Oscillating I.C. Engine

A few years ago, Philip Duclos designed a rather homely (or so I thought) little engine with an oscillating cylinder, not unlike one of Elmer Verburg's steam powered "wobblers". The REALLY BIG difference was that this engine was gasoline powered.----and---It was a hit and miss engine---and it was air cooled. It was a very clever design, and according to Philip Duclos, it ran well. I want to build something different enough to be interesting, and to add my own personal touches to "pretty it up" a bit. I give Philip full credit here for his original design, and hope that wherever he may be now, that he smiles a bit when he sees what I am doing to his "Whatzit" engine.----Brian

I did a web search for "oscillating internal combustion engines", and didn't find any. Then I searched specifically for "Whatzit engine" (that was the name of the one Philip Duclos designed and built) and couldn't find anything.  I think this will be a lot of fun. I seem to vaguely remember a write-up where somebody had built one but they couldn't keep the spark-plug wire from jumping off when the engine was running, so they installed a stationary "spark-post" very close to the moving sparkplug, and the spark jumped the gap to fire the plug in the oscillating engine.

Brian,
I for one will be following another of your unique projects with interest.
Should be some novel engineering in this project.
Ernie J

Interesting build, Brian.  Hadn't seen you post anything for a while, wondered where you were...

Chuck

Fantastic, I'll enjoy watching this Brian.

This is the one with the problem keeping the wire in place

http://www.floridaame.org/GalleryPages/g1h0080.htm

J

I have to admit that this is one of Mr. Duclos' designs that I wasn't familiar with. Should be an interesting project for sure.

Bill

Very interesting engine Brian.  Good luck with this one.  I'm with Chuck...wondered where you were.  Thought you might be off building another street rod

Cheers,
Phil

Interesting idea :-)

But how about a two stroke wobbling puller engine?

So now, after another four hours of modelling, it becomes clearer how this can be. The green support stanchions are fixed in position to a base. On the non carburetor side, there is a steel ball bearing setting in the recess at the end of the stub-shaft on the side of the cylinder. Then there is a 1/4" set screw resting against the outer side of the steel ball, locked in position with a 1/4" hex nut. On the carburetor side, there is a 1/16" cross section rubber o-ring (I will probably use Viton because of the heat.) setting between the end of the boss on the cylinder side stub-shaft which is hollow, and a flat bottomed counterbore in the green stanchion. This provides an air tight seal. The carburetor is bolted to the outside of the stanchion, and doesn't move. I will probably stick a paper gasket between the carburetor and the stanchion, but for now I haven't shown it. In one of the pictures, you can see the intake valve on the same end as the sparkplug--it is an atmospheric intake valve and requires no valve lifter. The exhaust valve is on the other side of the carburetor block, and will be operated by a lifter. There is a single hole in the side of the cylinder, and as in the Webster engine, it serves as both intake and exhaust port. You can see the (purple) head of the exhaust valve in the cross section.

I haven't posted for a while, and it was a combination of things that kept me away. Major modelling burnout, terrible bout with insomnia needing many new and wonderful drugs, and very busy with "real" engineering work. I posted so much, on so many forums this past winter, that I wasn't getting many responses when I posted. This was in no way the fault of people on the forums. I was being a "posting hog", so decided a break would be a good thing, both for me and for all the forum members. I'm back, and will try to keep this post interesting as it moves along.---Brian.

Neat solution for intake and exhaust.

If you were worried about the plug lead comming off you could even move the plug to the carb block on the side, seems to work on the monitor which has a very similar layout except for the pivot.

Thanks Jason--I kind of like the idea of a "jump spark" style similar to the one from the Florida Names website.---Brian

Glad to see you posting again Brian, and this one is certainly interesting!!

Bill