Day-184-Rebuild-2 – Running on Air

Slow Air Running

Below is a video of the engine running on compressed air on day 184 – 6 months from the start of the refurbishment.

Except for the exhaust beats and lubricator ratchet it’s running dead silent.

Rolls Royce Joke

Years ago there was an Ad for Rolls Royce cars that went like this:-

“In this Rolls Royce Silver Cloud travelling at 60 miles an hour the only thing you can hear is the clock on the dashboard”

“My goodness,” said the Rolls Royce engineer… “we’d better do something about that clock…”

My Little Samson

“In this Little Samson Traction Engine running on air the loudest noise you can hear is the lubricator ratchet”

“My goodness,” said Alan. “I’d better do something about that ratchet…”

Also in the video you’ll notice that the Weightshaft Arm doesn’t budge at all. This is because I fitted an outrigger bearing to support the opposite end of the weightshaft whereas the Little Samson drawings shows that end of the shaft cantilevered out to the other Weightshaft Arm.

Here is an extract from an email I sent when I made that modification:-

date:		Dec 4, 2021, 5:05 PM
subject:		LS Enhancements – Expansion Link Bounce Fixed

I mentioned  some time ago that I was determined to eliminate the ‘bounce’ of the links lifting the expansion link.

I went so far as to put hardened bushes with hardened and lapped pins in the pivots on the reach rod.

That improved matters but I finally added an outrigger bearing to the weightshaft which finally completely cured any bounce.

As video shows the wheightshaft and hence the expansion link are rock solid steady.