[SEL] Ronnie Rally "Tie Down Them There Engins!!"

[Adam Cottrill]

Hi Guys,
        it was great to see some of you at the Ronnie Rally on the weekend and almost as great (ok i lie) even better that we got our Austral there number 384 and going for the first time in 60 years at the Rally. Having finished it on Thursday afternoon. We took it up Friday and on Saturday fired up the primus for the very first time

We had quite a few experts look over it for before we tried to start it and found the sideshaft was one turn out. The Flywheel completes one full revolution the sideshaft will turn twice and even though the timing marks on the flywheel and shideshaft match we had it timed for the wrong stroke it was sucking through the exhaust and blowing out through the carbie. So we undid the brasses and jacked up the flywheel so we could turn the sideshaft to the right stroke.

And tried again and she went!... for about 50 seconds and stoped we found the cam on the fuel pump wasnt pushing down the pump handle quite enough to make it pump and naturally it was starving the engine.

With this fixed we tried unsuccessfully for the rest of Saturday to get the thing going with no luck and Jeremy helped get the pulley of we so much trouble getting off vowed he would get it going the next morning.

The next morning we met up again with Jeremy warmed her up and with two of us spinning the flywheels on half compression she started again and ran for about 15 minutes until we stopped it to fix a water leak. Since this was an early Austral they have no priming port and you need to make sure you suck a gut full of kero into them to get the first fire.

It ran faultlessly for the rest of the day I had the oil pouring into it to make sure everything was lubricated the drip feed oiler was on one drop every 5 seconds to help everything bed back in after 8 years of restoration and 60 years of not running.

That evening we had to wait for the crane to load the engine back into the trailer but some smart cookie parked in the compound entrance so the crane couldnt get in and we ended up being the second last engine out of 614 to be loaded as the crane missed our compound and went to the next.

While waiting the crane suddenly took off flying out of the arena to the road apprently it could do up to 95kmh we reckon it was doing close to 80kmh following where officals on quad bikes and ATVs something was going on!!

A semi that had left shortly before from the gounds had rounded the corner from the rally and the 4hp Austral decided it has such a good time it didnt want to go home quite so soon fell off the back of the truck and narrowly missed the main display window of a new car dealership and came to a great amount of greif and damage on the curve of the road.

It seems the owners had tied on the rest of the engines but had forgot about the smaller 4hp and when rounding the corner it rolled off. Fortunately no one was hurt and no other damage apart of that to the engine was caused but it was a timely reminded to us about the damage these things can do to both them selves and possibly others if not tied down and we double checked our chains.

Chantal got some photos of the engine and subsequent recovery operation we she gets them devloped I'll post them on the list.     

Thanks so much to everyone on this list and who I seen at the rally who helped in getting our Austral going for the first time in 60 years. Its really appreciated and there is no doubt we couldnt have done it with out you.

Kind regards,
              Adam    

P.S I should also mention the original owners of the engine made the visit especially to the rally to see it. Mr MacDonalds smile was I think bigger than mine when he seen her going again.