Aurora Tornado .049

And let me just guess. Mark is the only one of us here that has the easier to replicate design....

My three examples are all the early type....

ChrisM
'ffkiwi'

NEW222 wrote:And let me just guess. Mark is the only one of us here that has the easier to replicate design....  

It does appear that Mark has one of the last and best of this series, and a rare one at that. It was about the same time that A.C. Gilbert failed in marketing their RTF's with the lower performing and heavier Gilbert engines.
Very few could successfully compete against Leroy Cox and his superior yet cheaper engines and RTF's.

Just reviving an old thread to say that I have what appears to be an .060 on the way.  It was local so no $ exchange problems or high postage.  The complete ebay description was,
"Model aircraft engine.
Missing head.
For parts or display."
That's it, along with this picture.

The red tank tells me it's .060.  The missing head is a problem as the only ones available seem to be from MECOA at waaaay too many $ considering the $?????? postage.  MECOA will no longer ship to AUS without max insurance.  I may have to seek help from one of you guys if we can work out a cheaper postage option.
I'll be interested to see if the reed is intact and whether it's the early or late one.  Hopefully the least I can come up with is a combination of my two engines (.049 & .060) to get one that runs. I fortunately have a spare NOS .049 head, so if the reed and tank are good they may just get swapped.
$23 AUD delivered ($16.60 USD) so I can afford to consider it a parts engine.  

Spring of '59- Aurora Tornado .049 had white tank and wad stamped 'Aurora Tornado .049', L9 Bird Dog, P-47
1960- white tank, now stamped 'K&B .049' (Goodyear) and new 'K&B .060' (B-25)
1963- .060 red tank with gold head, for Se-5a & D-7
1963- white tanks with red backplate, end of Tornado production.

I'm totally guessing and think that they changed the reed design sometime after 1960 with the purchase of K&B?

GallopingGhostler wrote:Thanks, Ken for the bit of info. Yes, OK uses .059 and .06 interchangeably. I wasn't aware that the Cox heads could fit if shimmed. It opens new options. The OK's have the same mounting bolt pattern as the Cox tank back engines, which means they would be a good shoe in.

lol, and .058!

Rod -check the underside of the case-it should have the capacity stamped there-in extremely small letters if 'Aurora' branded, and slightly larger if K&B. All my Tornadoes-and I have three- two 049s and one 060-are so identified....

As for the glowhead-have you tried an 049 one in the 060 cylinder...? Is there any difference-other than the original 060 heads being anodised gold? [as a possible alternative, a Stallion 049 one might also fit.....]

ChrisM
'ffkiwi'

Same glowhead, never tried Stallion glowhead, they're less common than Tornado heads.

Mark Boesen wrote:Same glowhead, never tried Stallion glowhead, they're less common than Tornado heads.

Then I'm a little confused as to why MECOA would sell the .049 head and the .060 head separately.

I don't have it yet to identify. I just assumed that red tank meant .060. Could I be right that the spinner is from the B-25?

could be, but that was also used on the p-47

Some of my Aurora adventures.

Hmm...thinking out loud:
If a Cox head will fit, but requires shimming, then I wonder if a conversion head and a common glowplug would work well. After all, the head conversion is reputed to have less compression.

Seeing this old post revived now is making me want to go and dig mine back out again and see if or what I can do and try getting it to run. Not a #1 on my priority list at the moment, but will definately go take a look at it shortly and see what I can do...

Read the part about start batteries and then read it again...scratch your head, blink your eyes, and then come back and tell me where to buy a 1.5VDC primary cell that will deliver 30 amps new

Mark Boesen wrote:

GallopingGhostler wrote:Thanks, Ken for the bit of info. Yes, OK uses .059 and .06 interchangeably. I wasn't aware that the Cox heads could fit if shimmed. It opens new options. The OK's have the same mounting bolt pattern as the Cox tank back engines, which means they would be a good shoe in.

lol, and .058!

fredvon4 wrote:Read the part about start batteries and then read it again...scratch your head, blink your eyes, and then come back and tell me where to buy a 1.5VDC primary cell that will deliver 30 amps new

20 Amps = short circuit current. Those old bell batteries were capable of that. (Take an Ammeter able to handle such current, momentarily touch both terminals, take a reading, IMO.) Your 2 Volt cell in a small engine car 12 Volt battery really isn't that big, a little larger in volume than those old 1.5 Volt bell batteries, 1/6th the volume of the total 12 V battery.

Regardless of physical size of the old "Bell" batteries, nominally 1.5VDC, their internal resistance of Zinc Carbon is high enough to keep short circuit amps fairly low IMO

E I R

we know E = 1.5 vdc
I= 30 Amp
thus R=0.05

in theory the short circuit assumes a perfect 0 ohm conductor leaving us to believe the primary Carbon Zinc cell only has 0.05 ohms of internal resistance...I am having a hard time on two planes...
how from the instructions are we to measure this 20 to 30 Amps
Are we sure there is not a typo in this page of instructions

or third..Fred is miss remembering his electronics training..hummmmm very possible

My best guess is that the instructions had a typo and should have read 2.0 or 3.0 amps.
I don't know if it would be possible to produce a 1.5V Carbon Zinc battery that rated at 30 amps...
A CZ battery like that would have be made with many smaller cells, weigh 6 or 7 pounds and cost probably $50.00 or more.

The typo makes sense BUT

On a Regulated Power panel with 13.8 VDC battery supply we can adjust Glow amps from nil up to around 6 amps+/- and most of my plugs like about 3.5 to 4.2 amps to glow brightly


a glow plug is a shorted circuit with several different resistances....battery internal, wire leads, connector to glow plug, glow filament

and it gets more complicated becaus the resistance goes up when plug is hot and down when it is cold from OAT and/or flooded fuel

ffkiwi wrote:Rod -check the underside of the case-it should have the capacity stamped there-in extremely small letters if 'Aurora' branded, and slightly larger if K&B. All my Tornadoes-and I have three- two 049s and one 060-are so identified....

As for the glowhead-have you tried an 049 one in the 060 cylinder...?   Is there any difference-other than the original 060 heads being anodised gold?   [as a possible alternative, a Stallion 049 one might also fit.....]

ChrisM
'ffkiwi'

Yep, just arrived and is a K&B .060.  Haven't had time to dismantle and assess as yet.  Must dig out my .049 & see if the head interchanges.  Apart from a badly abused prop driver it appears to be in pretty good condition.  Turning it over with my finger on top shows a pretty leak free piston/bore fit.  The tank looks good externally.  Hopefully the reed is a keeper. I'll keep you posted.

If I need a head from MECOA, would someone in the US be willing to order me some parts and ship them out here to me?  I'd probably add a few more bits & pieces to the order.  Just that their new shipping insurance policy makes it not worth my while ordering anywhere under a couple of hunderd $$.  Thanks.
Rod.

If you want extremely low ESR use an ultracapacitor. These can provide hundreds of amps from a single cell and can be charged back up in seconds. Nothing to be fooled with and need to be balanced if connected in series. Exceed 2.7V per cell and it’s game over.

The new warehouse order fulfillment robots use 27 600F ultracapacitors in series as a battery. 2 of these cap packs will run the bot for 10-15 minutes and can be charged back up in seconds. Cycle life is 500000 charge cycles if properly balanced. Forget lead acid or lithium. This is the future of energy storage.

This cap has .0007 ohm series resistance and can supply 600A

https://www.goldmine-elec-products.com/prodinfo.asp?number=G24932

Data sheet.

http://www.nooelec.com/files/2600f.pdf

Oldenginerod wrote:

ffkiwi wrote:Rod -check the underside of the case-it should have the capacity stamped there-in extremely small letters if 'Aurora' branded, and slightly larger if K&B. All my Tornadoes-and I have three- two 049s and one 060-are so identified....

As for the glowhead-have you tried an 049 one in the 060 cylinder...?   Is there any difference-other than the original 060 heads being anodised gold?   [as a possible alternative, a Stallion 049 one might also fit.....]

ChrisM
'ffkiwi'

Yep, just arrived and is a K&B .060.  Haven't had time to dismantle and assess as yet.  Must dig out my .049 & see if the head interchanges.  Apart from a badly abused prop driver it appears to be in pretty good condition.  Turning it over with my finger on top shows a pretty leak free piston/bore fit.  The tank looks good externally.  Hopefully the reed is a keeper. I'll keep you posted.

If I need a head from MECOA, would someone in the US be willing to order me some parts and ship them out here to me?  I'd probably add a few more bits & pieces to the order.  Just that their new shipping insurance policy makes it not worth my while ordering anywhere under a couple of hunderd $$.  Thanks.
Rod.

I tried the .049 head and it's waaay too small for the .060.  Just on a whim I tried a Testors head and it screws right in, but doesn't have enough depth in the thread without a very thick head gasket.  I'm guessing that there will be little to no compression left after spacing the head that far.  I suppose someone with good machining skills could remove the lower cooling fin so it can screw in further.
Also, I found some odd home-made shim brass reed fitted.  There appears to be a metal rim molded/stuck in the spigot, so I'm not sure how the reed is to be installed.  It almost looks like it needs to be bent so that it can be tucked in under the rim.  I see the original later model reed is triangular, so it may just tuck in, but it'll need to be from a springy material to bend and spring back into shape.  The brass reed that was fitted was all creased and didn't seal.

We're rapidly running out of options then Rod...other than a genuine original......would a Fox 049/07 head work? These are still available from our friend Matt. I suspect these might have the same issues as the Testors head--not enough thread depth...I can have a bit of a fiddle at the weekend and see if one will fit.

As for reeds-would a mylar one work?....say cut from a sheet of OHP transparency? Should certainly be flexible enough to wiggle into position....

ChrisM
'ffkiwi'

Thanks Chris. I'll continue with the head options from various engines and see if we can come up with something. I mainly bought it for the tank in the hope that it had a decent reed for use on my .049.
I had wondered whether x-ray film might make a useable reed, although I suppose it's pretty thick. Otherwise I might see if a Cox mylar reed squeezes in.