Here’s a quick clip of a Stirling engine a buddy and I made. We both had made a few of ’em before, but they were mostly rushed builds lacking integrity, precision, and quality. Thus, on the evening of New Years 2011 we set out to build one that would put an end to the mad pursuit. We spent all night working on this one :party: (“Yo! Dude!”—Ugh. I can’t stand the sound of my voice here but I’ll concede I was dead tired at this point.)
We were left to want initially, but we still had a great time.
The first run demonstrates the laughable initial results: you can see the engine sorely needed tuning. It ran smoothly after the push-rod was extended a tad and the flywheel balanced. After that it wasn’t so “terrible.” Enjoy ;)
May or may not be terrible but it fulfils the requirements of an all-nighter very well. It actually works.
I remember a similar project designing a motorcycle after too much beer (and whisky).
The final device (A 1967 TZ250 racing frame mated to a 400cc single dirtbike engine) proudly bore a sticker on its tank saying: “Designed in a pub, built in a shed.” Which was absolutely accurate. We’d run out of RD400E engines (“If it won’t wheelie in second, it’s worn out.”). Mainly because every maniac got those, put in two base gaskets, lapped the head and removed the head gasket, then mirror polished the ports after opening them wide enough that one of the signs of wear was finding the piston rings in the silencer. And we had this stolen and wrecked (Then recovered eight years later - we bought it from the owner for five pints) DR400 lying around…
We had to cut huge chunks out of the frame to make the engine fit and keep it even remotely upright so that the sump could do its job. And the “custom” exhaust was brazed together from coffee cans. UK law then required a BSI approval stamp - but nowhere did it say it had to apply to that exhaust. So we cut one off a blown exhaust and brazed it to the coffee can pipe. The tester hated it, but had to admit it was legal.
The result was a lot of fun, but vibrated so badly it’d break welds. And the gears were the wrong way round and it’s top speed of 75mph was only achievable by the deaf and totally mechanically insensitive. The gearing was a bit messed up - you could wheelie it on the throttle on three out of four gears. The kickstart was totally useless - if you couldn’t bump start it you couldn’t drive it (or steal it).
It was a lot of fun - the first thing to touch down was your shoulders - and it was driveable on the wheel rims. It was light enough to carry (about 90kg) when you broke something important. Again.
But agonisingly painful to drive for more than about 5 miles - all my weight was on the balls of my thumbs. The riding position started working at about 20mph faster than it could go.
:party: (“Yo! Dude!”—Ugh. I can’t stand the sound of my voice here but I’ll concede I was dead tired at this point.)
Thanks for sharing! :bigsmile: