Dry liner for Bolinders cylinder?

[Timleech]

Anyone know of successful sleeving of a Bolinders cylinder casting?

I have one here which has corroded through from the water space, and plan to get it sleeved.

It all seems physically possible, I've located a cast iron blank which would do the job (with much waste, it's intended for wet liners so very thick wall), just wondered whether the job has been done before and if so any hidden snags?

 

 

Alternatively, anyone have a spare, sound, 15 horse cylinder for sale?

 

Tim

[David Mack]

If it has corroded through from the water jacket to the cylinder, won't it become a wet liner? How will you seal it?

[Timleech]

Well yes it will be wet in some areas, but not a 'wet liner' in the usual sense. Sealing will basically be as a result of being a press fit, whether any sealant is used is a matter for the discussion with the shop who will be doing the work. They seem quite happy to do it in principle, have done similar work before, the only things novel to them are the scale of the job, it's 19.5" long, and the porting. They have the kit to be able to do it, I'll probably just turn the OD of the cast blank to size & then pass it over to them.

So far as I can tell, the main corrosion is localised around the cooling water inlet, probably years of aerated water striking it, and the new liner will need to have thick enough walls to give a reasonable life before this happens again but not so thick that there's not much original left after boring.

 

Incidentally, anyone know what the cylinder bore is supposed to be?. This one measures 7.525" minimum, which seems an odd size from an era when these things tended to be done in 'round figures'. It's not a round metric number either. Maybe made for a 7.5" dia. piston, just a guess. I shouldn't think 7.5" bore, boring 25 thou oversize would be enough to be worth bothering with for something as big as this, even supposing they did bore out for oversize pistons.

 

Tim

Edited February 6, 2014 by Timleech

[steamraiser2]

Fitting a "dry" liner to the Bolinder is a straight forward task. Make it a press fit although it should be not more than a three or four ton press fit. This is because you may get different coefficients of expansion between the new and original liner material. Use a good quality anaerobic retaining compound such as Loctitie Top Pick 603 and it will happily stay put. I've done this with steam locomotive cylinder liners which was a lot easier than shrinking liners in liquid nitrogen to get them in.

Edited February 7, 2014 by steamraiser2

[1-Cylinder Wonder]

Tim,

 

I looked at doing this to a Petter S to rectify a worn bore once. I luckily managed to find an oversize piston from a donor engine. The big problem is that you will get differential expansion around the air intake ports and exhaust ports. You might have to leave the the bore a little bit sloppy than you might like to stop the piston from pinching in the bore when the engine gets hot. The area around the exhaust port can grow a lot. As others have said a good press fit held in with loctite will keep it there.

 

 

John

[Timleech]

Tim,

 

I looked at doing this to a Petter S to rectify a worn bore once. I luckily managed to find an oversize piston from a donor engine. The big problem is that you will get differential expansion around the air intake ports and exhaust ports. You might have to leave the the bore a little bit sloppy than you might like to stop the piston from pinching in the bore when the engine gets hot. The area around the exhaust port can grow a lot. As others have said a good press fit held in with loctite will keep it there.

 

 

John

 

John

 

Thanks for that, but we are now following an alternative plan.

One worry was the potential for movement around the exhaust port, and the realisation that a good thickness of liner would be needed to minimise the risk of this causing trouble, also to ensure that it would be a good while before it rusted through again. As the cylinder wall was already perforated, the concern was that boring out for a thick walled liner might mean that the casting strength was compromised. Too many unknowns, really, if another way could be found.

I had some helpful discussions with someone whose sole business is repairing castings, he came up with a plan to cut a hole in the outer jacket to enable a piece to be let into the cylinder wall, after which the jacket would be stitched back together and the bore honed. It would have been an estimated week's work for a skilled man, and therefore rather expensive.

 

We've found a replacement casting, one which has been lying around going rusty for 40 years, but with a stroke of luck the bore, although rusty is not badly worn and the problem cylinder had been bored oversize and the piston is therefore also oversize, so hopefully the rusted bore will clean up OK at the size to match the piston.

 

Regarding the 'standard' bore, it seems that it was probably 190mm.

 

Tim

[1-Cylinder Wonder]

I did know of a rusty barrell. I wonder if it is the same one?

 

John