And so it begins... RPR's Engine Build

[Pete Nash]

Robert

That oft quoted message comes to mind

You don't have to be crazy to work here, but it helps'. It should be prominently displayed in your workshop

You are either Mad, Crazy, Insane or, as I suspect, an excellent modeller and machinist.

Good luck to you and I admire your courage and pluck as well as your skill. I'm jealous.

Merry Crimbo

Pete

[Robert Reid]

Another Saturday.... more progress!

Finished the clutch and it has its spring in it. The bearing I am using is at the Post Office, so I'll pick up on Monday and can fit the rear plate and the motor and the sump, methinks.



Much of today was spent working on the piping. And I got about 3/4 done, still having to do two water pipes. One thing that I learned here is that you need to do this BEFORE painting the blocks. Fortunately, I am building 2 engines and have another one waiting in the wings, so was able to use that for mockup. Assemble the whole engine first, before finishing to save scratched paint and frustration! Fortunately, the spare engine relieves me of having to endure either!



Above shows the work I am doing on the piping, the iconic feature of a Ghost engine. It's brass and copper and the contrast is beautiful. So I decided to fit copper to the manifolds (water and intake) to make them look original. This uses the original brass castings and adds in copper segments for the proper look and feel. Two pipes... almost all day! Cutting apart the factory pipes, drilling them for shouldered copper segments, soft soldering together and filing/sanding!



Closer shot of the front of the intake manifold. This shows the fettled end with the copper fitted. The other end is not yet filed of excess solder. But is assembled. Note that the spark plugs (one of tomorrow's projects) are progressing. Plugs are just sitting in holes, loosely.



Close up of water manifold and spark plugs, in progress. Note that the water manifold is split, which became RR practice. The crankcase would grow almost .040" when hot. And the 'one piece' manifolds had a bad habit of cracking after a while, because they were always being stressed. The answer was to cut them and put a hose in-between, even on earlier models. As it made 'assembling' the water manifold much easier, I decided to do this modification. I'll do the same on the side water manifold!



One of the engine blocks with the plugs installed. The other block needed another coat of paint, so it will get done in a couple of days. The broad plugs are the core plugs. The three plugs centered over the cylinders are the blanking plugs for the sparking plug holes when RR went to plugs over the valves instead of one plug over the valve and one over the center of the piston. These holes had to be drilled! Of course!



One more picture of the block with plugs installed. Awaiting valves and installation. I am not going by the Armortek procedure... but it seems to be coming together.

One thing that I have to figure out is the distributor tower. Needs some studs!

Having a ball with this kit.

Cheers,

RPR

[Vince Cutajar]

Having a ball with this kit.

I can well imagine it.
Great upgrades you are doing on it.

Vince

[Robert Reid]

Some good progress today, but I was bouncing around like a ferret on a double cappucino. So progress on lots of fronts. Each component is like a little kit of its own. Very fun!

Spark plugs... As I mentioned, didn't just want to go with the kit plugs, and wanted something that looked like ceramic without having to fire up (and build) a kiln. So I took an unconventional approach which was to use some small pieces of ivory. I have a tiny supply of preban ivory I use for restoring shotgun beads, gun sights and other strange things. So I turned up several pieces and epoxied them onto studs. Once cured, I will do final shaping of the plugs. The ivory is a dead ringer for ceramic!



Here is a pair of the rough plugs in place on the block. Got the second block finished, too. All the plugs in and valve guides fitted.



Took on the magneto and decided that I didn't want to use the factory Watford, but to put on the earlier Bosch. And to replace the aluminum insulation block with a piece of red fiber (from an old magneto block!). So after re-shaping the Armortek mag and fitting a disk, I added a couple of other details. And made an insulation block. The Bosch magnetos were used before WW1 when, not surprisingly, the supply rather dried up. And they went to Watfords. But Bosch magnetos were prevalent in the early cars. And in the Springfield cars, as American Bosch was its own company, unaffected by WW1, even after the US entered the fray.



New Magneto block. This will complicate the plug wire fitting... but is a neat little detail. I'll have the mag finished and painted tomorrow and will post better pictures.



I also modified the magneto shaft by cutting up the factory (mag end) guide and putting the nut on the shaft. Small details, but after painting, will look the part.



Ok... now on to the poser that has had me scratching my head for some weeks. How do do a more authentic fan hub. And one that points the right way (sorry Kian and Mark... it's the one fly in the ointment!). Here is a genuine Ghost fan hub. With a cast steel center and pulley and attached fan blades. Originally, the blades were a single layer of 1/8" aluminum, but these proved weak over decades and double-layer 'reinforced' blades are now standard for those who don't want punctured radiators and bonnets. The question is, now to replicate the hub (I can fit blades easily) without creating a casting forge.



The answer was to machine a hub and then solder on vanes. And do it twice, because Dave Dibb at Armorpax said that if I send him a prototype, he'll cast them in Britannia so everyone can have one! So I've made two and will probably make a third for my other engine. Here is one pair, showing one after media blasting to remove the flux. Also much machining of soldered vanes. After these get finished, tomorrow, one will go to Armorpax and I'll put blades on the other. Not sure Dave's schedule for casting, but he seemed pretty enthusiastic!



Just an update picture on the whole thing. Starting to look rather pretty!



Tomorrow I'll finish the mag and move onto the distributor. I have some great pictures for everyone on that. As I don't want to use brass for the points block, I have dug out a block of ebony, which will look absolutely perfect when machined and drilled up.

Cheers and wishing everyone large piles of Armortek boxes under your trees in a couple of days!

RPR

[Robert E Morey]

Beautiful work Robert, The little engine looks like it should run!

Love that little hammer plenishng tool - very nice finish. Your finished parts are museum quality!

I wanna see that finished fan! Way cool little prototype hub.

Best regards, Bob

[Robert Reid]

Ah, Christmas eve... peace and quiet. Except that the heat went out in the shop. But while waiting for the propane fillup, got some good stuff done!

First, tackled the distributor and in timely fashion, my friend David Morrison did a great article on the RR "Pancake" distributor, which I thought I'd share here. As it shows in detail the RR Derby pre-war distributor. Hopefully, this will give you some ideas on how to finish and/or replicate.



Here are the original parts, and some pieces of ebony wood that I used to replicate the bakelite distributor parts. Some of them really tiny, when it comes to the points-adjusting knob around the perimeter.



In addition to making the new points cap, I replicated the air pump, which is, in essence, a fuel pump, pressurizing the gas tank to 1 - 2 PSI driving gas into the carb. Very reliable! I still have some finishing to do on the tower, mainly in the surface finish. And adding the nuts/bolts to the holes. The threaded 'studs' will take slip-on plug wire ends. If I get ambitious, I'll number it with the firing order 142635. One is at the front. Rotation is clockwise. Jeff... feel like an engraving project?



Here is another view of the distributor, and one of the water pump. Did a bit of re-shaping and then tinned it. The original pumps were tinned as they were sand cast bronze and could weep if not tinned. So I took the brass Armortek part and tinned it, then sanded off parts of the tin to expose the brass. Looks great!



And then we are back to the fan... which I finished today. When you get your fan hub from Dave Dibb... I suggest using epoxy. I used solder. Silly me. But read on. First, here is a real fan!



And here is a soldered-up 1/6th fan sitting on... a fan. The blades are made of shim brass, about .030 thick and 3/8" wide. I almost made them out of German Silver, to polish, but decided to use brass as most of the original fans were painted black. Though today, everyone wants shiny polished aluminum blades because they are pretty... the originals were almost always painted black. (And if you want to start a fight at a gathering of Ghost owners.. bring that up. But I have history on my side...) Anyhoo....



Here is a less-cluttered and close-up image of the same fan. The major PITA here was soldering on the blades... onto the soldered-on fan bosses. Want to solder something to something that is soldered.... be prepared to melt all your solder. Resorted to doing it in a bath of water.... keeping most of the hub submerged while I soldered the part 'above water' with a jewelers torch. Next time, I'll glue the damn things! The good news is that the hub pattern worked great, the prototype is on the way to Dave Dibb at Armorpax, who will create a Britannia version for everyone... and I don't have to solder vanes on again! Though I am rather proud of my soldering here.



And after all that, I went and painted it....



Well, at least you guys will know what went into it! Because noone else will, ever!

Tomorrow.... short day, but it is a tradition that I spend a few hours in the shop on Christmas Day. It's one of those things...

I should finish the Magneto, get the Water Pump shaft done.. and maybe the spark plugs final turned. The trick to turning ivory is very, very, very high speed!

Thanks for all the encouragement, too! I hope to inspire some other great builds, because I know some of you can take this to even higher levels!

Have a very Merry Christmas all my Armortek friends!

Cheers,

RPR

P.S. It's not Christmas until after Hans Gruber falls off Nakatome Plaza... Some of you will LOL at this

[Robert Reid]

Actually did not get to the shop on Christmas... so much for that tradition. But I did get to plan a motorcycle trip for next year on the Trans-Labrador highway... so it was not a total loss.

Today, completing and continuing on components as the core of the engine is about ready to go together. At this point, I just have the manifold to polish along with water pipes... oil lines. Carb. And final assembly. Though I have some other modifications I need to make to the fan boss/bearing and I need to make an oil pump. So... its almost almost done.

This is just the bearing that is holding the flywheel on. I made a complete new rear cover to carry the flywheel so that it will spin. Not connected to the electric motor. It simply freewheels.




Finished the sparking plugs, without breaking a single one! Decided that the grooves were worth the risk. And they were!



Magneto finished and assembled. Came out rather well!



Another picture of the magneto with its fiber block. I have a strategy for attaching the wires... more on that later.



Exhaust manifold with coupler made from German Silver bar. Decided not to put on the downpipes and muffler on the display engine as they just cover things. So put on the threaded couplers. In scale, these would be 96 threads per inch... too fine. But 64 TPI seems to look nice and went very nicely into the German Silver bar! Manifolds are painted with cast-iron grey. Originals were oil blacked, but would turn greyish in time.



Water pump shaft modified a bit to take out some bulk. And a new gland packing piece fitted to the pump (also german Silver and knurled very finely like the original. Because I put a 'foot' on the pump, it now no longer lines up with the hole on the crankcase. I'll be making a plug for the large hole and drilling for the shaft tomorrow.



Ah the intake manifold... the epitome of something I always try and avoid... which is breaking in to jail! But in for a penny, in for a pound. Almost ready for polishing. Decided it needed a starting carb fitted. So turned one up and drilled infernally small holes in it. It will get an adjusting nut on the top after polishing. And it got its on/off actuator fitted. The mounts for the ignition tubes are epoxy'd on at this point as I was tired of soldering on this little assembly. I think the epoxy will hold. Two more mounts still need to be fitted.



The carb side. Made a couple of very minor alterations to the kit carb nut and fitted it with a drop of solder. Last major component that I have not done is the carb, Still trying to decide what, if anything, to do with it. Because it is really pretty good! I am thinking a bit of knurling and I might try and throw on some levers... But hard to beat what Mark and Kian did from the get go. Which is hard to do... because the carb is a hard part to do!



Cheers,

RPR

[Robert Reid]

Lots done today as I have finished most of the components... and am now on the assembly of the engine proper. Didn't take many pictures, either.

But here are two:



Setting up the water pump and pipes to solder the z-pipe onto the water manifold. Just the way I wanted to do it. And had to make sure the water pump was also in place and in alignment.



Here is the finished manifold, awaiting the tubes for the magneto wires. All polished. Found that the best way to polish was to sand and then use a very fine wire brush on a dremel. It will get one more treatment before installation on the engine.

Rest of the day was fitting the electric motor to the front cover (had to relieve that a bit) and fitting the sump to the crankcase, adding a few details to the sump, making some ebone 'rubber hoses' and, last, putting the blocks on. Which, due to my changing to studs and nuts and having them all 'together' took longer than it takes to put a set of real blocks on a real Ghost! 8BA screws on studs, behind valves, was no fun at all. A few colorful words were uttered. But the finished result is quite spectacular! Especially now that Spark Plugs are final fitted!

I have some more work to do, but instead of being a pile of parts now, it's starting to become an engine. The oil lines are going to be... fun! But the Armortek instructions and templates are amazing and will make the process painless, I am sure.

More pictures tomorrow!

Cheers,

RPR

[Robert Reid]

Lots of progress today and lots of photos... and a bit of a side excursion that I have been mulling over and decided to run with today!

First, the fan. All finished. I added an extension to the carrier and re-made the spindle with a shoulder so it could fit in my fan and have it still spin. Everything is now lined up so the belt is true with the drive pulley. Note the hex at the end, which is how the original is adjusted.



Finished fan showing nut at front and a small German Silver washer to hold it in place.



So before I get to pictures of the engine with 'stuff' thrown at it... here is my side excursion. A stand like the ones we use at the shop. Here is one of our stands, designed by Ed Lake some 60 years ago and sort of the industry standard for RR restoration, at least here in the U.S. In it is a Phantom 1 engine about ready for line boring.



Here is the 1/6th scale version, soldered up from brass rod, pipe and U-Channel. Looks very light and spindly, but remarkably strong! Tomorrow, I'll add some wheels, which will mount on the Armortek plaque (which brilliantly hides the wiring, etc! It only took about 2 hours to make. Though I still have to make the mounts themselves, which will use the same mounting holes as the Armortek kit and their lovely square bolts!!!



Here is the stand next to the engine, which is starting to come together nicely.



Here is the ignition/carb side of the engine with parts final-fitted. Front manifold is awaiting my making the last little ebony 'pipe' which will connect the two. Water pump is done and awaiting the manifold installation. The distributor is final fitted. Studs 'sticking out' will be cut off with a Dremel cut-off.



Left side of the engine with the valves, etc. permanently assembled. Along with the manifolds installed. Mag in place, too.



Flywheel fitted on its bearing and the rear of the engine with manifolds fitted.



Top(ish) view of the engine with plugs installed. I am still debating whether to fit the plug wires as they will sort of clutter things up. Trying to come up with a may to make them look right and scale. Note that the pair of tubes carrying the Magneto plug wires will be painted red fiber color as these were not metal, but insulated red linen-sort of plastic.

Lots of nice contrasts, too. All the different metals and materials. It's one of the reasons a Ghost motor is so lovely!



Well, more to do tomorrow... But also a pile of errands to run, so I'll see how much I get done tomorrow. I do expect to finish the whole thing before the end of Jan 1, though!

Cheers,

RPR

[Robert Reid]

And a very, very fun, if truncated, day today! Lots of little things finished and added to the engine. Just a few more bits that need to be fabricated and fitted, including the carb. Which I think I figured out how I am going to do today...

First thing was to finish the engine stand by putting on the actual mounts and making some casters from brass bar. They rotate! But there is a nicely drilled little hole in each that will let me put a bolt through it and bolt the engine stand to the Armortek base. While still keeping the stand.... rolling in theory!



I decided, after all, that the engine needed an oil pump and a main oil line. And set about to make one out of German Silver bar. Originally the 'hanging' housing was aluminum and the pump Bronze. But as I wanted to solder it together, German Silver was the material of choice. And all polished up, it is really pretty! A piece of brass tube made the main oil line to the sump plate. I went a bit of crazy with the pump itself, even putting a tiny thread on the outlet pipe side as I was not going to put the front oil pipe on.



Oil Pump, Water pump (and front water inlet pipe) and the Distributor all together and in place. All run off one cam gear, this is one of the lovely areas of a Ghost Motor. So much going on... whirring away silently. And so beautifully executed by Henry Royce. Such a shame it's hidden under a mobile drawing room or an Armoured car... An RR chassis is a thing of beauty!



Last photo of the day is just a progress shot... Tomorrow, oil pipes and carb. And I'll paint the stand (covering up all that beautiful brass... what a shame!) So that I can bolt it all up on Jan 1. By the end of tomorrow, I ought to be finished... or almost finished. If not, I'll likely finish next weekend as I have to get back into the swing of working... come Wed!



I am now pondering whether I want to go this far with my 'chassis' engine... or further. But I think the next project will be the Armored car proper, and that engine will not get this level of detail. Though the interior is going to get some pretty major work done to it! I suspect that when I do my bare chassis, it will be done with an engine done to this degree... and a chassis to match. But that my be next winter!

Cheers,

RPR

[Robert Reid]

After a couple of weeks vacation to un-cross my eyes and handload about 3,000 .45's for the summer.... I am back to the engine with, probably, only one day to go. Just needed a break!

During the hiatus, though, I got the stand painted and the engine mounted in its stand. This weekend was dedicated to pipes, creating a coil and mount and starting on the carb. Which I am going a bit overboard on, but as Royce Carbs are a specialty at the shop... I needed to have some fun with this. It sort of needed working parts...

First, for those building the kit, do your piping BEFORE you start assembling the engine. And I highly recommend solder. I used cyanoacrylate and epoxy.... and ended up not being happy. A small torch and very fine wire solder... and short work! But do this early on, before finishes are applied, etc. I had the spare engine to use for mocking up. Which was a big relief!



Here are most of the oil pipes bent up. Note that the front one is bent sideways, per the original cars, to clear the distributor tower. These are all mocked up and were later soldered in place on the mockup Done again, I'd have put these on earlier. They need to go on before manifold and distributor tower! Can still be done, but not as easily. Note that I have a full external oil galley fitted and a z-pipe on the extra oil valve. The kit had a smaller line, but a piece of 1/8" copper with some holes drilled in it... along with pipes that lead to the main bearings, added a bit of 'je ne sais quois...' to the whole thing.



Two of the pipes. One has a 12BA nut on it... with the threads drilled out. I 'almost' put nuts on the termination points to simulate the flare nuts. But decided that was nuts. So didn't. Someone else may want to attempt!



Oil lines all in place... and time to start on the coil mount and coil. Note that the joints on the oil lines were fettled and shaped in order to take off the sharp edges and make them look original. The pieces from Armortek are just wonderful little jewels! But I wanted to re-shape them. Note the end one in the next photo.



Here is the end of the oil line. More importantly, the coil, which is made of ebony. And the coil mount which was hand filed out of a piece of aluminum and then the 'post' was made out of German Silver and brass and glued to the aluminum arm. Coil is a bit 'under-sized' according to scale. Making it full-size... was just too imposing. If I did the math right, it's 1/8th scale, but more visually appealing on the engine.



Another similar view, showing the bracket for coils and the oil lines. Just a pretty picture. And now... to the carb!



Out of the box, Armortek has done a remarkable job with one of the most difficult carbs ever created. It's said that the Ghost carb is the finest carburetter ever designed... mated up to the worst intake manifold! But as a casting set, it is so beautiful, Henry Royce can be forgiven! I started by taking all the main castings, smoothing the edges and making some dimensional changes... then soldering them all together. The extra air valve body and the float bowl were silver-soldered together (so they would not fall apart) when I soft soldered the throttle body to the other two. Before doing that, I had drilled out the castings and cut off the extra air valve. As I wanted to build one with its internals in place. It's one of the hallmarks of a Ghost motor... and one worth replicating.



Here is the close-up of the extra air valve... I'll post an original carb next week, when I think to take some pictures. Sorry it's blurry.



Here are the parts of the extra air valve showing screw-on lid, piston and body -- knurled. I have already put in a penny washer and stud... but did not take a picture before heading home for a nice IPA. Next weekend. I'll also finish the throttle body and plan on putting in a piston and a lever in that one. Next Saturday. And that should finish it.

I am trying to 'straighten' the plinth/plaque that the engine will mount on as it came in really warped. So I have put a table leg on it and left it for three weeks.

Enjoy and hope I have given some folks some ideas... for good or evil.

Cheers,

RPR

[Robert Reid]

Oh and Dave Dibb... fan hub inbound.

Cheers,

RPR

[Jeffrey Goff]

Superb workmanship Robert, the attention to detail will make this a show stopper
regards Jeff

[Robert Reid]

Greetings Armortek loyals...

So basically finished the motor. Just waiting on a new fan belt.

But first, the carb. Which now has about 40 parts in it, including working extra air valve and throttle body. It just seemed like a good idea at the time!



Here is the extra air valve, working with spring and piston.



Completed carb, next to my watch (for scale). Played a lot with the castings to have some fun with it. All metal, nice complex little kit in itself. Armortek did an amazing job with the parts!



Now, some pictures of the finished motor. Just need to mount on the beautiful walnut base Armortek sent. But it was a bit warped. I put it in a press for a month and now perfect. Urethane finish drying on it. The base is really cool as it has recesses cut in the bottom for the plugs/controllers. I'll just post all the views of the motor, on its stand, ready to go on the metal base.




























That's all the views. I'll post a picture of it on its base, probably next weekend.

Now... to start the 25 PDR to go with my finished Limber... or the Armoured car?

Well, I have two civil war cannons to finish.... that's now to end of Feb. So I have time to decide!

Cheers,

RPR

[Phil Woollard]

Stunning achievement regards Phil