(Best paint protection) Handling Wear and Tear in Antique Car Engines

October 3rd, 2008 admin Posted in automotive |

By Peter Salmonford

Loss of compression is also due to wear set up between the piston and cylinder. In engines that have done a considerable amount of running the cylinders may have worn slightly oval, and they should be carefully examined to see if this is the case, and if so, should be rebored. The trouble is usually, however, confined to the piston rings, and new rings are generally required on a water-cooled engine after 10,000 to 20,000 miles.

In good engines carefully looked after perhaps they will not be necessary until 30,000 miles have been run. To fit new rings is, though not a difficult matter, one that requires a certain amount of care. It is very easy to put a ring into the top slot, but to get it into one of the middle ones is not so easy. To do so the adjacent grooves should be temporarily filled up with some packing or, what is better, some strips of sheet metal or whalebone should be employed and the ring slid over these until the proper groove is reached. These strips will prevent the ring from fouling the adjacent groove.

Each ring after being in use must be bright the whole way round ; if this is not the case it shows that contact is not made throughout the whole length of the ring, and a new ring should be fitted. Piston rings should fit comparatively tightly in the grooves, and when compressed so as to lie nearly flush with the piston the slots should be closed.

The weak point in piston rings, as regards holding compression, is the slot, as a slight leakage is bound to take place along it. Consequently when two or more rings are fitted the slots should be arranged alternately on opposite sides of the piston, so that as long a path as possible is made for the escaping gas and leakage reduced. Thus when the cylinders are removed care should be taken to turn the piston rings into this position. In some cases the piston rings are pegged to prevent their taking up wrong positions.

After a water-cooled engine has run a considerable distance, say anything from 5,000 to 10,000 miles, it may be found that power is falling off, in spite of the compression being good, that when going up a hill with the throttle wide open the engine knocks and does not seem to run so well as when new, or that the engine preignites or continues to run when switched off. These are definite signs that the inside of the cylinders and the piston heads require cleaning.

Peter Salmonford is a keen fan of cars, and likes to write about antique and modern vehcles. Take a look at his other articles on hydrogen conversion, the benefits of an electric car kit and using browns gas in your own car.

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Handling Soot in Antique Car Engines
By Peter Salmonford

In the course of running soot is formed in the engine, the quantity varying with the richness of the mixture and the facility for the lubricating oil to get past the piston. This carbonaceous deposit, combined with the non-inflammable constituents of road dust which are sucked through the carburetter, adheres to the cylinder walls and combustion head, causing falling off of power, and in time preignition. When the valve cap is removed it will be found that its underside is coated with soot, and sometimes even with a hard deposit, an indication of the state of the interior of the cylinder. To remove this carbon deposit, the usual procedure is to take off the cylinder so as to expose the parts and scratch off the deposit with a screwdriver or some similar instrument. From the tops of the piston the deposit can be cut away with a knife, and when removed the surfaces should be polished with fine emery cloth, as deposit adheres less easily to a polished surface. The deposit must be completely removed from all parts of the cylinder as well as the piston, a matter of some difficulty.

There have been one or two inventions evolved from time to time to remove the deposit without necessitating the dismantling of the engine. One of these is to insert a steel ball of about 5 inch diameter into the cylinder and then to run the engine, its action being to hammer the carbon deposit and so chip it off the surface. Another, and more promising, process consists in passing a stream of oxygen into the cylinder, lighting it, and so causing a chemical combination to take place between the carbon and the oxygen. As soon as all the carbon has combined the flame goes out, and it is known that the cylinder is clean. The writer has not tried either of these schemes, but mentions them as matters of interest. The ball process, however, would seem rather risky.

To keep an engine in good running order the valves, apart from grinding-in, require careful attention. In the olden days silence of running was not of great importance, but nowadays it is an essential, and to obtain it one of the most important points is to see that the clearance between the valve tappet and the bottom of the valve stem is small. As the engine runs it will be understood that the tappet rises rapidly and strikes the foot of the valve. If there is a large clearance between these two the impact between the tappet and the valve causes a clicking noise, which should be stopped by adjusting the tappet head close up to the valve stem. The usual distance or clearance is about 5 inches. The top of the tappet head is inlaid with fibre to reduce the noise, and in course of time this fibre becomes dented or recessed. The tappet should then be removed and its head filed flush so as to remove the indentation.

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