1416 Ralapen Street, Roxboro, North Carolina 27573
Being a person who hates to throw things away, I decided to
build this little hit &. miss engine from some old Briggs WI
parts lying around. Everything else is either shop scrap or came
from a hardware store, except the baby food jar lubricator and pork
and beans can gas tank.
The engine block was cut down to a minimum and all casting and
bosses ground smooth. Because of the lower deck height, a different
connecting rod was fabricated from a piece of aluminum cut off of
an old car air conditioning bracket. The cylinder head is made from
a piece of ?’ plate and half a 2′ pipe cap using the Briggs
?’ valves, and drilled and tapped 10MM for a small chain saw
spark plug. Somehow I got all of this in an area slightly less than
2′ in diameter.
Exhaust valve timing is accomplished by nuts and bolts, flat
bar, and a couple of pieces of angle iron. Carburetor and exhaust
manifold are 3/8‘ brass pipe fittings
with an air adjuster and muffler fabricated from pipe caps. All the
plumbing for the lube and fuel systems is
1/8‘ tubing and fittings. It was
necessary for me to fill the fittings with solder and drill them
different sizes for even distribution of oil and proper air-fuel
ratio. The oiling system is the drip-total loss type and I catch
the oil and recycle it two or three times before it gets too dirty.
Fuel is vacuum feed with a homemade check valve in the gas
tank.
Ignition consists of Briggs points, Volkswagen condenser, Honda
motorcycle coil, and a 12 volt battery pack using 8 AA batteries.
All but the points are concealed under the base. The governor is of
the ground interrupt type and made from 1?’ and ?’ brass
round stock, banding strap and a 2?’ v-belt pulley also used to
start the engine. You use what you got- right?
The pulley on the flywheel drives a 4′ cooling fan with an
O-ring. This has been removed to take the photos. With a 6:1
compression ratio the engine starts easily and the governor holds
it at about 600 rpm, firing intermittently like hit & miss.
Under a load it runs smoothly at 200-300 rpm. For some reason this
engine is real noisy for its size and I did away with the original
straight pipe and put the muffler on.
This little engine was a lot of fun to build and it was really
popular at an engine show I recently attended. And, it was all done
with ordinary hand tools except for the welding on the cylinder
head. (Photos taken by my friend Paul Stewart.)
