<HTML>The use of water as a crankcase lubricant is certainly an intreguing concept, but it does raise a questions of particular interest to one of my projects.
Will water have the same film strength as oil so will you need bigger bearing surfaces, a small addition of oil or is this just a matter of pumping the water at high enough pressure into the bearings?
I've seen on the net Bart Smaalders steam boat engine made from a converted air compressor that has a water filled sump with a just a splash of oil to stop rust. I'm assumming based on what I know of old compressors this is plain bearing crank. If this works for plain bearings then it will solve a major hassle with our steam buggy project. Any comments on the sort of oil that would work best with a water filled sump?
As far as using the sump as an exhaust duct perhaps a more flowing / streamlined layout would be sometning similar to the ports and ducting in the cutaway Junkers engine G B Gilbert provided (Personal thanks for the amazing links to engine pictures and diagrams) see
[
www.oldengine.org]
Less windage and easier to make the exhaust duct?
Cheers
Mark Stacey</HTML>