.15 Rotary Drum Bill Atwood

Any ideas Ron a fair price?? If you zoom in you can see the number etching!!

ZACATTACK wrote:Any ideas Ron a fair price?? If you zoom in you can see the number etching!!

Shoot Lew, I really have no idea. Those are so far out of my league that I have never paid attention. That and it's the second one I have ever seen. What is the seller asking? You could ask the seller about the etched numbers. That is not your everyday Cox engine. So my guess is since he has it he knows all about it.

Yeah..but Im buying alot from him Ron ..so things are a little different...he asked me to shoot out an offer!! Really dont know what to do Ron...I'm like you, there is a posting in here Ron that one sold on E-Bay for $386.00 recently but when I click on the link...NO Pictures appear!! So getting info on these engines is tuff !!! There were only 50 made!! I'll find the link and post in here!! Found it!! No Picture!!

https://www.coxengineforum.com/t1084-cox-olympic-15-rotary-drum-your-chance-to-get-one

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I've seen three go on fleebay Lew since I joined the Forum about 15 months ago, lowest I think was
in the 220's, highest was 4 plus.
There was a thread somewhere about someone (might've been Jason) repairing the plastic.

With this engine...opportunity does'nt come knocking more then once...Like Man..There's only 50 guys on the planet that has possesion of these!! Look at that Ad I posted...That seems like a fair price!! I'm glad someone chimned in and set me straight on the cracks and being a prototype!! When Jason chimes in ...we will see if his .15 Atwood Rotary has numbers etched....it looks like the number 30 and then a 3 etched on the mounting bracket if you look closely and zoom in. Maybe Jason will know if these are sinifigant in any way?

Mine doesn't have any numbers engraved on the crankcase. My carb body is cracked at the mold line like the one in the picture above. What ever plastic they used shrunk over the years and that is what caused the crack. My pressure port was drilled out also.

Mine was stuck tight from castor use when I got it. Used a considerable amount of heat to get it loosened up. It also took a considerable amount of heat and force to remove the carb body from the drum valve housing as I think it was shrunk tight to the aluminum.

I made a rubber tool mold to recreate the carb body. The problem with these carb bodies is the resin these are made of is not fuel proof. If you soak this in glow fuel it will get soft and then crumble in your hand. I ran my Olympic with the replacement carb body and it held up but it did get a little pliable but did not crack.

As to the value I believe these are more valuable than a NIB Venom or a NIB RR-1. As long as all the pieces are there you are in good shape. The cracked carb body does not affect the value of this engine.

I'm not selling carb bodies as I do not want fakes made. Any competent Mechanical engineer worth his salt can make a rubber tool mold for this and then pour carb bodies if you really want a replacement.

Jason...So I can assume this engine is an authenic example of the elusive, rare .15 prototype rotary valve Bill Atwood engine??

Everything on the outside looks correct and the same as mine except the the numbers engraved in. Could have had some slight internal differences and they marked it to keep track when testing them.

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Off TOPIC AT BIT: Was there not a Rare Medallion .051 Frre Flight motor made with engravings on it? I thought i read this somewhere where only 1000 .051 Medallion's were engraved from Cox, It was the free-flight association in accordance with Cox that released these engines??!! On another note:Those being engineering tracking marks on the .15 Rotary makes perfect sense being a ptototype type engine and 50 of them in diferent parts of the USA, those markings make sense!

So a good offer would be $400 ya think ??? The guy probably wont take that... I think paying more then that would be foolish!! Someone PMMED me a price one sold for that I dare not repeat on here!! The lowest was $223.00 so far!!

paid $760 for mine. It's only money. Can't take it with you unless you plan on sewing pockets in your coffin.

$760 Maybe a little too much Jason? Your engine does look beautiful and the price of admission to the Bill Atwood Rotary Club is very steep indeed...There's only 50 membership cards out there!! Congrats on that find Jason!

Depends on how bad you want the engine. For me I simply wanted it and pulled the trigger.

Notice the carb body bears a passing resemblance to a std TD part (even has a pressure bleed nipple). Wonder if a stocker couldn't be adapted/hogged out inside just for running the engine?

Just noticed on aerotools that the Oly carb body also had a molded in alu bushing for the rotary valve, which complicates things.

The drum valve housing is not molded into the carb body. I was able to remove it on mine. The TD 15 carb body pressure nipple is on the opposite side. Might work but wouldn't look the part.

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Mudhen wrote:

Jason_WI wrote:paid $760 for mine. It's only money. Can't take it with you unless you plan on sewing pockets in your coffin.

$700.00 for mine. Worth every penny.
Mud

You Guys pay all that cash that you say is worth every penny and dont even post a picture!!! Thats just a shame...Please post pics of your pride and Joy!!

Here is one better. A video of mine running last July. I doubt anyone else that owns one of these has ever run it.

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Any of you high rollers happen to have a picture of the innards? How are the bearings fitted? And what's going on inside that drum?

Just curious, I don't want you guys to tear them down or anything.
Ron