Bernard w110 restoration

[rogersbarn]

I recently found in our local web marketplace site a add of 3 old stationary engines. It was a quite OK deal in my opinion and I hauled home 3 engines and one in crates.


2 x Bernard W110 and one in pieces
1 Briggs and Straton 9R6

Now I have to say that I have not too much experience when it comes to engines. I was doing some work on engines since I was maybe 13. But that was mainly cleaning carburetors and so to make little 50ccm bikes make noise again. Later then fixing stuff on generators, weedwackers, chainsaw and such. Fiddling with motocross bikes or setting the contact gap on my VW Bus was probably the most I did. I did stuff on my street bike, but mainly optical or electric stuff, when it got to the motor I let my brother jump in as he's a trained bike mechanic.
However, I decided that has to change and before I dare to start building a model IC engine from scratch I should maybe attempt to bring something back to live that was already running once in the past.

So I picked now one of these motors to be my first






This whole engine looks like it is encrusted with a thick layer of dried up oil.
It turns however over quite nice and if I put my thumb over the spark plug hole it feels like it has at least some compression.
Not having any spark plug laying around that I know works I could not test the ignition, so that will be something I have to cross when re-building everything.


I started this project now with taking the whole thing apart and taking lots and lots of pictures. Hopefully not to much forgetting to snap to many details as there will be for sure enough head scratching on the way back up.




After lots of fun in taking it apart I ended up with a cart full of cleaning work.
Hope the journey will end with a running engine

 

[markba633csi]

The Bernards look interesting- never see those here in the states-
Mainly Briggs, Tecumseh, Clinton
Like the flying saucer muffler
Klatu, barada, nikto

 

[matthewsx]

Looking forward to the rebuild, I used to own a power equipment shop and never even heard of this brand. Very cool....

John

 

[rogersbarn]

I found a good start might be the carburetor as it is it's own little unit.




I took it apart as much as I could and soaked it for a day or so in my parts cleaner.
Washed it out and took it to a bench for more deep cleaning of some stuff that didn't wanted to let go...
I gave some parts a lite buffing and reassembled it



To prevent the metal parts from corroding right away again I was giving it a try to powder coat those parts flat black.
I still have to see if I will replace the screws and nuts or if I will put some effort in trying to recondition them.

I realize that before putting it all together again, I will have to get busy with designing all the gaskets. I could not find any gasket kits for such an old engine, so make your own is quite likely what it is going to be.

I have now constantly some parts soaking in my cleaning solution and the fuel tank sits since a few days already in a container and slowly getting rid of rust with the help of electricity

 

[Nesse1]

Wow! That looks like a fun project! Great job on the carb. After seeing "made in France" on that Solex, I looked it up, and apparently, that's how Solex started (making carbs for engine power bicycles). Very cool.

 

[mattthemuppet2]

wowzas, that's a bit of a difference with the carb!

 

[RaisedByWolves]

Cool motor, will be watching.

 

[rogersbarn]

It started to get a bit chilly in the garage and I was not as busy on the motor lately.
It is much more weather to work on the kant twist clamp kits I got from D.Grey

However I cleaned the base and while it cleaned up OK, I did't liked the bannged up bottom and neither the marred up mounting holes.



I made sure to get rid of all the burrs and then mounted the base upside down on the mill table and fly cut each corner. Of course making sure to not change the hight.

I put it on the cast table of the tablesaw and there is only a very very slight rocking going on. I'm sure that will be fine.



Next was time to clean up the mounting holes.


The only tool I have at hand that could reach was the boring head, so it got promoted to be a long reach fly cutter.
I quite like how it turned out. It's probably not really needed, but that's also where the fun for me lies in this project, to try things out.



I haven't devceided yet on how it all should go back together, but I might powder coat the base and not go with a shiny polish. After all, it can also be to much polished stuff.

Another item that I started working is the fuel tap.
However I could not find out yet how to take it fully apart, without breaking it.


Does anyone seeing this know how those are built ?
I really would like to take it fully apart to clean and maybe recondition. It has quite some play but I don't know if it actually leaks or not.
I first thought I turn of the half round thinggy on the top, that I could remove the knurled wheel, but not sure if it would help me anything.
Maybe if someone would have a plan or drawing or so of suh a fuel tap I could make my own copy of it, as I quite like the look of it.

Well thats it for now.

BTW. Anyone a great idea on how to clean cylinder fins ?