ALYN FOUNDRY RLE HIT & MISS ENGINE Part 12 by Jason Ballamy Part 12 by Jason Ballamy five by Jason Ballamy

I was not that keen on the look of the governor weights as shown on the drawing which replicate the old Gramophone governor weights. So I drew something up along the lines of my 1:5 scale vertical IHC Famous many moons ago.

The bracket was fabricated from two pieces, first a flat plate that will fit around the crankshaft and attach to the inner face of the flywheel hub with screws.

To keep the clevises at each end lined up they were machined from one piece that then had the central section machined away after silver soldering.
I neglected to take a photo of the actual weights but they were turned from 8mm rod having a taper at each end which was blended into a parallel central section and then flat tongues milled at the extremities for the springs and adjusters. 4mm rod was soldered to these and at the other end of the rods were the blocks with the pivot holes and fingers that locate in the spool. First photo shows these pivot/fingers being machined.
The adjusters were turned from 4mm rod down to 2mm and threaded before milling the head flat, cross drilling for the spring and rounding over once they had been cut from the parent bar. The spring draw provided a couple of suitable springs that were cut to length and the ends bent into loops with two pairs of long nosed pliers.
With all parts complete it was time for a test so valve and ignition timing was set by eye as the flywheel was rotated by hand and then ready for a try. It did not have much life and after checking for a spark my thoughts turned to fuel as I could not smell much and there was no sign of flooding with the needle valve wound right out.

Squirting a bit of fuel into the carbs air intake did get a few pops as did heavily choking the intake with my finger but no sustained runs.

After a break for a bit of lawn cutting I went back into the workshop after lunch and altered the fuel jet so the end sat further into the air passage and that did the trick.

Here it is with the governor springs tight which I quite often do for initial tests, just be ready to shut it down if the engine starts to race away. Bit lumpy and erratic but at least it was running.


















After a bit of fiddling with needle valve and ignition timing it started to improve enough to slacken off the governor spring adjusters. Still stuttering a bit when it wants to hit but should improve with a few more tweaking sessions. It is really making a lot of compression to the point of being difficult to pull the flywheels over TDC so may skim a bit off the piston or see if the O-ring beds in a bit more.


















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