Office of Steam Forum for Model & Toy Steam Gas & Hot Air Engines

Did some non precious timing tests...to try to simplify this you can think of the flywheel assembly like a transparent clock, there is a crank pin on the "pulley" side and one on the big "flywheel" side. Viewing the "clock" from Flywheel side rotate engine till pulley pin is at 12 o'clock, flywheel pin will be at 9 o'clock in stock configuration and the flywheel will run clockwise.
  Now stop engine and rotate pulley pin back to 12 o'clock and loosen flywheel set screw and while keeping pulley pin at 12 o'clock rotate loose flywheel pin to 3 o'clock and tighten set screw...engine will now run counter clockwise.
  Rough experiments show you can change timing about plus or minus about 5 minutes so one way it will run between 2 and 4 o'clock and the other way between 8 and 10 o'clock. Both 9 and 3 o'clock "seem" close to optimum but I had to many variables to make determination on that (just yet)
  I did run into some snags that was all part of the fun learning....my engine started to run poorly even at optimum settings and my first thought was I may have contaminated the power piston with oil as I have over oiled this engine and with all the adjustment my fingers where wet with oil....the other thing that happened is during all the timing experiments I had left the burner running while engine stopped (for extended time)and without the air constantly circulate inside the Engine the base was getting really hot. As an experiment I had a glass of drinking water at my work bench and I dip paper towel in my water and sponge down the outer power piston cyl and also the cooling fins and also the metal base and Bingo! I had my Nice running engine back!! So generally the hotter flame gives more speed BUT if the engine is not running internal air by those cooling fins the entire engine can get so warm it will fail to run, the power piston side Must remain much cooler to have a good running Stirling engine. Lesson learned!
  I will do more experiments but getting late here...just super happy the engine IS reversible!