Hi,
I have recently completed making the missing parts for the Mills 1.3cc and wonder if anyone else has made one from the late Ron Churnich drawings? It is always very satisfying to hear an engines first start up after completion and this one starts first flick after a prime and I suppose I should be happy with that, but after about an hours total running, it still will not run much over 6000 RPM,what ever prop is tried. The spec says 10,000 RPM.Compression is perfect and that nice "bouncy" feel when turned over.
I have a great respect for the contribution Ron made to our hobby, but in making this to his drawings and notes I had some doubts about a few things, but nevertheless followed his notes.He does say in the preamble to them that he has not copied the original engine exactly,thinking it would be unethical to do so with what has become a collectors item.He does not say what the difference is.
I think I found out the hard way,as I had an original crankcase and con-rod. When completed it would just about run on a prime, but was clearly not right,so after a strip down and a critical check on everything I realised that the datum top face to crankshaft centreline on the drawing was 0.100"lower than my crankcase and ditto with the con-rod. Clearly this had totally altered the timing and it was a wonder It ran at all.
Two other instructionsI I followed that seemed odd is he advised not to make the liner a tight fit in the crankcase"only an easy sliding fit as differential expansion will tighten thing up" A look at the section G/A shows that a leak path between ports is then a possibility. I compromised by having a push fit.The other query is with lapping the liner/piston fit, advising a taper of 0.0015" to TDC.For a piston under 0.5" diameter this seemed excessive and wasRemachining the crankcase was no problem, but the new con-rod made to the drawing was nothing like the original and is straight sided with no "dogbone" shape and would only just push in the piston with no room for movement. It also touched the crankcase. I re-made it in the same shape as the original. I also re-lapped the liner to give 0.0005" taper at TDC and"grew" the Meehanite piston by over 0.001" on diameter to allow re-lapping to that perfect ffit we strive for