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October 29, 2006 Eric McConnon runs our rare 200 HP Western
Well, the fat lady has already sung, our June Show is over, and the 200 horsepower Western ran again this show,
though only on two days. Saturday was the first day it ran. I was quite excited to see it run again, and I hoped
that it would run better and longer than last time.
The reason the engine would not run for more than 5 minutes
during the October show was that the tank adapter I was using was designed to be used on a barbecue grill, not a
200 horsepower engine. The orifice inside the adapter was 1/32” diameter. It is quite difficult to get an engine
of this size to run off such a small gas flow. After I discovered that, I drilled out the adapter to about ¼”,
and it flows plenty of gas now.
It was the first day of the show. Noon came around, I topped off the water jacket
(still haven’t gotten that pump mounted) hooked up the plug wires, and gave everything one final check. I filled the
gasometer, put the engine in position, hit the air-start valve, and off she went.
It ran rather odd however.
It would fire until it reached about 150 RPM, then start breathing very heavily but stop firing, then coast
down to about 100 RPM, and then it would start to fire again, and the cycle would repeat.
After about 5 minutes,
I changed the mixture adjustment valve in an effort to get it to run smoother, and it took off. It ran up to
about 300 RPM and started rocking back and forth on the base. It gave no warning whatsoever, one second it
was popping away merrily and the next instant it was walking all over the pad.
I yanked the plug wires as soon
as I realized what was happening. 15 tons of cast iron walking around will make even a 14 year olds hair turn
gray real fast. Later that day, Alex Comerchero and I decided to take a look at the engine to see if we could figure
out what was wrong. After watching the governor on the 120 Western, we found out that one of the arms in the governor
linkage on the 200 was backwards.
The governor linkage was smooth, and the mixer moved fine, but I decided to clean
everything over the week just for luck.
Towards the end of the final day of the show, I had everything set up properly and cleaned. Alex Comerchero, Pat Mackin,
Rudy Dremely, Ron Haskell, and Virgil White showed up to see the engine run.
I put the engine back in position, hooked
up the plug wires, gave all the moving parts a healthy dose of oil and hit the air start valve. The engine took off
and ran fine. The governor worked perfectly and nothing stuck. However, even with the throttle fully shut, the
engine would fire just barely hard enough to still gain speed.
It would begin to slide on the foundation at around
125 RPM, as the grout had become polished by the bedplate, and there was a thin layer of cement dust between the grout
and the bedplate due to the rubbing.
Not only that, but the foundation bolts holding the engine in place are undersized
by about ½” and there are only 4 of them. The engine was not going to part company with the foundation anytime soon,
but it had enough slop around the bolts to walk around on the foundation quite a bit.
Rudy ran the kill switch, keeping
the engine at a slow enough speed so it wouldn’t move. Pat walked around the foundation looking at everything along
the way. I discovered that I could get the engine to run steady around 100 RPM if I disconnected one plug wire and
let one cylinder fire, forcing the other one through compression.
After about 5 minutes, Pat was done, and I stopped
the engine. Several of us talked about different ways to keep the engine from walking, and the most agreed-upon
solution was to hoist the engine off the base, remove the old anchor bolts, chip off the old grout, install
8 properly sized bolts, remount the engine, and regrout it.
A few days after the show, Pat, Rich and I looked through the mixer to figure out why it ran with the throttle
closed. They both agreed that it had a lot of wear, and due to the design, was not exactly idle-friendly.
The next
day the three of us jacked up the front of the engine. Washed out the dust from between the bedplate and the grout.
Set the engine back down and put some pipe bushings around the bolts to take up the slop. Replaced the washers around
the bolts, and torqued the nuts down good and tight. Pat said that this should keep it from walking around, but it
would still be a good idea to get it mounted properly.
I wanted a fun little project, and I got one all right.
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October 29, 2006 Eric McConnon runs our rare 200 HP Western