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First drive, burner trouble
Posted by: Eric Gleason (IP Logged)
Date: January 10, 2003 12:25AM
<HTML>Hi,
Well, got a head of steam today on the 1918 Stanley with an Empire burner and pilot. It steamed up well up to about 400 lbs, when the automatic starts to shut down the burner (it finally closes at 500 lbs), but it had a light back before that time. When, after the pressure got back to 300 lbs I opened the valve again and it started burning fine, however when the burner is going it sometimes blows out the pilot and then the pilot starts to burn out the air intake for it, not a good thing because then it tends to back light the main burner. After looking at things I noticed that there was some burning going on at the start of the vaporizer tube in the pilot, the one that wraps around the outside square of the pilot. Could this be causing the weak pilot (It looks like it is burning fairly well when it is not back-lit) that gets blown back when the main burner lights?
Also something else of interest, when I tried to use the starting valve the pilot died way back, and almost went out, whats up with that? I kind of assumed it was doing so because the fuel line was empty, I had drained it to fix a leak at the filter, but it continued to do it later on.
Also, the car has a later themocouple water level gauge, I think from the American Steam Car Corp., how do I get it to register accuratly? When it is cold it is pegged on the low side, when things get hot it is pegged on the high side, when I blow it down, it drops but then rises again. I think I probably have a lot of water in the boiler, so it might be reading right, I just do not have enough experience with it to totally trust it. The Kidney gauge is not hooked up, it was disconnected when I bought the car, I cleaned it up and think it will work but I do not yet have the blow off valves I need to hook it up.
One other thing, the hand water bypass, when I drive it is supposed to be open right? When the car is stationary and I need to pump fuel to keep the burner going and have the bypass valve open it feels like the hand pump is still pumping water into the boiler, even when I have 300 or 400 lbs in the boiler, could the automatic be stuck or something?
Anyway, had a bit of a fun drive today, ran out of fuel once (no wonder the fuel pressure dropped and would not go back up again) Had a few backfires that brought bystanders with fire extingishers but nothing too serious, really hardly any flame at all, drove most of the time with the burner off after it started acting up. No steam leaks, the cylinder oiler seems to work well and the generator even seemed to be charging, which was good because, by the time we got back from our short ride (At least distance wise) it was getting dark. If I can get the burner and pilot to work well I will try and brave the drive to the DMV, only about 4 miles away, to get it registered. Sometimes it is good to live in a kind of small town, even though there seemed to be lots of traffic today.</HTML>
Well, got a head of steam today on the 1918 Stanley with an Empire burner and pilot. It steamed up well up to about 400 lbs, when the automatic starts to shut down the burner (it finally closes at 500 lbs), but it had a light back before that time. When, after the pressure got back to 300 lbs I opened the valve again and it started burning fine, however when the burner is going it sometimes blows out the pilot and then the pilot starts to burn out the air intake for it, not a good thing because then it tends to back light the main burner. After looking at things I noticed that there was some burning going on at the start of the vaporizer tube in the pilot, the one that wraps around the outside square of the pilot. Could this be causing the weak pilot (It looks like it is burning fairly well when it is not back-lit) that gets blown back when the main burner lights?
Also something else of interest, when I tried to use the starting valve the pilot died way back, and almost went out, whats up with that? I kind of assumed it was doing so because the fuel line was empty, I had drained it to fix a leak at the filter, but it continued to do it later on.
Also, the car has a later themocouple water level gauge, I think from the American Steam Car Corp., how do I get it to register accuratly? When it is cold it is pegged on the low side, when things get hot it is pegged on the high side, when I blow it down, it drops but then rises again. I think I probably have a lot of water in the boiler, so it might be reading right, I just do not have enough experience with it to totally trust it. The Kidney gauge is not hooked up, it was disconnected when I bought the car, I cleaned it up and think it will work but I do not yet have the blow off valves I need to hook it up.
One other thing, the hand water bypass, when I drive it is supposed to be open right? When the car is stationary and I need to pump fuel to keep the burner going and have the bypass valve open it feels like the hand pump is still pumping water into the boiler, even when I have 300 or 400 lbs in the boiler, could the automatic be stuck or something?
Anyway, had a bit of a fun drive today, ran out of fuel once (no wonder the fuel pressure dropped and would not go back up again) Had a few backfires that brought bystanders with fire extingishers but nothing too serious, really hardly any flame at all, drove most of the time with the burner off after it started acting up. No steam leaks, the cylinder oiler seems to work well and the generator even seemed to be charging, which was good because, by the time we got back from our short ride (At least distance wise) it was getting dark. If I can get the burner and pilot to work well I will try and brave the drive to the DMV, only about 4 miles away, to get it registered. Sometimes it is good to live in a kind of small town, even though there seemed to be lots of traffic today.</HTML>
Re: First drive, burner trouble
Posted by: Daryl Kendall (IP Logged)
Date: January 15, 2003 01:10AM
<HTML> Eric, Take the hand valve out of the front water pump in the pump box and make sure that the end of the valve is good. It may be rusted away and not closing the hand water pump. As for the bypass valve , Close it when first starting out to make sure you maintain the water level you want, If it gets too high open it though. Once the water level automatic gets some heat it should start to work automatically with the bypass open. I have seen the valve stems in the water level automatics made of steel already and rusted away.I have also seen the hand bypass ball on the end of the stem rusted away and putting the water right back into the water tank or so called bypassing. Good luck, Daryl<a href="mailto:gleason@netcnct.net?subject=First drive, burner trouble"></HTML>
Re: Welcome Daryl
Posted by: C Benson (IP Logged)
Date: January 15, 2003 12:28PM
<HTML>Hi Daryl,,,Its good to hear from you,,an that youre on line[I think]]] Suprise suprise,,,For those of you who don't know,,and arent on the east coast,,,Daryl has more hours fixin these things than anyone alive,,,Ratio fix time to drive time oh my,,,,,Hope your winter is short an ya get a early sap season,,,,Cheers Ben in Maine,,,[no snow,,temp -2][f]</HTML>
Re: Welcome Daryl
Posted by: Daryl Kendall (IP Logged)
Date: January 16, 2003 02:20AM
<HTML> Hi Colburn, Thanks for the plug on the Stanleys. I don't get on here alot but it is fun to hear the different opinions on some of the problems. It's good to hear from you and I hope everything is going your way.Temp 20 and no snow til Fri. Stop by again if you're in town. Cheers Daryl</HTML>
Re: First drive, burner trouble
Posted by: Eric Gleason (IP Logged)
Date: January 17, 2003 04:18AM
<HTML>Thanks for the advice, I had actually completly forgoten about the hand valve for the hand pump, the car has been converted to 740 specs so it is down on the end of the power pump. Once I closed it things were fine. It looks like the bypass is also working OK. I did disconnect the oil line at the engine to make sure I was getting oil flow. The car has a Harris pump box and gauge on the dash. The needle on the dash moves on every rotation of the shaft, once you have cranked it a few times to get the pressure up. My question is , how much oil should be pumping into the steam line. I spun the crank about 30 times, which would translate to quite some distance in driving, and got about 1/4 of a 35mm film canister of oil out, is that enough? Thanks again, Eric</HTML>
Re: First drive, burner trouble
Posted by: Pat Farrell (IP Logged)
Date: January 17, 2003 06:28AM
<HTML>On my Stanleys I have them set for 1 qt for every 100 miles. Over oiling is cheap insurance against messed up slide valves. Your rate of oil sounds excessive. However, when you start driving the car, then you can measure how much you really have used and determine then if it really is excessive.</HTML>
Re: First drive, burner trouble
Posted by: C Benson (IP Logged)
Date: January 17, 2003 01:52PM
<HTML>XXXXXX Condenser car XXXX Keep the water tank up so the oil don't get DOWN to the pump pickup,,and oil into boiler,,,,,Pull out [unscrew] the water guage and put down a stick or a stick w/ a rag well fastened,,,see what comes up on it,,,,Now dont panic,,,sometimes it looks horrid,,If ya' run far enough to get tank hot fill it to overflowing to HELP get some oil out,,,,Dont forget a lot of yuk will stick to the tank TOP ,,,It may pay to run non condensing till the bugs are worked out,,,Is the pump Harris ,,or Madison Kipp,,,or,,,,These will tolerate a heavier oil than the noncondensers,,,,My 22 735 has its original early style pump an it seems I have to be careful not to pump too much oil,,,Daryll,,,please comment here if U get on,,,Dave has good experience here too,,,This is a good subject,,but my feeble memory can't recall if we have a thread on it or not,,,,,Maybee now?? Cheers Ben</HTML>
<b>Re: First drive - Oil Suckers & memory helper</b>
Posted by: JW (IP Logged)
Date: January 17, 2003 04:50PM
<HTML>The tank is a Hot Well, and the last chance to trap that oil before it goes to the cooker. A nice accomodation here is the addition of a removable strainer cup, like a big *Tea Ball*, large enough for a roll of TP or at least a few old orphan socks. hehehe .....oil suckers
Feeble memories: you have a helper, ......in the [Search] function. It is a button on the navigation bar, ...look above.
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cheerios- :-)>
JW
</HTML>
Feeble memories: you have a helper, ......in the [Search] function. It is a button on the navigation bar, ...look above.
Input keywords, ....behold the magic-
Check box [Subject] for threads
Check box [Message Body] for text
Check box [Author] for all posts by selected author
cheerios- :-)>
JW
</HTML>
Re: First drive - Oil Feed Rate
Posted by: David K Nergaard (IP Logged)
Date: January 18, 2003 11:09AM
<HTML>The Stanley 740 operator's manual suggests a gallon of cylinder oil in 2000 miles. My lube pump, a Madison-Kipp, when set to its maximum rate pumps a gallon in 1800 miles. That is about 3.4 cc. for ten revs of the pump handle. The pump makes one turn for every 40 strokes of the Stanley pumps. In my car, with 36 inch tires, the pumps make 249 strokes/mile.</HTML>
Re: First drive, burner trouble
Posted by: Eric Gleason (IP Logged)
Date: January 29, 2003 03:21PM
<HTML>Well, I think I found out what was the problem with the burner and pilot. First off I was running too much pressure on the pilot, looks like it burns best at 5-10 lbs. Then, I fired up the burner outside of the car and noticed that once it heated up some that fire was licking up around the housing for the pilot. I have the empire burner and pilot and the pilot sits in a housing hollowed out of the burner. the screws that hold on the burner plate to the pilot housing were a bit loose and when things heated up a gap opened up between the hosing and the burner plate allowing flame to get below the plate. Well, I let things cool some and tightened up the screws (except the one that broke off) and then put hight temp caulk around the seem. Fired things up again and it worked like a dream. So, I bolted it all to the car again, let things cure some, and then yesterday went for a drive. It steamed pretty well, no backfires and we managed to make it all the way to the DMV without trouble (6 Miles). The pilot went out while I was stopped, so relite it and drove back home. Kept steam up to work on adjusting the automatic and to try and figure out the water level gauge. Got the automatic to shut off at 500 lbs, it actually starts shutting down at 450 or so, completly shutting things down at 500 lbs. All through the drive the water gauge, a 1920s American Steam Auto gauge, was reading high. I would blow it off and it would drop to normal, only to slowly rise back to high, I guess as the water made its way back into the sensor and cooled things down. Anyway, when I was all done I blew things down and the gauge dropped, this makes me think that it was working ok and that I was just pumping too much water into the boiler. I had the hand bypass valve opened and all that system seems to be working alright so I was wondering if my water level automatic could be stuck, always sending the water to the boiler. Don't know if this is possible or not. The last time I played with all of this I had opened the water bypass valve and spun the rear wheel after disconnecting the return pipe to the condenser. Water came out of the return pipe so I assumed that the bypass system was working OK.
Well, anyway, after having the fire burning for awhile, the old problems with the burner resurfaced so I guess I will drop it again and check things out, maybe things opened up further and the caulking came loose, will have to think of a better solution. At least I am getting pretty fast at dropping the burner! Thanks, Eric</HTML>
Well, anyway, after having the fire burning for awhile, the old problems with the burner resurfaced so I guess I will drop it again and check things out, maybe things opened up further and the caulking came loose, will have to think of a better solution. At least I am getting pretty fast at dropping the burner! Thanks, Eric</HTML>
Re: First drive, burner trouble
Posted by: Jeff Theobald (IP Logged)
Date: January 29, 2003 06:18PM
<HTML>Hi Eric,
Sounds as if you are getting on top of the problems, couple of things that may help, a few years ago I fitted a gauge on my Brooks, it is feed, from the input to the boiler, pump side of the last clack, this only reads when water is being pumped into the boiler, and is very reassuring, there is a restrictor and small pressure dome, to stop the gauge needle flying about on pump pulses, I find it is one of the most useful gauges, you can see the water auto coming in, and of course it matches the boiler pressure as soon as you close the bypass.
With your wide fire off to fire on, you may find that careful polishing of the steam automatic operating rod, and replacing the operating rod fuel side packing, making sure not to do the gland up to tight, will bring the shut down and re-fire pressures closer, hope this helps, Jeff.</HTML>
Sounds as if you are getting on top of the problems, couple of things that may help, a few years ago I fitted a gauge on my Brooks, it is feed, from the input to the boiler, pump side of the last clack, this only reads when water is being pumped into the boiler, and is very reassuring, there is a restrictor and small pressure dome, to stop the gauge needle flying about on pump pulses, I find it is one of the most useful gauges, you can see the water auto coming in, and of course it matches the boiler pressure as soon as you close the bypass.
With your wide fire off to fire on, you may find that careful polishing of the steam automatic operating rod, and replacing the operating rod fuel side packing, making sure not to do the gland up to tight, will bring the shut down and re-fire pressures closer, hope this helps, Jeff.</HTML>
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