Landspeed bike with DIY gas turbine

[Johansson]

Exactly, I´d rather melt the engine while passing the finish line at Bonneville Speed Week at 200+mph than destroying it on the test bench in my workshop.

Why not drive the van over here for Speed Weekend? It cannot take more than a couple of days and you will have the coolest race vehicle at the event!

[Johansson]

I finished the oil scavange line today and fitted AN-couplings on all lines going through the front plate, makes it easier to get a leak free and easy-to-take-apart connection for the oil and fuel. Looks better than hose clamps too.





Pulling internal threads on the AN-nuts.



Here they are on the shortened and threaded oil lines.



This is the finished oil line.



Same procedure for the rest of the lines, except that I had to be careful not to get dirt inside the fuel line.







A little bit of work left to do before they are finished. An O-ring will be fitted under each AN-nut to avoid air leaks.

Cheers!

[stoffe64]

awww....looking good Anders,do you have all that nice machinery at your work?,i sure would want to have such machinepark.

[Johansson]

Thanks!

Everything in my workshop belongs to me, so I am not depending on a good relationship with my boss at all.

It is not that much money in it either thanks to our communist friend China, perhaps 100.000SKr (10.000euro) all in all. Roughly what a decent snowmobile or motorcycle costs.

[metiz]

Wow, considering how decked out your shop is that's piss cheap. I sometimes get the feeling that I'm spending just that on cutting disks ;D

[racket]

Hi Anders

Engines looking good :-)

Wise choose to get yourself some decent machinery at your age , you'll still be enjoying it when you're my age, long after that motorcycle has been scrapped .

Anyone thinking of setting up a shed with some good tooling should do it now before the grossly undervalued Chinese currency is floated to its rightful place

Cheers
John

[turbochris]

if I could figure out a way to to get my van there i would do it.

[Johansson]

The lathe/mill/tigwelder is the best purchases I´ve ever done, I don´t know what I would do without them. The fact that they also, if taken care of, will outlive me puts some perspective to the investment, a snowmobile for the same money would probably have been bits and pieces in two or three years... ;D

Chris, just take the boat to Gothenburg and drive up to Orsa, no biggie.

[pitciblackscotland]

Hi Anders,
I too have a chinese lathe and works perfectly and as you said if you look after it it will last for many years I regularly oil the lathe and clean it. BTW i think your work is excellent and i looking forward to a test start.

Cheers,
Mark...

[Johansson]

Thanks!

[Johansson]

Finally some time to continue working on the engine!

Today I countersunk the holes for the oil and fuel connections, welded washers to the steel lines so the AN nuts can be tightened without bending the line inside the engine and labeled the connections with hammer punch letters.













And finally a picture of the whole front plate.



Cheers!

[racket]

Hi Anders

Thats starting to look like a real engine with lotsa plumbing connections :-)

Cheers
John

[Johansson]

Yeah, found those neat AN-plugs at the local speed shop so I don´t have to worry about dirt in the fuel lines. Looks good too.

I am not sure if I can fit bolts around the front part of the housing, it feels like even the smallest amount of torque in front of the O-ring will distort the housing and start a leak around the O-ring. What do you think John?

[racket]

Hi Anders

With the potential leak from distortion , here my thinking .......................the radial gap between alloy housing and stainless outer can does produce distortion when first bolted down , but once the engine is running the alloy housing heats quickly and expands into the stainless can , even at idling with say a 40 deg C temp rise the alloy housing will expand ~ 0.2mm diametrically , at high power settings the alloy will expand nearly 1mm and make pretty serious contact with the stainless with heat being transfered to the stainless and it expanding away just enough so that heat transfer is interrupted , it will probably "float" just clear of the alloy housing , so unless you have a large radial gap at present , it'd probably be OK to fit the securing screws .

I normally fit my outer can with just enough clearance so that it easily slides over the alloy housing , maybe 0.1mm diametric clearance, ..... the O'ring fitted so there is maybe 0.1mm above the alloy so that there is just a slight compression of the O'ring ( soft Silicone , not hard black variety ) during assembly , a bit of rubber lubricant helps slip it on ;-)

Cheers
John

[Johansson]

Unfortunately I have a rather large gap of aprox. 1mm to the stainless can, so even with the diffusor cover just below its melting point the two will never meet.