My Beaut Aussie Cent

[Stephen White]

More progress today with Frank's marvellous Meteor, assembling the accessories case, magnetos, coolant pump and starter motor. That was after I corrected a small error spotted by Frank, illustrating the principle that if something can be assembled the wrong way round, 50% of the time it will be. No harm done and having the photos of Frank's build to hand helps a lot.

[simon_manning]

Thats a Fantastic bit of equipment, Lovely detail, keep the build coming, regards simon.

[Stephen White]

Frank's Meteor continues to delight and amaze me in equal measures. The level of detail Frank has achieved is simply stunning. Like all good scale models, most of it will be covered up eventually but there's just something about knowing it's all there. It's going together very easily when I get the time between puppies, Covid, filming aircraft at the Fleet Air Arm Museum, film editing and generally being idle retired. Not enough hours in the day. Looking forward to catching up with Frank and seeing his original Meteor at TankFest in the not too distant future.

Today's update is mostly about building and temporarily fitting the Meteor induction system, air intakes, carburettors, induction manifolds etc

[Adrian Harris]

Nice to see what hundreds of hours of research, CAD, 3D printing and building can achieve

Adrian.

[Stephen White]

Next bit of detailing on the induction system. The ki-gass primer lines to the atomisers. Trying to follow the original patterns as far as possible.

I've got through over 500 fasteners so far, another resupply inbound from Knupfer.

[Frank Breitenbach]

Hello Stephen
If you need more fasteners, please let me know. I will bring it with me.
All the best
Frank

[Stephen White]

Thank you Frank - you’ve been more than generous already. You can certainly help me identify the few very small parts I’ve not found a home for.

[Frank Breitenbach]

Hello Stephen
Witch parts do you mean? Do you have photos?
Frank

[Stephen White]

Frank, more progress today with the fan drives but I'm struggling to find where the two parts at the bottom of the photo go. They were with the induction system parts.

[Frank Breitenbach]

Hello Stephen
These parts are for the oil tubes mounting at the wheel case cover.
Frank

[Stephen White]

Thank you - identified.

[Stephen White]

Timely or what. My great friend in Australia, Paul Scott, who owns ARN169064, has just acquired a new and upgraded Meteor. 064 already has a new pack so this is a truly great spare to have. The engine has received modifications to the top end and valve gear which push the output to over 700 bhp and improves reliability. The mark of how good the Meteor was can be seen in its ability to be upgraded and grow both the power output and reliability. When you consider that the Meteor essentially replaced a modified World War One Liberty engine which produced 300 bhp on a good day, you can see what a world beating engine it was. it remained so until the high power diesels replaced the petrol motors. Thanks to Paul for the photos.

[Stephen White]

More work on assembling the fan drives and tensioners. Needs a bit of cleaning up but good to have another assembly done.

Some interesting colour details in these Vietnam photos via Paul Scott:

In the second photo above, the replacement engine unit still has a preservative coating which appears to alter the standard RR/Leyland colour for the crankcase etc.

These test figures for Paul's engine are very illuminating. The engines were governed down to 2,600 rpm but at an ungoverned 2,750 rpm, the engine was putting out a corrected gross 810 bhp. Phenomenal performance for such a highly developed engine, particularly as it was unsupercharged. The book figure for the Meteor Mk 4B was 650 bhp at 2,550 rpm

[Phil Dawe]

Stephen, the Meteor engine build is a work of art! Love it

[Stephen White]

Thanks Phil, Centurions having a second wind at the moment. What a great Armortek model. Some progress on the ignition harness for the outer bank of plugs.