I'm making a Halo !!

Hi Dave
As you have 5 power impulses per revolution you will require very little inertia to make this run smoothly, the power strokes will overlap I think .

Brian.
 
The other Rods and their Crank Pins

Rods1.JPG

The picture above shows a test fitting of the connecting rods assembly. There are little tiny 1/16" diameter by 1/8" long crank pins to attach the (slave?) connecting rods to the master connecting rod.

Rods2.JPG

The slave rods are made from 1/8" Square Brass (360). I cut them a little long with the band saw. Then with the lathe I finished the ends and brought them to final length using the 5C collet shown above with a stop in it.

Rods3.JPG

Well, I had originally thought about doing these parts with the pistons... Then I thought, no, I should use a vise... Well, couldn't figure out how to hold these little boogers in the same place in any of the vises I have. So, back to Plan A. Virtually the same setup as the pistons all over again <sigh>

Rods4.JPG

Above I'm getting ready to saw the slot where the Rod fits over the Master Rod. I carefully put the radius on that end of the part with the 1" sanding belt. (I'm glad I had a few extra).

Rods5.JPG

I made the little connecting rods from some 1/16" diameter 303 stainless round. If you look above where I made the pistons you will see the same piece of aluminum that I used to line up the hole versus the slot in the pistons. This piece of aluminum is 1/8" thick. I reamed the hole in it with a 1/16" ream (it had previously been .0615"). Did you know aluminum spelled backwards is pronounced muni mu la ?

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Then I backed up that piece of aluminum with another and clamped it it the vise. While pressing and turning the ss rod into the hole, I sawed it off with a cutting wheel in the Dremel.

Rods7.JPG

Do you see the part in the fixture above? I don't either, so I made some extras. At least one of them is somewhere on the floor of my shop. I was thinking how in the heck am I going to deburr these little rascals. I decided NOT to. Cutting them off this way did leave a very little "head" on them like a little rivet, but the top of the rivet was smooth. The little head keeps the pin from falling through the rod, easing the assembly.

Rods8.JPG

Above I trial assembled all the rods and put them on the crank. Boy am I glad I did! I had not sufficiently rounded the lower end of some of the slave rods, and they would not wag back and forth and didn't want to spin around the master crank pin. So more radiusing and deburring was performed. Assembling like this shown above was a piece of cake compared to later when I had to assemble it in the crankcase, with the cylinders mounted and the pistons on the top of the rods. That was like assembling a ship in a bottle. Still, I really think this is a clever clever design!

Rods9.JPG

This is my "special" cat, he gets to spend a lot of time in the house. He was a "gift" from my daughter. The way you read "gift" is, he came home from college with her, but then he never left...

Several more easy things to do but the engine is getting close to being done now and I am Jonesing to see it running.

Thanks for looking over this.

best regards,
Dave

Rods1.JPG Rods2.JPG Rods3.JPG Rods4.JPG Rods5.JPG Rods6.JPG Rods7.JPG Rods8.JPG Rods9.JPG
 
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Making the Head Gaskets

Gasket1.JPG

The picture above is my first attempt at making a head gasket for my halo. I looked at it and thought, "There is a small possibility that it might work, but it sure looks like s#!^." And I needed to make at least 4 more.
I had already decided I was going to make the valve cover gaskets by drilling through them in the jig shown above where I drilled the valve cover holes in the valve covers and in the heads. I make a valve cover gasket with that jig and it came out great! So I decided to make a quick jig to make the head Gaskets.

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Set up the drill press and the mill so I could cut both sized holes in the gasket without removing it from the jig.

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Holes drilled.

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I dropped a 3/8" pin in a cylinder and then into the hole in the gasket. I traced around the cylinder and cut off the outside with scissors.

This method made much nicer looking and hopefully functional Head Gaskets. Mr Gasket is laughing I'm sure. I needed the gaskets because I want to double check the length of push rods before I made them. And of course, I will need the gaskets soon.

Dave

Gasket1.JPG Gasket2.JPG Gasket3.JPG Gasket4.JPG Gasket5.JPG
 
Looks like we have a runner!


I installed one cylinder head on the completed crankcase. I am going to make sure each cylinder is running one at a time because I think it would be pretty difficult to determine that all cylinders are "firing" if I connected them all at the same. Not to mention, I'm still deciding how I want to make the intake manifold that will feed all five.

None the less, I was pretty excited that the one cylinder runs this well pulling all the pistons etc with really little air pressure, only 10psi. The flywheel is borrowed from my Small Marine Engine that is also posted on this site.
 
Congratulations cant wait to see all five working .

Brian.
 
Dress rehearsal on all five cylinders.


After much assembly, dis-assembly, tweaking, tinkering and reassembly etc, it is running nicely on all five cylinders now. It still needs to be broken in some more. The more I run it, the smoother it gets.
I need to pretty it up a little, etc., but it is pretty much done now! I'm very pleased with the way it turned out. This is really a very cleaver design!

Thanks for reading this and looking at the pictures. Best Regards, Dave
 
That is truly awesome! I can't imagine the patience necessary to fiddle with all those tiny parts!
Love it!


Stan,
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
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