Ruston Hornsby 6PB

OK, so strictly speaking it's not a "new" project, but it is a project, so I thought I should say a little about it. I'm keeping this one to just this forum, partly because it's not my engine, & also because I just felt like it.

I was asked to finish off the restoration of this engine by another forum member. He'd been following my work, & wanted to get this one finished. What with other commitments it looked like time was running out, so he asked & I accepted. It's also good to meet new enthusiasts locally & make new friends in this hobby, so we met up at the last Hassocks crank-up, along with my brother & another local forum member (we all got very wet that day).

So, the engine came to me, largely dismantled & with a supply of various new bits. My job was to strip, clean, prep, paint, reassemble & set up the engine. (I make it sound so easy).

First job was to acquaint myself with an unfamiliar engine. They are quite a simple beast (which is lucky as I hadn't dismantled it but had to reassemble it).

I saw that some delightful person had given both sides of the head joint a good layer of the dreaded Red Hermatite, which had practically welded the ibre head gasket on to both sides! It took me the best part of a day's work (one of my days, which is about half a day to anyone else) to get it all off, strip off the remains of the fibre gasket & prepare the faces of the joint.

Personally, with a little work & a brand new fibre gasket, I don't see that this one will need any kind of compound on there at all. I always forget to mention, when I bang on about my golden rules of engineering & how we shouldn't use ANY compound on a head joint, one of the other golden rules is that we should ALWAYS use a new (or annealed in the case of solid copper) head gasket whenever the joint is disturbed. So really, a little of the right stuff isn't so bad when re-using an old gasket, but good clean faces & a new gasket should require absolutely nothing else, & a new fibre gasket (as has been supplied) should seal very well.

I haven't got many pictures of this one yet, as I wasn't going to write it up, but I have taken some tonight, so I will leave you with a few of them & fill you in with the details tomorrow (it's getting late now & I think my typing might be annoying others in the house ), things have moved on though, & it's surprising how quickly. One part even has it's finishing top coat of paint! (it's not in these pictures though).











As usual I have devoted an entire new Photobucket album to this one, which can be found here....

https://s682.photobucket.com/user/nutgone_matt/library/Stationary%20Engines/Ruston%20Hornsby%206PB

More to come tomorrow....

This looks as if it could turn out to be a good restoration write up. Thanks for sharing Nuts.

Your a brave man to take on a basket case there something I like to steer clear of myself. Also about the gasket (you knew it would come LOL) on fibre or paper gaskets just give the faces a very thin coating of greaseto help them seal and the grease doesn't gum anything up like instant gasket can do when to much is used.

Stu.

I've always like the 6PB, don't know why but I agree whith Stu you are a brave man taking on a basket case. Do you know what the 6 means in 6PB?

I didn't realise anyone had replied to this one, maybe I've changed some settings somewhere? Oh well....

I said I would continue with a write up of what I've done so far, well here goes.

I decided to get to work on the carb first, as it's a painted carb on these, & as we all know; paint & petrol don't go well together, so the longer it has for the paint to harden off & dry, the better (I will give it a coat of petrol proof lacquer as well, but still the paint needs to harden before I can do that, & the lacquer should be left at least 48hrs before touching petrol).

So the carb is now done, all clean inside (where before it was rusty). The choke wheel & back plate are not painted, but I have given them a coat of Kurust rust converter to give them a durable finish. I've still got to sand any over-painting off the faces before it goes back together, but I may well do that today.

The engine was presented to me with everything apart except for the cam shaft & governor, but I have since taken these out as I decided to use paint stripper on the block, which involves water. So the block will be getting a good thorough de-grease & wash-out.

I have so far soaked, wire brushed & cleaned up almost all the small parts (nuts & bolts etc). Many of the smaller castings have been stripped & primed & some have even had their first top coat. many of these parts were easy to strip, I just used the drill powered wire brush & it soon took me back to bare metal, but some parts are just refusing to yield to this treatment, which is why I've gone down the paint stripper road.

Anyway, today I intend to do some more on this one, I will start to get some order into it & get some more pictures taken for you all to look at.

Sorry Lewis, I've no idea what the 6 in 6PB means. I know it was the smallest in the range, maybe it's got something to do with weight or piston size??? I'm sure someone will know.

Oh yes, & although it's a basket case to me, the person I'm doing it for (Mark, forum member Stamford24) took it all apart, & has done these before, he's reasonably local to me & we seem to talk roughly the same engineering-type language, so if I get stuck I can call on him to help. There doesn't seem to be any strange spacers & stuff though, although it appears to be a very simple & robustly engineered engine, when you dig a little deeper you can see where Ruston Hornsby get their "good engineers" reputation from. It just all fits as it should, very little packing, if you know what I mean.

I really must get my 6PB finished, it is booked into a couple of rallies this year and most of it is still in the spare bedroom where I painted it last year, though the block etc is somewhere in one of the garages still requiring stripping.

Pete.

I will add a little to the background to this project. Last year I took on the resto of a Hartop engine, for those that take the SEM you will have seen it. Whilst it was away I loaned my 6PB to the chap. His mate came round and saw it, liked it and wanted to buy it from me. 'Sorry its not for sale' After he had seen the work done on the Hartop, he wanted me to restore an engine for him, he had a corn mill I was interested in so we came to a deal. All we needed now was a 6PB! I decided it was best for him to have an RS1 version as these are less troublesome. After a successful bid on fleabay, we had a trip to Suffolk to collect his new toy. That was late Autumn. Of course since then its been far too cold or wet to paint anything and anyway I had other projects on the go that meant it was late January before I could start on it. On strip down it has revealed a poorly home made big end bearing (Cracked big end shells due to careless fitting of shims commonplace) Fortunately the owner loves his Wolseley's and being based on the Ruston design, share the same shells. Luckily he had a spare good set. The mag gears were badly damaged with one tooth almost completely missing. This was dealt with by a friend with brazing equipment. That's as far as I had got when problems with another engine I have been helping out with necessitated getting a spare engine up and running ASAP. Thank goodness Matt took on the 6PB. All I need to do is complete the 2PS in time!

Don't think I've seen one of those before Mark, is that a petrol?

I'm not really big on Rustons, a bit like Listers & Petters, they've never really been my thing. I always say they're a bit too ordinary, but really it's more a case of what has come my way over the years & a lot of my stuff has been the kind of projects no one else wants, usually because they're something a bit different (still not worth anything) & parts can't be found.

Oh well. I carried on with the paint stripping today, the main block is largely done, just the smaller castings to finish stripping, give all the paint stripper'd bits a good bath (hot soapy water & wire wool to remove last bits of paint & remove all traces of stripper) then sand & prime them.

Won't be long before I start piecing it all back together. My dad was asking today what my time scale was looking like for this one, I said I reckoned if I pulled my finger out I could have it done by the end of next weekend. But waiting for paint to cure will probably keep me waiting longer than that.

My 2 main problems with this project are:-

1) The Kohler

2) The Lister

Having a newly finished project & running engine there is just too much of a temptation. I love the Kohler, & it's a keeper, so I eel a sentimental attachment to it. I just want to play with it now!!!
Having the Lister there is also a big distraction, it's a new project & the novelty hasn't worn of yet. I just want to play with that as well!

Currently I've got them both covered up!

Petrol Compressor! Used to pump up air receivers for starting large diesel engines.

Temptation! Yep, know the feeling. This engine arrived as a long term project with a prospect of a loan period. I had to bury it in the shed to stop me tinkering with it. Now its screaming urgent and is needed for the May Day Bank Holiday. Got an engine to collect Saturday, Rally Sunday, Rally next Sunday. No Pressure

Maybe this will make you eel better, look at the nice shiny carb....









It hasn't had it's petrol proof lacquer yet & the choke parts are only rust converter treated, so if you'd prefer them painted they can be, but they will soon dull to an almost natural metal look & don't have the "weighted" look of paint coats on them.

Looking very nice Matt The owner isn't a stickler for originality just look nice and NO oil leaks.
Funny I had the worst nights sleep all week yet woke up fresh as a daisy :chin: work that one out!
Chilled today at work so looking forward to a good session in the shed now.

Mark

Right, a quick update on what I've done up until today.

Here's some parts with their first top coat on (some have 2 primer coats, some just have one, it was largely dependant on condition. I don't like the look of too many layers of paint, & everything will have 2 top coats)....







Also I stripped the tank back to bare metal & primed that as well....



& of course there's the carb, but you've already seen that.

Today & the finger was well & truly pulled out!

I really cracked on with this one. Yesterday I had almost finished the paint stripping, but still had to wash everything in hot soapy water with wire wool to remove the last loose paint & all traces of stripper. Then it would all need rinsing in clean hot water, including cleaning & de-greasing the inside of the block. Well I did that....





Then it all needed sanding off before priming, to make sure there was no loose paint left in the hard to reach places. Then it was time to get the primer out again....











I also took all the cleaned up nuts & bolts & ran a die down them (a lot of the threads on this engine are a bit damaged, so I have decided to clean them all up with taps & dies). Once this was done I ran the heads of all the bolts through the wire wheel on the bench grinder (carefully) & made up a special place to put them all so I could give them a splash of primer too (OK, so I cut slots in an up-turned cardboard box)....



I believe in painting nuts & bolts if they were originally painted, I know a lot of people don't paint them these days, but we always used to. I know it means touching them up afterwards, but my plan is to have the engine pretty much assembled before I apply the final top coat.

Last piece to get the old paint off is the pulley, but I've covered it in stripper, so will sort that out in due course....



It won't be long before I'm assembling this one. I'm actually thinking of doing that soon, as many of the gasket faces are exposed after assembly & will require painting, but I don't like painting the actual mating parts of the faces, so it will probably have to go back together before I can go much further with the painting.

Done even more tonight. The other day I found a couple of tubs of small bits which I hadn't cleaned, so tonight I took all the Lister bits out of the parts wash tray & did these last few bits.

With that all done I decided to get the block up on the bench & take a good look. I put the cam followers/tappets back in (I had marked them, so I knew which was which) & replaced the cam shaft & throttle governor assembly (I wished I'd never taken the throttle butterfly out, but it went back in, in the end )....



I'm glad I took the governor assembly apart now as there was a couple of stiff spots in a couple of different places. I think someone (before me or Mark) has been a bit heavy handed with this engine, what I would call a "Butcher", but there's no lasting damage, just a few bits of fettling to do.

I've also been over every thread in the block with a tap to clean up all the threads, most of them were pretty tight (that'll be our butcher again) but it's to be expected on these old engines really, it's all part of their history & all part of the fun.

So, it looks like reassembly has begun. Next job, I've got to cut all new gaskets or it! Oh joy of joys! (I love it really )

some nice progress there Nutts .

i had one of these while i was looking after for a mate of mine and it ran like a clock ...wouldnt mind one .

Oh nice tilley too i spot in pictures

matt

matt86 wrote:
Oh nice tilley too i spot in pictures

matt

I'm supposed to be rescuing that Tilley lamp, must've had it a year now & not touched the damn thing. Think with the price of gas canisters & batteries I might give it a go at the rallies this year.

Thats why i use them as the gas ones cost too much to run and the re fills dont last long . Plus its easy to repair them , as all you get is a seal kit for them and bobs your uncle ... if the light starts to hunt , try cleaning the vapourizer pull wire out and scrape carbon off with a stanley blade and heat the tube up so a dull red ish and quench in water a few times and then tap the loose carbon out . assemble and should be fine .

That one is a guardsman model x246 .

Oh and a tank of fuel will last a few nights easy .... When there running and warm up pop them quickly ( turn off and on again quickly ) to blow mantle out as well light will be brighter .

matt

matt86 wrote:Thats why i use them as the gas ones cost too much to run and the re fills dont last long . Plus its easy to repair them , as all you get is a seal kit for them and bobs your uncle ... if the light starts to hunt , try cleaning the vapourizer pull wire out and scrape carbon off with a stanley blade and heat the tube up so a dull red ish and quench in water a few times and then tap the loose carbon out . assemble and should be fine .

That one is a guardsman model x246 .

Oh and a tank of fuel will last a few nights easy .... When there running and warm up pop them quickly ( turn off and on again quickly ) to blow mantle out as well light will be brighter .

matt

Blimey! Someone know's their Tilley Lamps

Cheers Matt, I'm not sure what this one needs to get it going, but I will be getting it going this year. When I rescued it last year everything was very stiff on it, but I seem to remember it was pressurising.

I will try those things you say, should help me out.

Making good progress with the Ruston Nuts, I think it will be up and running by this time next week if you don't get distracted by other engines

Stu.

im only going by what i have learned by doing it .

Al told me the trick with the vapourizer most times it works but if doesnt try it again . If still does not work it will be another vapourizer but dont buy a new one as there not as good as old type so a second hand one will be best .

1st thing would be to see if you can pressure it up with paraffin in it ... 40 pumps will do as look / listen for leaks if thats ok . open the valve cock and should be a nice fine mist of paraffin . If thats all good try fitting a mantle but pre heat it 2 times to get the mantle burned enough .

Oh if you havent got a pre heater and a jar look on ebay .

Matt

Cheers Stu & cheers Matt. I know this is a thread about a Ruston, but I'm really enjoying chatting about Tilley lamps, it's been years since I played about with them. From what I remember this one had some paraffin in it, but it might have gone off (smelt like cat pee). The main problem was the valve (on/off/brightness valve), this was pretty well seized. I remember us pressing the pump a few times, then Ian took his leatherman pliers to the valve, didn't realise he'd actually managed to open it & I ended up with smelly paraffin in the back of my car! But that was all well over a year ago & it's been left outside. I will have a play with it when the Ruston get's to a stage where I can put it down for a while.

As for the Ruston, well I've done loads more today, but I haven't finished yet, just stopped for dinner then back out there, but it is literally "coming together" quite nicely, will report on that later.

(Also some progress on the Lister has been made as well it's been a really productive day).

Nuts i would recomend taking the gland nut off and pull it apart and give a good clean and replace the seals ... i will be looking out for cheap lamps to use for parts so give me a shout if need any bits .

matt

Cheers Matt.

Right....

Today started early for me. My dad was off for a classic bike run to Coventry & back (with overnight stay, it's the annual Coventry to Brighton VMCC run), so he left early. this wouldn't normally mean me getting up early, but my mum woke me up to tell me he couldn't start the bike, he'd be kicking it over for ages. He cleaned it the other day & hadn't started it since. Anyway, between us we soon had it going (water in the carb ), that was around 8:30am (I'd forgotten all about that one, I thought there was just an 8:30pm ) & I was up, so I thought I'd best get on with things.

So I've been carrying on rebuilding this little engine. I can't remember exactly what order I did things in but I do remember cutting a LOT of gaskets! I've got the piston back in, put both main bearing plates back on, put the cylinder head on (torque'd the bolts down to 30ft/lb), I blued-up the big end as there was a little tight spot, but it was so minor I pretty much left it alone. The piston was a bit of a pain to get in being a top loader (I must get a ring compressor for these engines). I've put all the various plates & bits & bobs back on, with nice new gaskets & smears of Wellseal on all mating faces (after cleaning up & de-greasing all the mating faces) & I've even put the new felt oil seal on.

Here's a few pics....

Crank shaft back in & one side on....



Piston back in & big end all done up....



Other side all ready to go back together (just allowing the Wellseal to dry of a bit)....



I pieced the whole thing together to see how it looks....





Here's the exhaust, I did this last week sometime. All I've done is dismantle it, clean & de-grease it, then apply 2 good coats of Kurust rust converter (any rust converter would do, they're all about the same. It works well on exhausts & iron heads & barrels. It smells like burning plastic the first couple of times you use it, but it's not a paint, it's a rust converter, so it leaves a durable surface which can still be painted, & I might well paint it with a coat or 2 of high temp black)....



& finally I put the last plate on (the circular water jacket plate), put the felt oil seal in & put the little cover over the end of the cam shaft (I think I will make up a thin gasket to go under the cover, there wasn't one on it but I would feel better with one on there)....



I also had a great afternoon chatting to Mark (Stamford24) & his mate. They just happened to be out this way today so they popped in for a cuppa & a look at the Lister. Well they certainly earned their cuppa, but I will leave that for the Lister thread. I had a cracking afternoon chatting with them though, we must've been chatting for hours.
Great company
(& that's coming from someone who's usually not very sociable & likes their own company a bit too much).

Quite a nice looking engine Nutt. Don't see them round here much, nor a few others you've done.
Nice job,
Cheers John.

Matt, that's really coming along now! You will beat my project at this rate easily
It was a really nice afternoon that added to a really nice day out. Thanks.
A trick I have done in the past when painting, is to put a layer of masking tape on the mating surface and cut out bolt holes. Put the item on there and score round with a blade. remove the item and then carefully peel away the excess masking tape. Voila! one masked joint. You have to be careful removing the tape once you have painted your top coat, I usually do it the day after so that the paint isn't too hard. HTH.
Just noticed, on the starter dog, there was a spring washer between it and the magneto gear. It may be there and just the angle of the picture that's hiding it. You may also think that it doesn't need it if the dog is tight to the gear. For those that may have missed it the gear sits on a taper and its cast iron! Silly idea really, as it would be stronger and better to have a steel gear there. I'll leave fitting that to your judgement, Nutts.

Yep, a split washer went on there between the dog & the gear (there was only one washer left by that time which would fit) but I will double check it's there (you've got me thinking now, but I'm sure it went on).

For the magneto drive gearbox I have got some special grease called "Silk 60", this was used in motorbike gearboxes in the days before decent oil seals, so it is specially meant for gears. Shall I put that in? It's a bit thinner than normal grease, but should be good for the job. Before it had some bright red grease in there, I'd never seen it before but my dad tells me that bright red grease was used on brake cylinders, dunno how it ended up in there, probably someone just using what they had.

There's no real seal for the starting shaft though, so I'm guessing it just wants enough for the bottom of the drive gear to sit in & coat the mag gear as it turns (I've got a manual somewhere, but I don't think it's very descriptive about this kind of stuff).

Anyway, I've finished the reassembly for painting today & am just about to get the primer out again. The only mating face I don't want on there is the carb, it's quite important that the carb doesn't have any more fresh paint on it, as I want it to cure as much as possible before putting petrol in it (I'm even tempted to put it in a low oven or a while to help the paint harden, but I probably won't as I doubt I would get away with it), so I will use that masking tape trick (I was going to just leave the gasket on there, but that would be a waste of a freshly cut gasket as it would get covered in paint).

Oh yes, I've also cut a ring of gasket paper to go between the mag & the gearbox casting & act as a seal. It's probably non necessary as there's no oil in there, but it helps to close up the gap & stop stuff getting in there.

The 2 mistakes I've made are quite funny. Last night I was looking in the big hole on the back of the engine & trying to work out how it oils itself, I thought "well, I've got all the other plates on, why not just fill it up with oil?" So I did. Today I realised that's probably not such a good idea as I will have to tip it up for painting underneath (like where the valve cover is etc), so I've emptied it out again .

My other mistake is one I've done before. I could just about comfortably lift the block onto the bench on my own. Well, now I've added a crank shaft, a piston & con rod, a cylinder head & quite a few different cover plates (all of this being made of cast iron) plus a load of nuts & bolts, I doubt I can even lift it now, let alone get it off the bench! My dad will probably be laid up for a day or two after riding to Coventry & back, so looks like it'll be on the bench for a few days to come! .
Still, at least it hasn't got the added weight of a few pints of oil in it now!

I prefer them on the bench anyway, especially for painting, I'm sure we'll get it off there somehow. The flywheel is definitely NOT going on until it's back down though. I will probably relegate my Lister A to the ground & put this one on that trolley for final assembly & testing.

Oh yes, it's got good compression.