Ebay Fox .35 this afternoon, and decided to try to get it to run. I'd planned on it being a little rough, and it didn't disappoint !!!!

When I went to replace the Enya N.V. assy with a Fox unit, I found the holes to be a bit 'wallowed'! No prob!...some silicone gaskets and a washer sealed it up pretty good.

The head was also loose on the cylinder, so I peeked inside (good ole crusted piston top!) then torqued it down. The back plate screws were finger-tight, with slots that were not gonna allow much more, so they got switched out for some nice new cap screws!





I then discovered that the thrust washer was apparently not totally right. It was very thin, and when the prop was tightened, it moved past the dogs on the shaft and into the space beyond. Again, NO PROB! An appropriate-sized washer took up the slack, and off we went !







I got it up to "Running Speed" with a back-and-forth 4-2 break, and it turned about what the other Foxes turned. So, reckon I got a runner...not too bad maybe !!!! It sure won't be wearing a muffler with that 'custom ground' exhaust!

Hello Kim, you probably better off with the Fox needle. Did I just say that?. Actually I say that due to the size and not the quality. The Fox will give you more choke area due to the spraybar being turned down within the venturi area. The other thing is the fact that the exhaust area has been filed off and round. This was done for speed models. I would honestly say you have a Fox that was used in a rat racer or wood speed pan so to speak. This allowed the top body to slip over and cowl in the entire cylinder. It may just hot start for you pretty well. I also noticed at least from the pic that there isn't much of a gap under the cylinder head. This is typical mod done when the top of the cylinder liner has been lapped down to get more compression. Ken

Hot Dog!!!! Got me an old Thoroughbred in the Stable !!!!!

Ha ha ha that's a great description. I have one that was given to me by a combat flyer a few years ago. It looked horrible. I put it on the bench with a 9x6 Master Airscrew. When I woke that puppy up heads were turning to see what it was. It tached at 14 K. The venturi has been opened way up as well. It would certainly make a great Foxberg racer but the mods including the filed exhaust like yours doesn't make it a stock engine anymore. Ken

shawn cook wrote: It would certainly make a great Foxberg racer but the mods including the filed exhaust like yours doesn't make it a stock engine anymore. Ken

Alright! An "Outlaw Thoroughbred" !!! Even Better !

On the gap between the head and cylinder...when I took off the head, it appeared to have no gasket...I thought they normally used a metal ring-type...but don't have a lot of experience with them, and so went with what I had.

I'm gonna have to move over to the building board and spend some time creating airframes for these things! I've got a full/free evening scheduled, so may take a turn at my Uncle's Goldberg "Buster".

John Goddard wrote:dougsengines@hotmail.com

I've now been in touch with Doug, he has spares for many old Foxes, from the .07 to the .74, including .049 etc. glowheads.
The one thing he DOESN'T have is a backplate for my Hustler!

Wilf

Kim, there should be a head gasket in there. Usually the head gasket fits so tightly in the recess of the head, you don't even know its there. You have to get out your Xacto and scratch in that recess and see if it peels out. The soft aluminum squashes down and becomes quite tight in there. The gasket is aluminum as well so it looks as though it's a part of the cylinder head. You get one .010" gasket per rebuild kit from Fox. You can purchase them individually though directly from Fox. Is it spitting lots of fuel out of the front bearing when running? It doesn't appear so in the pic which is a good sign. I'm also wondering why the engine displacement has been ground off of the case and smoothed out. Is it indeed a .35? Ken

Yeah, not sure why the logo was ground away. It WAS running pretty clean, with no leakage from the front, so about the only thing I intend to do to it, is a bit of clean-up and cap screws to replace the chiseled out slotted head screws.

Here is a discussion about the Fox .07: http://stunthanger.com/smf/index.php?topic=15626.0
Only challenge I have is the release date. I bought mine in 1960 I believe, months before I joined the Navy (Oct 1960). It could be that Fox started converting and selling the .07 over-runs before Comet stopped selling them. Mine was NIB and the box looked like the one in the thread I referenced. I can't seem to remember running it so it may still be unrun.

As a habit, I ALWAYS break in an engine (old or new) just in case. First half minute VERY rich to remove any old junk from storage.

When you get an engine from an auction site you never know how much the seller knows about engines. I once bought a Fox .29 back before they included pics. It was listed in excellent condition. Upon inspection, it was missing one head screw because the threads were stripped. Same for one of the backplate bolts, which had a 4:40 screw and nut as a replacement. Compression was low, etc., My guess is because the aluminum crankcase was not rusted, it was excellent.

All was correctable.

George