I was able to acquire this in a trade back in 2009.
The muffler arrangement is not "correct" but I do like the looks of it more than the short straight pipe called for in the drawings. It always ran well but only for a few minutes. After talking with Bob Herder who makes and sells the casting kits, I learned the ignitor points were likely made with the wrong material. At Cabin Fever Expo in January 2020 I brought the engine to Bob and asked him to bring it home with him and rebuild the ignitor with tungsten rods for a near indestructible ignition. He did this and replaced a couple other minor parts and set up the spark saver properly. It would be October before there was another show I would see him and get my engine back at the Coolspring Power Museum fall show and swap. A couple weeks ago I brought it off the shelf to run and it was able to run for a couple hours straight without any trouble.
I thought it was running a little warm. It wasn't breathing well enough to keep it cooler which should never be an issue with no load. I separated the muffler halves and replaced the three .030" spacers with brass nuts .110" tall, threaded the lower half and replaced the bent pins with proper screws. Even after blocking the third of the opening that would blow oil over the engine and tank, it still had far better breathing capacity. After a long run, the head is quite a bit cooler.
Missing from the beginning are the front and rear cast crank case splash guards. I like the 4 column open frame look. While not quite correct, it works for me!
Thanks to Doug for making my rocker arm casting into a nice functional rocker arm.
Thanks to Bob Herder for the ignitor rebuild and tune-up.
Here is a new short video and some pictures.
Enjoy,
Gil
Pictures:
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