The restoration of Engine #4 gets underway
Curator and Project lead Karl Kjarsgaard contemplates the future with the Bristol Hercules 216 from a Hastings transport shipped in from the UK, very close to a Halifax bomber Hercules 16 engine – which we hope will become our FOURTH Hercules engine for our Halifax bomber.
After an initial inspection, concerns about our No. 4 develop. We have found rust inside! Alas, we had high hopes for her but now we are worried about her future. Everything the Hercules team at BCMC has learned about these ‘sleeve valve engines’ over the past 5 or 6 years will be needed to save her. All 14 cylinders have rust inside!
Just getting the TOP of the cylinder off, is a real problem with them being cemented on with rust, I know good cylinders and these are not. If you cannot get the Top of the cylinders off — the rebuild of the engine cannot happen!
The outer cylinder head puller is 2 parts, #1 in RED is the steel puck that goes inside bore on top of piston.
#2 in RED is the cover with jack-screw that you bolt on to TOP of cylinder, then it pushes the outer cylinder up – off the sleeve
The puller using the screwing action with the ratchet to push the outer cylinder UP – off sleeve and piston inside. — look down at bottom of cylinder see how it is already 2 inches up off the engine block
We have 2 special-build head – cylinder – sleeve pullers and I have just broken both of them getting the first cylinders open. See how they work in the photos provided. The pullers are being repaired on Monday.
Finally see the outer cylinder #2 pulled off and the steel sleeve valve and piston inside the bore of the sleeve.
The above sleeve is supposed to be shiny steel with no rust!
This begrudging progress only cost me a few knuckles but at least I dreamed up a few more swear words that involved the well-being of Bristol and the debatable value of oxidized 70 year old steel. So it looks like we should be able to get open and start rebuilding – repairing of maybe 9 or 10 cylinders, the other 4 will be bearcats as we MUST get them open or sadly this engine is toast.
