Jerry Evans-South Africa-1928 Wolseley Type R

This is the Wolseley Type "R" that followed me home in December 2005. He is an extremely handsome chap with his new "Lister 6_1" spoked flywheels. When found he was "sans flywheels" but I was lucky enough to get these Lister flywheels at the same time. These engines are pretty rare (about 4 are entered into the Wolseley register in Australia and 2 in South Africa - 6 H.P. Model (Please correct me if I am wrong) - of course there are probably quite a few more around and they will probably surface in due course. I bought this engine from another collector, Pat Downing, in Hofmeyer which is a small town in the Karoo region of South Africa. I also got the Lister Flywheels from Pat. Thanks Pat for allowing this beautiful part of Wolseley history to move to it's new home - it will be looked after and cherished. I'm very proud to be the owner of this engine

Modifying and fitting the Lister flywheels was a job best left to my friend Justin Ludewig. He supervised the boring out of the flywheels at my brothers engineering workshop. They showed serious signs of previous wear and neglect. He then machined new bushes to marry them to the Wolseley crankshaft. The Lister flywheels are the same diameter and width as the original Wolseley flywheels (610mm or 24") but I have not been able to establish if the weight is the same.

The Wolseley crankshaft was bent and I had very bad dreams about the cost of having this straightened but, once again, my friend Justin came to the rescue. After "sleeping on the problem" he straightened the crankshaft on his homemade hydraulic press. He also straightened a bent exhaust valve and welded the frost crack on the water jacket.

Justin was, in fact, responsible for the complete resurrection of this engine and I owe him an eternal debt of gratitude as there were many bits and pieces to repair or make from scratch and I know that he worked very hard on this one. He is one of those people who can make anything happen and usually at minimal expense. Thanks "My Boy".

I also owe a lot to the members of the S.E.L. and Oldengine mailing lists (mostly the Aussies as most of these engines went to Australia or New Zealand) who were a great help with information and literature on the engine. Special thanks to Reg Ingold for making the magneto gear so quickly and well and also to Peter Lowe (who gave me a lot of help with the muffler), Brad Soward who sent me a lot of information and copies of the manuals and Patrick Livingstone (pics and information). I've only mentioned 4 guys but there were many others - forgive me if I have not mentioned your names.

We started the engine for the first time yesterday (10 September 2006) just to find out what still needed to be done. Today Justin made the control arm / lever for the governer which was missing and did the last few tweaks and we started the engine and let it run for about an hour. It starts very easily with one turn of the crank and, with Justins tweaks, runs beautifully. In his words - "It's a Happy Chappie". It was making a rather strange whistling sound on the "intake" stroke - rather like a guineafowl who had just lost it's mate but a bit of experimenting showed that I had used a gasket material that was too soft between the carb and engine body. Once I had replaced this it ran really nicely. Many of the Australian guys had mentioned that these engines ran very quietly.

It's hard to believe that it has been 2 1/2 months since I last updated this page but pressure of work has been the main culprit. Not much has happened to the engine in this time but I have been spending any free time available on it.

1) I spent a lot of time looking for parts to make the silencer from and eventually found a small gas bottle at the local scrapyard that had had the closest to correct diameter domes of the silencer. I never managed to establish the correct size for the 6 H.P. silencer but after much research decided that it was probably about 5" (127 mm) diameter. The domes I found were 114mm diameter (1/2" smaller) and I decided to use them in the absence of anything closer. I increased the length a bit to compensate. Read here to see how I made the silencer.

2) I started making the trolley and have mounted the engine on it temporarily as I still need to make wheels. Here is a sketch of what the trolley will look like

3) It made it's show debut at Neville Botha's annual Open Day on Saturday 25th November 2005 and ran without missing a beat all day. I still have not made up my mind about painting it yet but will probably end up doing that after a few shows.

Here's the technical stuff:
1) Camera- Fuji Finepix 5000
2)Downloaded to computer as .avi
3) Originial .avi file size = 49,101 Kbytes (49.1 Mbytes)
4) Original running time =43 seconds
5) Original Video size = 640 x 480 pixels
6) Lighting = 500 watt halogen flood lamp (non photographic hence orange tinge)
6) Edited using Windows Movie Maker ver. 2.1.4026.0 running on Windoze XP Pro. ver. 5.1 Service pack 2.
    Editing only consisted of adding an overlay title for the first 9 seconds (I think). The video was not trimmed or shortened in any way. I also did not add to or alter the sound track or add any transitions or "special effects". I do not normally use Windoze Movie Maker so just stumbled my way through the programme. I do not have external speakers or headphones on my laptop so do not know how the sound turned out.
7) Saved as .wmv (Windoze Media Video) at a bit rate of 512 Kbits/sec and a size of 320 x 240 pixels (1/4 of the original size).
8) Edited .wmv file size = 2,735 Kbytes (2.67 Mbytes).
9) Edited running time = 43 seconds.

    Allowing for the fact that the original .avi file was 640 x 480 pixels and the edited version is only 1/4 of that size an .avi would have ended up at roughly 12,275 Kbytes ( 12.3 Mbytes) whereas the .wmv ( Oh, I do hate to promote Microsoft !) ended up at 2,735 Kbytes (2.7 Mbytes) - roughly 4.5 times smaller (Kbytes and therefore download time wise). Probably not acceptable for high definition video but quite good enough for viewing on your computer monitor.

    Anyway click here to download or view the movie. 1928 6 H.P Wolseley running. I hope you enjoy it.

    A note about the Wolseley - I usually run it a lot slower but just felt like "blowing the cobwebs out" tonight.

A tip for users of Windows Media Player. When watching a movie you can hold down your "Alt" Key and press "Enter"
(Alt+Enter) to go to full screen mode - when you want to return to the original mode just hit "Esc". "Full screen" mode increases the picture size but there is a corresponding loss of resoultion but that's not too serious for those of us (like me) who have "old eyes" :-)

This was the first time I saw this engine in Pat Downing's store in Hofmeyer in the Karoo region of South Africa on the 21st August 2005. (I was born less than 100Km from here.)	It finally arrived at my home on the 18th December 2005. Those are the Lister flywheels that we were hoping to modify to work on the engine.	Here is the date of manufacture stamped on the barrel flange. The serial number on the barrel. It can also be found on the crankcase near the oil pump
The decal on the barrel has withstood weathering for 78 years in spite of the fact that there is no more of the original paint around it. There is just a little bit of green showing in the "W" and the tail of the "y". The earlier engines in this range had a silver decal (as this one has) - later models had the red and black decal.	This is the cast brass makers plate. The smaller engines had the Horsepower rating on this plate as well but the 6 H.P. was like this.	This is a pic of the original flywheel fitted to these engines. I think the spoked Lister flywheels on mine look much nicer and give the engine a lot more character.
My friend Justin Ludewig supervised the boring out of the Lister flywheels at my brothers engineering workshop. The turners were Jeffery (obscured) and Stephen (with the smile).	The first cut - the bore was damaged and had worn oval - the original Lister must have been a dangerous machine to stand close to - these flywheels must have had quite a wobble	Justin then made these bushes to "marry' the Lister flywheels to the Wolseley crankshaft. That Hex bolt is just temporary. I had new gib keys made by a specialist key manufacturer.
My first sighting of the engine with the Lister flywheels fitted. Justin brought this "sub-assembly" over to my place on the 10 th August 2006. I think that it looks stunning	Previously Reg Ingold in Australia had made a new magneto drive gear for me. Thanks Reg - it's an honour to be able to call you "mate". Reg sent this pic of it in production.	This is what the old phenolic magneto gear looked like.
Here is the engine after assembly by Justin. Don't those spoked (Lister) flywheels look great? They are the same diameter as the original Wolseley specs. for the 6 H.P. engine but I could not determine the weight of the originals. Luckily the counterbalance weights are in the right place and even the ignition mark lines up. We still had the original BTH mag on in this pic. (That is a Villiers fuel tank temporarily mounted on the head)	The first time it has run for many years - we estimate about 30 years. Not bad for a 78 year old ! That's Justin again - acting as a temporary governor. Notice those beautiful blurred spokes. We have replaced the Original BTH mag with a Lucas mag. The BTH was giving a good spark but seemed to be erratic (suggestions welcome) and was just too hard to start. The engine started "first time" with the Lucas	Another pic of it back at my house with temporary water tank.