2011 at the Hammond Barn

[RHClarke]

1506 hrs local time Wednesday 9 March 2011 - Seen on the Queensway (Hwy 416) at the Nicholas Street on-ramp in Ottawa, heading west - one 90mm AA gun sitting on the back of 40 foot trailer. Maybe one out of Prefair, or may be the one from in front of a Quebec Legion...unknown.

What is known is that most, if not all of the Prefair 90mm guns are heading west. Not sure what this means...could be the west is arming themselves for the big battle against Hydro Quebec (clean electricity vs. dirty western oil). Wonder if the west is recruiting?

[RHClarke]

The forecast called for +3oC on Saturday by noon. I will tell you that it was damp and cold Saturday morning until around 0800hrs. The drive down the lane way to the barn was a lot of fun. The road was glare ice so one had to tread carefully. After making the turn to the barn, I gently applied the brakes, but the car kept sliding on a collision course with one of Bob's shelters. Fortunately, the car came to a stop with the passenger side resting next to the shelter. An exciting start to the day...

As mentioned, it was still quite chilly outside, so Lucifer was pressed into to service to take the edge off. After a few administrative chores in the barn, a quick tour of the HUP shelter was in order. The weather this past week was quite warm with more than a few rain showers. This reduced the snow pack nicely, but also caused a lot of melt water. The melt water from the front of the barn usually follows a small trench that flows past the front of the HUP shelter, down the left side and into the gully. Unfortunately, the trench froze over and the melt water made its way into the shelter forming a nice coating of ice on the floor. I got a great view of the ice sheet after falling on my ass when I ventured inside the shelter…

Since the HUP engine was still acting up and the cause(s) were not yet known, I winched her out of her shelter into the now warm and sunny barnyard. By this time, the ice in the yard that was exposed to the sun had a nice coating of water over it making it more of a hazard than before. After playing “cow on ice” I finally got the HUP out of the shelter. Next was removing the tarp on the floor – which was coated with up to an inch and a half of ice. As this was going on, a truck approached.

Guy Vapeur arrived after a considerable absence from the barn. He must have seen his shadow as he headed back for home after a very brief visit…looks like six more weeks of shitty weather. Bob arrived shortly after Guy’s departure. After helping me free the tarp from the ice, we laid it in the open to dry off. Then we walked to the creek to see how much work would be involved in clearing the ice which was blocking the flow of water. Bob had dumped some salt on the ice earlier in the week and it must have worked. The water was flowing – one stream on top of the ice sheet and one below it…Bob was happy with the flow, so we cancelled the plans to remove the ice. Our attention then turned to removing the very wet snow from the trucks and trailers - Bob and Grant had already cleaned off the shelters earlier in the week. Grant arrived shortly thereafter.

While I headed to the vehicle park to clean off the trucks, Bob and Grant opened up the sea container and the small storage sheds to drive off the condensation that had built up over the past week. The field where the vehicle park is located was soaking wet under the snow and it took considerable effort to slog though what was now three feet of slush. After finishing the job I headed back to the barn to reinstall the tarp in my shelter and to change my clothing and boots. Bob was measuring his carburetor openings and put the final touches on a diagram for a part he wanted fabricated at a local machine shop.

By now, it was close to the noon hour, so we headed to Embrun to visit the machine shop to have a carburetor part fabricated. This is the same machine shop mentioned last week. This time we took pictures. While Grant and I looked over the hybrid CMP, Bob got his order in. After a quick lunch, we headed back to the barn. Bob decided to bring his CMP out of the sea container to shake off the condensation. While his truck idled away in the sun, we decided to take on the HUP.

The HUP took some time to effort to start up, but once running, she ran steadily. After 10 minutes of warming up, Bob checked the timing, and we adjusted it according to the shop manuals of the time. While there was some improvement in starting and running, the acceleration was still quite rough. Next was the balance test. We found a problem with number 2 and number 5 cylinders – the engine stalled out. Next was a compression test that showed that there was adequate compression in all six cylinders. After some head scratching, it was decided to swap out the spark plugs. Fortunately, Bob has a few (dozen) plugs laying about…This had a marvelous effect – the engine ran smoother at high revs than before! While still not perfect, it was a great improvement and morale was high. Doctor Bob then recommended that the plug wires be replaced (they came with the engine). It is hoped that this will fix the rough acceleration problem for good. Since the truck was running better, I took it for a short ride – into the shelter.

Bob then jumped on his truck and took it for a spin – literally and figuratively…The spring like conditions and riding a CMP put Bob into a wonderful mood – judging by the SEG welded to his face. After re-digging the overflow trench (which sort of reminded me of my army days), I had to head back to the city, happy in the knowledge that the HUP was running better - thanks to Bob and Grant for their help.


PHOTOS

1. Inside the HUP ice skating arena
2. Bob and his carbs
3. Chev CMP front end loader/welding tender
4. Bob in the box
5. First run of the New Year

[Phil Waterman]

Concerning the poor start and rough running the, improvement with a change in plugs along with the age of the spark leads, are interesting one of the ways I check for problems like this is to with the engine running, (no small task sometimes) take a spray bottle and mist the leads one at a time you should be able to hear the crack if you have a leak. This trick also seems to work if the plugs are firing down the outside of porcelain also.

But it sounds like you maybe on to the source of the problem or at least part of it.

Concerning moving stuff around on the ice you really need to get Bob to put the cable on the winch and get the scotches set-up the pulling ability of the truck sitting on the scotches is amazing. But them again you have the tractor with takes a lot less rigging that the winch.

Can't wait to see the spring progress photos of the HUP.

Cheers Phil

[Bob Carriere]

HI Phil

I discovered that process in the 1958 GM shop manual for my Dad. It claims to give more information thanjust a compression test.

Anyways.... we first warmed up his 235 for about 20+ minutes..... I know it is not like a good road run by it had to do.

Did some adjustment on the timing.... newer 235 are recommended to be set at ) TDC but earlier manuals talk about 5 BTDC...... we went with the 5BTDC and seems to run better..... re adjusted the idle speed and mixture..... vacuum was a very steady 20/21 inches. After the adjsutment the engine did not b pop back through the carb anymore but still had a rough/out of balance feel...

Then I tried the balance test... it calls for setting the idle at 1500 rpm and grounding out 4 of the 6 cylinders in a particular paired order.

Goes like this.... firing is 153624 ...
......sliced in half 1 / 6 5 / 2 3 / 4 ...... first 3 numbers over last 3 numbers.

So at 1500 rpm I removed the sparkplug wires from 5 and 2 and 3 and 4 holding them between my fingers so they would not spark all over....th-th-that was f-f-f- fun.....

Well expectedly rpm dropped BUT engine kept running.

Did the same with 5 and 2 and the engine stalled out.

restarted the engine and did 3 and 4 and it ran OK.....

So the unbalanced cylinders were the 5 and 2....

Still not sure what to do with that "information" but it was obvious the 2 and 5 had something wrong.

We changed for new plugs..... engine started better and ran smoother with only a small hint of vibration.....

Lack of time prevented me to repeat the process with the new plugs. Rob was to pick up a new set of universal spark plug wires from the tractor shop for the next adventure.

When we removed the plugs we noticed most had a light black deposit as if too rich a mixture BUT since in the past we had to run the engine with some chole to keep running that partly explains it....... two plugs seemed to be wet or wetter..... can't remember which tonite. We did a compression test and got between 135 on the low side and lots of 145/150 .... which greatly relieved us.....

On the spray bottle approach..... I always verify sparks by sticking a screw driver in the wire cap and hold it bare hands.... very stimulating.... how deep you bite your tongue indicates the K voltage.

However, on my engine it's a different story... I installed the Pertronix with a 40k coil ...... which is border line painful.... in fact I have to refrain from pulling sparkplug wires, when running, even with leather gloves as the spark is strong enough to be felt ......

I understand Rob has jumped on a Pertronix system for his engine so we will be setting that up soon.

The Pertronix made a big difference on my engine.... ease of starting... no points to set and reset and then burn..... no need for a ballast resistor.

One caution on the Pertronix..... to run good you have to regap your plugs to 45 T or it will run rough.

Next opportunity we will redo the balance test with the new plugs and wires then repeat the process on my engine.

I will be redoing the valve adjustment on mine as I suspect the small intermittent popping in the exhaust is sign of a miss adjusted valve. It still runs very good and can idle at 450 / 475 easily.... but you the hear this faint clicking noise..... vacuum is good at 22 inches at 600 rpm. I had ti out of the box this past weekend....started first spin.... ran it for about 2 hours at 600 rpm to boil off any humidity it may have accumulated.

Well enough for now.... I have caught up with my need to replenish my MLU fix.......

At time like this I appreciate MLU running well......

Bob

[Phil Waterman]

Hi Bob

Interesting diagnostics, the pair test I’ve never done but will definitely have to try, I’m getting ready to do a test on the engine out of the HUP so I will have to try it. Though I may have to ask for more explanation of which pairs should be the running pairs, I think I understand.

Concerning disconnecting vs grounding particularly with your high voltage coil be careful of burning holes through the insulation on the new wire or carbon tracking the distributor cap or blowing the coil. I’ve played with this on test stand, (think I have video of the test). If you ground out a lead there is no problem but if a lead or more than one lead is off the spark potential goes way up. With a standard 6 volt coil it will jump ½ to 3/4 inch but at some point the spark potential doesn’t jump the gap and goes looking for an easier jump like down the insulation on the coil or through the wire insulation. My understanding is that once it starts jumping where it shouldn’t it doesn’t take long to create a permanent path for the spark. When I was running my bench test I had use a 1 inch thick block of oak to hold the adjustable spark gap at the point where the spark stopped jumping the gap it started flowing through the oak to the metal bench underneath which I was leaning against at the time. Then I put it on some ½ thick plastic.

Not sure I follow the logic of which cylinders are the strong ones and which are the weak or problems, it would seem to me that if you can run the engine on three pairs of two then all the cylinders are relatively the same. Conversely if it will not run on any of the pairs then all the cylinders are relatively weak (or there is a different issue). But if any one pair or two pair causes the engine to stall then that one or two pairs are the strong cylinders which are carrying the others.

“Did the same with 5 and 2 and the engine stalled out.” To me that the engine stopped when you had grounded out all but 5 and 2 would seem to say that they are the strong cylinders

One thing I think your test is showing is that there is something different between the cylinders. Now the 64 dollar thousand question what? Mouse sleeping under and intake valve.

If all of the cylinders are showing compression at cranking speed of 135 or better sort of says it is not a compression issue.

That your vacuum gauge indicates good vacuum I assume without any flicking of the needle, would seem to rule out a stuck intake valve or badly burned exhaust valve. Out of curiosity did have the vacuum gauge attached during the pairs test?

I’ve got a though about another possibility but want to try to figure out a test that doesn’t require taking the engine apart. Let me do some playing with the 216 on the test stand and see what I come up with.


Cheers Phil

[Bob Carriere]

Hi Phil

My assumption is that the balance test pairs off two cylinders that are firing about 180 degrees apart.... if they are of equal strenght/power they can keep the engine turning...... if they do not support the engine on two cylinders one of the two is not powerful enough.... as in a faulty plug..... but which one..... we obviously need to do it again....

With the good compression readings it may have been just a bad plug or two bad ones.....

Now when we do it again..... following your advice and the instructions in the GM manual.... we will insert a insulated copper into the plug connection of four plugs centrally connected to a switch that is gorunde.... so when we swithc to ground only two will run and NO sparks will be flashing around.

I remember ready about sparking leaving a carbon trail and one done the parts are usually no good anymore. I may have to use an old spark plug wire set to devise a four lead grounding system that will not spark in our hands...particularly if working on mine at 40K volts.

I plan on modifying an old 235 valve cover by removing the top one inch.... keeping the sides to minimize hot oil splashing when adjusting the valve train so we can watch the action while the engine is running.

So the pairing is 1/6 and 5/2 and 4/3 ...... the first one went fine and the second one 5/2 caused the engine to die out.... engine ran on the 4/3.

Will need to pay more attention to vacuum fluctuation while redoing the balance test.

Maybe some old mechanic or old Chilton manual can answer the 64K ????

Stay tuned

Don't know about you neck of the woods but things are melting nicely here....muddy yes.... but melting.....

Bob

[Phil Waterman]

Hi Bob

Thanks for the further explanation of the pairs testing had to digest your pair testing experiment a little further. I've learned the hard way not to rush to a conclusion, what I try to do now is list all of the possible causes for a problem, then take that list and put it in order of easy to confirm or check to most difficult. Saves taking the carb apart to discover the gas tank is empty go ahead laugh I did it once fuel gauge switch was left and the selector valve was right and it wasn't till I had the top off the carb to figure out no fuel.

Concerning running the engine with valve cover off not a major problem, see engine test videos http://www.canadianmilitarypattern.c...ineTesting.htm Particularly video 1 http://www.canadianmilitarypattern.c...20001_0001.wmv or 3 http://www.canadianmilitarypattern.c...20003%20--.wmv just glue the gasket to the head with gasket cement it then acts as a cofferdam to keep the oil in. Generally you don’t need to put any gasket cement on the side to the cover, that way you can remove the cover without having to replace the gasket. I have a lexan side cover for the push rod gallery, which lets me see if the lifters are actually rotating.

But back to your diagnostic test, you are doing, it would be interesting to match your pair testing with the compression test figures and think about the logic of why the engine runs with two of the pairs but not the third pair. Of course replacing the wires with known good ones will also help clarify the issues. Hopefully the problem will completely disappear.

Sounds like you are going down the line of check the simple stuff first, which is why I was reluctant to suggest one possible cause, until I check that you can check it with out taking the engine apart. That problem is cam lobe wear below is a picture of two intake cam lobes on the cam that came out of my 235 the really worn one is .08" shorter than the other in lift. Before I mentioned this pain in the ass to repair issue wanted to be sure that their was a non-invasive way of checking. Does the manual you have this section on checking Lobe Lift?

Yesterday I did this check on the 216 out of my HUP, first step in determining how extensive an over haul it needs, biggest problem I had was getting the mag base of my dial indicator to really clamp tight to the head and be in the same plain as the push rods.

Forgot to put the rest of the phrase “64K dollar question” as from the quiz program but you got my point.

Back out to the shop temperature out side high 50s F, mud season just beginning, roads look like someone had been using them for mortar practice, some of the pot holes are so big they look more like shell craters particularly when there are bits of cars laying around after hitting them.

Cheers Phil