Bouncing around

batjac Sat Jun 18, 2016 5:11 am

Since I always keep bouncing from one project to another, I decided to put building on hold for a couple of days and do… something else.

I pulled out four .049 engines that I got from my wife’s friend’s husband to restore. One Wen-Mac III, one Medallion, and two Babe Bees. One of the Bees was from a P-40 and I was hoping for a cylinder with the elusive P-40 stamped cylinder, but it just had the standard thin wall #2 cylinder. All were gunked up solid with 50 years’ worth of castor. A little heat got them un-seized, and then taking them apart for a cleaning got them turning freely. The Bees have new mylar reeds, and now all four are ready for test runs. The Wen-Mac, the Medallion, and one Bee had good glow heads, so I need to decide if I want pull out a new head for the other Bee or just move heads around. It’s not as if I’m going to be flying them all right away.

No pictures, since these are pretty much your standard engines. Just sharing.

The Surplus Mark

Kim Sat Jun 18, 2016 8:38 am

Yep, can see it all just from you descriptive note. Good times when you're in more of a "Metal Mood" than a "Balsa Mood" !!!

batjac Sat Jun 18, 2016 10:39 pm

Add a Walker Firecracker .061 to the list. It was in the box when I got the engines a few months ago and I threw it in a jar of glow fuel to loosen up. I pulled it out this afternoon and cleaned it up as well as possible so that the engine flips over easily and the compression is nice and crisp. My luck is holding and the glow plug still glows brightly. The only thing is that I can't pull the head and the backplate. It requires a special Anderson engine wrench (the Walker Firecracker is a re-branded Anderson Spitfire) to get the head and backplate off. I'll have to keep an eye out on eBay.

The Scavenger Mark

roddie Sun Jun 19, 2016 7:48 am

batjac wrote:Add a Walker Firecracker .061 to the list. It was in the box when I got the engines a few months ago and I threw it in a jar of glow fuel to loosen up. I pulled it out this afternoon and cleaned it up as well as possible so that the engine flips over easily and the compression is nice and crisp. My luck is holding and the glow plug still glows brightly. The only thing is that I can't pull the head and the backplate. It requires a special Anderson engine wrench (the Walker Firecracker is a re-branded Anderson Spitfire) to get the head and backplate off. I'll have to keep an eye out on eBay.

The Scavenger Mark

Just curious Mark.. noting your geographic-location, have you ever visited the site of the American-Junior Aircraft Co.?

Bouncing around Aj-air10