With the crankcase, they did not go all the way to the modern
two-piece form but instead retained the one-piece construction.
Assembly was effected through the ends and a detachable plate was
provided on one side for access to the interior. It is clear that they
regarded this ability to get at the interior of the case without major
disassembly as a valuable characteristic, and later featured it in
their sales literature. They were apparently willing to accept the
resultant weakening of the case and continued the construction through
their last engine model. The integrally cast cylinder water jackets
were abandoned and the top of the crankcase was machined flat to
provide a mounting deck for individual cylinders. The use of aluminum
alloy was continued, and the interior of the case was provided with
strengthening webs of considerable thickness, together with supporting
ribs. The cam shaft was supported directly in the case.
The individual cylinder design was of extreme simplicity, a single
iron casting embodying everything except the water jacket. The valves
seated directly on the cast-iron cylinder head and the guides and
ports were all contained in an integral boss on top of the head. The
exhaust valve location on the side of the engine opposite the pilot
was a decided advantage over that of the 1903 design, where the
exhaust was toward the pilot. A four-cornered flange near the bottom
of the cylinder provided for fastening it to the crankcase, and a
threaded hole in the top of the head received a vertical eyebolt which
served as the rocker-arm support. The cylinder was machined all over;
two flanges, one at the bottom and the other about two-thirds of the
way down provided the surfaces against which the water jacket was
shrunk. The jacket was an aluminum casting incorporating the necessary
bosses and double shrunk on the barrel; that is, the jacket itself was
shrunk on the cylinder-barrel flanges and then steel rings were shrunk
on the ends of the jacket over the flanges. The jacket thickness was
reduced by machining at the ends, making a semigroove into which the
steel shrink rings fitted. These rings insured the maintenance of a
tight joint despite the tendency of the aluminum jacket to expand away
from the cast-iron barrel.
[Illustration: _Figure 9._--4-Cylinder vertical engine: a, magneto
side; b, valve port side with intake manifold removed; c, flywheel end
of engine at Carillon Park Museum, Dayton, Ohio; d, magneto side with
crankcase cover removed. (Photos: a, Smithsonian A-3773; b, d, Pratt &
Whitney D-15003, 15007; c, by A. L. Rockwell.)]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account