Crossley Otto Langen

[Johnmcc69]

Looking real good Craig!
 Still silently following along...
 Gotta love those crazy CAD programs...
-Nice work there as well.

 John

[Alyn Foundry]

Good morning Craig.

I noticed you mentioned the use of Acetylene as fuel for this engine.

Have you persevered with the use of Propane? At the Anson only the " carrier " is Hydrogen fuelled the main charge is Propane and air.

Acetylene is both messy and expensive and if you're going with electric ignition it seems unnecessary from my point of view.

The only " Atmospheric " engine in my collection, a Leek number 3 runs beautifully on Propane with a spark from a Trembler box. I'm aware that there are differences in the final part of the running cycle but it's the " POP " we're after! I'm reminded of my two youngest son's vying with each other to see who could shoot a Tennis ball the farthest with homemade " Spud " guns, hmmm, was Dad a bad influence, I wonder?

Cheers Graham.

[Craig DeShong]

Thanks for your suggestions Graham.  Any and all input is appreciated.  I may try propane but I don’t hold out much hope.  My 1st Otto Langen won’t even try to run on propane, I can’t get it to fire even once with that fuel.  It runs well on acetylene and I have seen several other Otto Langen engines of this size and they all seem to use acetylene.

If you look up the chemistry you will see that acetylene reacts with oxygen in two separate chemical formulas, one producing carbon monoxide, the other carbon dioxide.  This gives a very large range of fuel to air ratios where combustion can occur.

Cuntrolling the fuel to air ratio with these engines is nearly impossible; thus I suspect is why I have better success with acetylene.

[Alyn Foundry]

I agree totally with your sentiments Craig.

Propane is definitely a tricky gas to work with, particularly mixture. It has a very narrow band where a rapid burn occurs. This is what we want, of course.

I discovered that using " proprietary " made burners gave excellent mixture for both hot tube and engine alike.

Out of interest how do you ignite the charge on your first Otto engine? Is it a single spark or do you use a trembler box? I discovered that the trembler beat single spark by a long way.

Cheers Graham.

[kvom]

After two weeks away from home and arriving back with a cold, I finally felt like entering the shop if only to cut off the hydraulic tube for Craig.  Hope to find a suitable packaging tube today or tomorrow.

[Craig DeShong]

Thanks Kirk.  And thanks forcthe "heads up".  I'll be sure to "sanitize" it when it arrives. 

[Craig DeShong]

Graham... I use a "buzz box" which is probably the same as your "trembler box".

[Alyn Foundry]

Graham... I use a "buzz box" which is probably the same as your "trembler box".

Indeed, the very same.

I've recently been in contact with Geoff Challinor, the curator of the Anson engine museum. They have one of Wayne's scale models.

It seems the culprit is " wet plug syndrome " When starting from cold Propane makes a tremendous amount of water vapour which condenses everywhere, including the little sparkplug at the bottom. This effectively kills the ignition, a non runner ensues. Like you, Geoff has found that Acetylene is the only fuel that works from cold.

So Craig, I stand corrected but what might be interesting is to see if you could change fuels once the engine has " warmed up " a little?

Cheers Graham.

[Craig DeShong]

John, Graham, Kirk; thanks for stopping by, and a BIG thanks to Kirk  for supplying the hydraulic cylinder for the bore on this project.

I’ve been working steadily on the interior of the cylinder and base these last few days.  I’ve also worked on some of the major profiling for the base as you can see in the photo below.



Here I’m starting to work down the diameter of this large (everything is relative) piece of aluminum.



In preparation of receiving the hydraulic cylinder I started boring out the interior of the column.  My first attempt at this (no photo provided) was to assemble the base to the cylinder and to bore the entire length to a diameter of 2 inches.  It didn’t take long for me to realize the folly of this venture.   Trying to hold a bore within ½ a thousandth of an inch over nine inches was going to be very tedious. 

One of the great things of creating your own design is that you can change the design as required.  The design quickly morphed to: boring the base alone to the two inches and then boring the column to slightly over two inches, except for the very top of the column which I bored to slightly less than two inches.  This required me to hold a tight tolerance for only the base and again at the very top of the cylinder.  This also resulted in pressing in the hydraulic cylinder much easier since it only contacted the engine frame at the extreme bottom and top.

In this photo I’m boring the cylinder to slightly over the two inch diameter of the hydraulic cylinder sleeve.



In this photo I’m boring the base alone to a size where the hydraulic cylinder could be pressed through the base.



With the aluminum frame ready to receive the sleeve (hydraulic cylinder) I’ve moved on to preparing the hydraulic cylinder.  Here I’m facing the ends to correct length.



With the hydraulic cylinder the correct length I’m shaving a bit of material off the cylinder so it will fit inside the aluminum frame.



I had changed the design so that the hydraulic cylinder would press into the base, slip through the majority length of the cylinder, and have a resistance fit into a final short length of the top of the cylinder.  I started with a two thousandths press fit at the base and it was obvious from the get-go that this was too stiff of a press.  I reduced the resistance to a one thousandths press fit and my hand arbor-press managed to press the hydraulic cylinder into the base about a half inch before the process stalled.  Fortunately, a machinist  friend has a hydraulic press which I used to finish the press.  He also informed me that larger diameters such as two inches really only need a ½ thousandth interference so I will file this away for future use.



Here I show the engine base and cylinder (frame) with the hydraulic cylinder installed.



I’ll be moving on to shaping the exterior of the base and cylinder next.  This will be merely cosmetic work. 

I was at a used equipment sale with a friend a while back and as we walked along the tables he picked up a bullnose and asked, ”Do you have one of these?”.  I informed him I didn’t know what it was so I doubted if I did.  He replied that it was a “bullnose” and you place it in the tailstock of you lathe to support larger diameter work than a standard live center would support.  I informed him that I doubt I needed it but he replied, “Man, you’re always making weird stuff and you need to buy this, you’ll need it sooner or later”.  I passed it by, and of course, now I need a bullnose.

Necessity being the mother of invention, I’ve made do with this fabricated doodad that will perform the same function for 1 ½ inch bores.



And here is the setup I’ll use starting tomorrow to complete the lathe work on the exterior.

[Brian Rupnow]

I have a brand new bull-nose that I have never used. But I will, sometime. Story behind that is me machining a piece of pipe about 2" diameter x 6" long a couple of years ago. I only wanted to take a very light skim of material off the outside diameter to clean it up. I held one end in the chuck jaws, and thought, I should have something to support the outboard end, but, "Oh heck, I'm only going to take a very light cut---it'll be okay." Tool dug in, pulled pipe out of chuck jaws, pipe came out of lathe at 2000 miles an hour--missed me but put a hole in the drywall opposite where the lathe sets. After changing my pants, I cobbled up a fixture to support the outboard end and finished the job. Next day I bought the bull-nose.---Brian

[kvom]

Given that I shipped it on Monday it found its forever home pretty darn quickly. 

[Craig DeShong]

Thanks for those of you stopping by to see the progress. 

Kirk, a moment on panic.  I’ve had a few things misdelivered/lost lately and I thought, when I didn’t see it on the porch, that it had suffered the same fate… but I found it in the mailbox!

Progress continued over the last few days.  I profiled the exterior of the column and then made the cut-out for the slide valve.  The setup is below.

[Jasonb]

Some good progress there.

It's a small bore for a large diameter column, was the original water jacketed all the way up as that would explain the need for the large OD much like the octagonal base on the earlier otto?

[Craig DeShong]

Jason

Scale bore would be 2 inches, not the 1 1/2 inches I'm using.

I do believe the full size has a extensive water jacket.  In the attached picture you can see a water drain coming out near the top of the column.

[Craig DeShong]

After another day of working on some remaining odds-and-ends on this base/cylinder I’m ready to put it aside and start working on the top frame and axle supports.  I’ve included a final picture of the cylinder/base but without looking hard you’d be hard pressed to see any difference from the previous pictures.

In case you've taken this as a challenge: I have drilled and threaded the mounts for the top frame, added some cosmetic studs to the base and some cosmetic bolt holes to the top of the cylinder, and I’ve drilled the fuel/air & exhaust passage from the valve face into the cylinder.