Renown with Windmill.

flywheel61 · Renown with Windmill.

I was a little disappointed to find that this very rare Australian stationary engine wasn't in working order when I got it.

The main problem was that the WLP was jambed in its collar and the whole piece had been ripped from the solder. As well the main drive piston was missing and need an oversized one to replace it due to cylinder wear.

As well the whistle was Jambed in it's collar and wouldn't come undone despite trying every method that's been suggested in this forum over the past 18 months or so. So I had to remove the collar and whistle together. After a short time left in boiling water they came apart quite easily. I also wanted to feed the new WLP collar, ordered from Tony, down through this hole but found that the chimney passing right through the boiler negated this idea. So I had to remove the SV collar as well, which is directly above the WLP and collar , in order to fit it by sliding it down a length of wire, with a 'T' at the end so I could apply a little preasure and pull the collar against the boiler wall.

Having soldered the WLP collar into place, I then had a steam tight boiler so I fired it up. Unfortunately it only ran very slowly,

, due to the worn piston/cylinder assembly, and the power was not enough to run the windmaill section,

.

Back to the drawing boards, Tony will make me a new oversized piston in due course, when he has perfected his techiques, and then we will have another go at running one of the rarest of OZ engines.

Without Tony's knowledge the restoration of this erngine would have not been possible, so thank you Tony.

Cheers

Chris

mogogear

Ahh , you are a resourceful chap,

Tomorrow will be another day,, the world of opening boxed is a fickeld thing.. good luck

oldstuff

Two steps forward, one step back...but you and Tony'll get it to the finish line.

tmuir

Don't worry Chris I've been battling with all of my Renowns for over a year to get them up to full order.
Its taken me some time and I've had to build a workshop and buy a lathe but the end is within sight now.

Atleast the whistle is unstuck and you have a working overflow plug so you can run the engine without the windmill connected.

One thing I have noted is that the crank is just a bent up mild steel rod and not always of consistant size, they also bend easily.
So slowly turn the engine over and check the cylinder is getting twisted off the faceplate or exposing the steam pipe completely open as one of mine was.
If it is you just need to buy some 1/8 mild steel rod and carefully bend it up to replace the bent crank.
A mindly bent crank made one of my engines a complete non runner and replacing it now lets the engine run although it still needs more work.

As soon as my new materials arrive I will first be making a filling bolt to replace the missing whistle on one of my engines and then I will be having a go at the cylinder. I need two possible three myself so by the time I've done them I will hopefully of perfected it for you.

Tony

Wallace

That has come up very nice Chris. Well done

So does the WLP on those have to be inserted into the boiler from the inside?

Les

You are at least one step closer to getting it to run properly, which means another step nearer to saving the engine.

flywheel61

wallace wrote

Stitch

Nice work Chris and Tony. Keep at it - I am sure you will get up and running to its full potential

I liked the use of the T-shaped wire. Very ingenious.

Cranko

Is the piston and cylinder on the pump the same as the drive one ?

Steve_S

Good work so far! I'm looking forward to seeing it running properly.

tmuir