Interesting fact, way back when in the early days of flash steam tethered hydroplanes (1930-ish) they ran the steam in the other way ie where your exhaust is they used as an inlet and the inlet as exhaust. I did this on my engine some years, and on flash steam you do get a bit more oomph, you tend not to get much difference when using a boiler though.
With regard the oil for the crankcase, as Greg has said Sentinal Gearbox oil is good, but failing that Hypoy 90 gear oil is perfect, I have been using this (as did my father and grandfather) in all of our enclosed (and indeed open crank ) engines and never had any problems. A good tip as you have the engine apart is to paint the inside of the crankcase, it does help. You will also need to drain down and flush the engine through (I use petrol) at the end of a days running to remove all the emulsified oil from the crank case (I put a 1/2 tapped hole in the base plate) then pump some steam oil in the exhaust and turn the engine "backwards" a few times to pull the oil into all the valve gear etc.
Some of this may be obvious, just thought I would share.
Good work,keep us up to date
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Topic: The Sun will come out tomorrow.... (Stuart Turner 'Sun' engine) (Read 47389 times)