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Mamod Enginerium
HOW TO DO STUFF....... (The Mamod Enginerium)
If you own a Mamod
engine there may come a time when that love of your life is
tired or even busted. And there are those "great" eBay buys
that turn out to be duds.
We have decided to show you how we do some of the jobs. We are not
experts - we don't have time to be. But we do produce a
pretty good job and you can too.
First of all you'll need some tools. Small hacksaw, long
nose pliers, ordinary pliers, small screw drivers (flat end and
posi.), butane burner, emery paper, files (flat and triangular),
riveter, vice, Brasso and Brilllo pad. There will be some other
things to.
Number one though you will need a bench to work on...........
almost any bench will do! I can be tidy - or like this one.
Our bench - so nothing too advanced is required
We all know that buying an engine on eBay is like Russian roulette
and your engine may look like any of these.
Plenty of rust, dented chimney.
Ideal for a complete strip down and respray after paint and rust
stripping.
The Water Level Plug hole has been bunged up with
"something".
A fine bit of soldering and some de-zincing.
That's no way to treat a chimney!
Not quite so bad but still needing the dent magician.
Oh flip ... what is this supposed to be?
And one loose chimney that revolves nicely.
Here's a thought for you. Would you benefit from buying a secondhand small air compressor?
Here is one we purchased on eBay and it has been invaluable for
those quick pressure tests and mechanical tests prior to firing
up. It has to be said that it does save a lot of wasted time
and heartache when it comes to wondering if the work we have done
is sound. Why not get one in due course?
Just the (air) ticket
So lets now have a look at
how some of the jobs we do are tackled. The point
being, that YOU too can all of these jobs using some of our
experience. Nothing is difficult. Just a bit fiddly and if
you have the willingness to be patient and try again if necessary,
you are already half way there.
Lets look at a simple task. Tightening up your loose chimney. Well, in truth,
this can't be done - you do have to remove it and start again.
You'll need to firstly drill out the wonky rivet. Then pick up
your riveter. You will notice ours is scrubbed down to
reduce the diameter of the nose by a couple of thousands of an
inch. This is to ease its progress into the chimney.
See below.
Our riveter
Then insert the copper blind
end rivet into the tool and rivet the chimney back into
place. Make sure you seat the chimney properly around the
curve of the boiler and press down quite firmly the obtain a tight
join.
The riveter at work in a tight
space
The piston is running rough in
the cylinder. Here's something that you will
meet occasionally if you do many renovation projects.
It may even be binding owing to limescale or dirt. On the
basis that limescale and dirt is less hard that brass, it is OK to
get a bit brutal. Place the piston rod end into a drill that
can be run slowly. Here we are using a hand-held battery driven
variable speed drill/ driver. Rotate slowly. adding a little oil
into the cylinder if dry.
Running-in a piston
Give it a couple of minutes of SLOW running working the piston in and out to
cover the internal working surface of the cylinder. You don't want
it perfect at one end of the cylinder only.
Now, we like to find cheap
enhancements - if we can, and then to fit them easily.
The cheapest and easiest item is a Safety
Valve Cover that you can find here. All you have to do is
the fit the cover over the top of the valve. The steam
escapes fine owing to the hole in the top with plenty of movement
allowed for in the Safety Valve riser. Cheaper than a new valve
for sure.
The Safety Valve Cover
Here is how to get the cover
to fit over the Safety Valve. It is intentionally a
tight fit and so must be forced on. Not by being heavy
handed but by placing the valve body in between vice jaws (but not
gripping the screw thread). The valve just sits there and allows
you to tap firmly several times with a light hammer to get the
Cover over the top of the Safety Valve. See what we mean?
The Cover
The Safety Valve & Cover
How
do you solder up a
pipe join when you thought everything was
fixed and finished and the paintwork is soft, but looking
good?
Simple. Don't burn the paint! Let's think about it for a
minute. Paint burns when it gets too hot. What is too
hot for paint? A flame burning at 400 degrees centigrade -
that's too hot. All you have to do is to protect the paintwork
using a wet thick rag. You can get quite a lot of stray
flame on a wet rag without it burning and more to the point -
without it damaging the paint. Here's how we do it:
An old wet rag saves the day!
There is one problem in particular which sometimes catches out
even the most experienced "solderer". It is the copper pipe filling with solder.
It's a right pain because you can't see it happening and you don't
know about it until you either test the engine with compressed air
or more normally, fire it up. You can have the problem
amplified by renovating an engine such as a Mamod SE3 or an SP5
which have several pipes. Also, we found there was a problem of
accurately lining up pipes to the back of the cylinder. A bit of a
nightmare for us initially until we found the "secret".
The secret
It's not really a secret, but in discussing this with several
very experienced Mamod engineers none of them came up with a clear
answer or solution. So we thought about it and wondered if we had
any garden wire lying around. Yes! So we cut some of
the roll and fed it into the cylinder hole and through into the
pipe we were trying to join in the right place. As you apply the
heat and solder it is best to wiggle the wire a bit to ensure the
wire doesn't get soldered in place. Really important that bit.
If you have multiple pipes to do, it will look like this as you
work through the assembly operation:
Multiple rodding of pipes
Clearing out the pipes of solder in
progress
Removing items that are riveted
on should be drilled out using a 2.5mm diameter drill bit for
metal. Hold the item being drilled firmly (in a vice if
available), and run your variable speed drill very slowly at
first. If not in a vice, just imagine the drill bit slipping - and
don't put your hand there! Think worst case scenario and you
should be safe as houses.
Gentle drilling
Angle grinder at the ready
And here is the result. If you choose this method wear
glasses and be as gentle as a cat's paw. Here is the outcome.
Rivets gone - quick and easy
Painting of a Mamod base
or other components seems to be a hurdle for many people.
Not surprising really when you think how difficult it is to get a
great finish to resprayed car bodywork. Thankfully, Mamods
are not cars and so a lower level of competence is required.
Here is another beast of a base that we had to work on to get it
ready for painting.
It's rusty and dirty
Now here's a quick way to scrub it clean-ish
Hooray for Kurust - from your Halfords store
A generous helping of rust treatment
Give the base a gentle rub down using medium emery paper and when
you are happy with the feel of it (yes - the feel of it) wash it
down with warm water and washing up liquid and immediately dry off
- totally. Use some heat to do that like a radiator or a halogen
lamp at close quarters.
So in summary, we use a combination of caustic soda, paint
stripper, a wire wheel on a fast drill and finally hand held emery
paper. We sprayed on the undercoat/primer with two
good coats, and then the top coats. We normally apply three top
coats with a fine rub down and wash with warm water and washing up
liquid between coats. This not only gets rid of the loose
paint and grit from the emery paper but also degreases the surface
each time. You really do need to do that if you want a smooth
finish and for the paint to stay on.
Almost finished this part
And now it's the turn of the
Engine Frame. Let's make sure it is cleaned up properly
in those awkward places. First of all, I would say you need an
efficient way to clean those hard to reach places. You can use folded up emery
paper. Or you can use one of these little chaps. Not
expensive on eBay or even at Halfords.
A poor man's Dremell
The tool box
And this is how you do it. Not
too difficult although please be aware that touching your skin
is not a good idea although in reality it does not cut but
burns and so you will be quick to move! The other health and
safety issue is that the felt polisher can suddenly grip the
item being polished and launch it across the workshop at 100
mph. Oh, and one more thing. The tool that should be
tightly held in the chuck can get loose and end up orbiting
the workshop at eye level. So always wear some form of eye protection if
it's only a pair of glasses. And don't let little kids close
by during this operation.
Do the usual Kurust treatment, make sure it looks smooth enough
for your satisfaction, wash and dry and then bish-bosh-bash, get
it painted up with several coats to give it a nice deep colour.
The first undercoat/
primer.
You will need to ensure you have scraped out the crevices
otherwise upon close inspection the great job you will have done
on all other parts of the engine will be made almost null and
void. It will look shoddy and crusty and reflect very poorly upon
your level of care on the whole of the project.
Not the original colour
- sorry!
The green paint is now satisfactorily being applied and this part
of the job can soon be put to rest. Again, the reflections do not
allow us to show it at its best. But just look at how it started
life with us.
No - I can't believe
it!
Anyway, loads more work went into the job and it ended up looking
like this.
Not so bad now eh!
More to follow
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