107 year old Evinrude back in service! 1913 at it's best.

[Pappy]

I bought this engine a while back and it ran only one time and was a bear to start. Lots of blow-by which on a 2-stroke is a killer. It sat for a while, then I disassembled it, then it sat for a while longer, then I diagnosed what had to be done. A friend of mine has access to a shop that can true and hone blind cylinders. He took the cylinder up to Tennessee and had that done. Brought it back a few months later.
Then I measured the cylinder, then it sat for a while longer.
Next step was getting a piston ring made for it. Not an easy venture however I have the luxury of being close to a great machine shop with an older master machinist that is tired of the same old stuff. When I brought him the old ring and told him what it was for his eyes lit up. A few weeks later I had a completed ring.
From this point it was a simple task of making gaskets and assembling the rotating assembly again. Not much to one.
It's not often a person gets the honors of bringing back a 107 year old piece of mechanical history.
Anyway....if you are interested this is part of what I have been doing with our stay in place time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kVFGwRMBQs

 

[KMixson]

Nice. I like to see old motors come back to life. Just be careful, I bet that knob on top of the flywheel would hurt if it came into contact with a body part while running.

 

[overboard]

Where's that bow down emoji, interesting just to see a motor that old, and then have it come back to life.
Couple years ago I watched a guy "fire up" (literally) a Stanley Steamer, and I was amazed at the process he needed to go through to get it ready to drive. Think it took about 20 minutes, not exactly like jump in, turn on the key and go! :lol:

 

[Weldorthemagnificent]

Imagine how the original owner felt running that thing on the lake while everyone else was rowing. Great piece of history!

Sent from my CLT-L04 using Tapatalk

 

[Pappy]

KMixson - They had the nickname "Knucklebusters" for that very reason.
Add the fact that the long cylinder faces directly forward and the spark plug had no plug wire cover back then you can easily touch the plug while steering it.
If you have never been whacked by a Ford Model T coil in your life try and keep it that way.......They are potent and that is an understatement. Look them up online in action.

 

[CedarRiverScooter]

Way cool!

 

[BillPlayfoot]

You made Mr. Evinrude proud getting that engine running again.
Great job.

 

[Pappy]

Billplayfoot - Thank you for the comment. When I bought the engine up in Tomahawk Wi. Dennis Evinrude was there when we got it fired up.
Also did some projects at the OMC Test Center for Ralph Evinrude, Ole's son. Ralph was a pretty darned good man.

Here's a picture of Dennis with my wife, Lesa.

 

[nccatfisher]

I believe you had a vid. of when you started it the other time. Glad to see it going now in much better shape.

 

[Pappy]

NC - Wow.....great memory! Yes there was a video of it.
Was really hoping the engine was going to be as good as it seemed to be. It was a bear to start up in Tomahawk but no telling how many decades it had sat before we got it running up there and it was running in almost nothing flat, time wise. The tank was still dirty and lots of other minor issues at that point though as I remember.
When I got it home and started addressing those issues it was still hard to start and that simply was and is not a characteristic of them. It came down to blow-by and then it became a pretty serious project.

 

[Pappy]

Building the piston ring the way I did has produced quite a lot of comments from folks. Some comments were great and some were basically telling me I had no clue what I was doing and that it was simple wear and to expect a ring failure in short order..... Some of the folks learned more than one lesson about piston rings and jumping the gun on posting without all of the facts and in this case, as you will learn, history! I had to learn as well.
The folks in here have been great! We (myself included) can never stop learning if the desire is still there.
Anyway.....How to build the piston ring took a long time to sort out. Why it was .040" thinner on one side? That was initially a mystery. Common sense said it was worn that way but the cylinder did not show any abnormal wear to support that. Information on a 107 year old manufacturing process was sparse to none from my information gurus but slowly things started to fall into place once the ring was being machined. We had a theory and after it was done I installed a concentric ring and noticed quite a bit of friction drag from the ring. Something was bugging me and telling me not to go ahead that way. The machinist agreed that once the ring gap was machined open he was surprised how much tension there was at the gap. What if the ring had originally been made that way for a reason? I had the ring made into an eccentric and that excess friction immediately went away. It was pretty much then that the lights finally turned on and we figured out that with a ring built as healthy as these old rings are that the ring was built as an eccentric to reduce wear by making the pressure from the ring as equal as possible all the way around the circumference of the cylinder.

The "DOHH" moment! Or, in other words "If only I had known"

Only after this process was complete, the engine running and starting well on the eccentric ring, and the video hitting YouTube and Facebook did it come out that there were indeed many old time manufacturers that produced eccentric rings! Never knew it going into the project.
As it turned out, a guy on Facebook that saw the video and read the process was well versed on the history of eccentric piston ring production and thankfully shared his knowledge. His most welcome post was what immediately shut down the negative comments we were seeing! Every one of us learned something very cool about engines! Look up eccentric piston rings and take a look at old time engine history!

 

[CedarRiverScooter]

What is really remarkable about that old school knowledge is that is was developed without all the modern tools we now rely on.

Have fun at the Evinrude convention Pappy!

 

[Weldorthemagnificent]

My first thought was wear on the major thrust side. It's pretty cool seeing the engineering behind old stuff like that. I can imagine the trial and error process and head scratching... The garage full of parts... Wonder how long that motor was in actual use.

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[Pappy]

My first thought was wear on the major thrust side. It's pretty cool seeing the engineering behind old stuff like that. I can imagine the trial and error process and head scratching... The garage full of parts... Wonder how long that motor was in actual use.

Sent from my CLT-L04 using Tapatalk

Weldor - My first thought was excessive wear as well but the thrust side of the piston ring is actually 90 degrees away from the open ring gap. The gap faces straight down on this engine. The bottom side of the cylinder definitely gets more lubrication on this engine as well so that area would have been well lubricated.
Cedar - You're right! A lot of common sense, long hours and learning from failure analysis time and time again. Wonder if being Swedish and having that work ethic played a part in it for Ole.

 

[Kismet]

Sometimes...

this place is just magic.


Thanks, once again, Pappy.

 

[blackshear]

Very cool! Thanks for sharing.

 

[86tuning]

Pappy! I'm always happy to see what you've been up to, especially with antique engineering like this. Great job, and thanks for sharing with us.

Cheers,

Brian

 

[Pappy]

Kismet - Thank you for that post, that comment itself was magical !
Blackshear - Not sure if you have read my profile but I have been extremely lucky to have actually been paid to do the things that I really love to do in my past careers. Has been a constant learning and applications process for many decades now.
Some time back I decided to start "giving back". This particular forum has been extremely receptive to this.
Although I deal with current product my personal interests in learning are trending back farther and farther into history. Vintage and Antique engines are fascinating both in design and execution. I really hope that at least a couple of the younger folks that are part of this forum or some I meet along the path will someday enjoy these engines and hobby as well.
86tuning - Thanks for your comment! Always happy to share with folks who enjoy!