Re: Blue Bird K3 Henley on Thames
Posted: Thu Aug 02, 2018 2:50 pm
Yes, I still lurk, mainly in the Cobb?Crusader/Railton thread!!!
The book on this is done, but there's some flack from the Railton bio' I contributed to, so the November publishing date may slip by.
Anyway, K3, the engine is basically a Meteor, but an oddball, because I built it out of five different piles of spares and one decent engine. This was done to get rid of the tank ancillaries, which meant brackets cast as part of rocker covers etc. The decent engine was early Centurion, other parts were Cromwell, we had manuals for both, though there's no way I can remember the differences now as I have slept!
The basic blocks/heads are Merlin, as is I believe the crankcase, there being an adaptor so the starter could bolt where the supercharger once lived. Mike Evans, who was the chairman of the RR Heritage Trust was quite clear though, very little was interchangeable between Merlin and Meteor, which is why always said it was a Meteor, and Paul would always say it's a Merlin, because that sounded better!! It isn't, and never will be an R Type.
The hull frames, sides, bottom, tail and fittings are original. We found some repairs to the frames in the deck area, and the deck covering was replaced in 1969 (it was written on the bottom of it when I crawled around inside) for the Castrol exhibition. I made the dashboard, and on there, about one third of the instruments are original, including the rev counter. I would say that it's about 75-80% original. The engine is fitted to a wooden sub-frame, made to fit in the original place but accept the smaller Meteor, by Ken Pope. When first installed, I was the only one who started and ran it, because the emergency stop system was very dodgy! So I was standing in the hull, operating the throttle by hand. But yes, it sounded bloody great! No flywheel, so it does rev well, though the mags cut power to the 24 plugs (like rally traction control) if the revs climb to high, which means unburnt fuel in the exhausts, so good to watch too!!
The book on this is done, but there's some flack from the Railton bio' I contributed to, so the November publishing date may slip by.
Anyway, K3, the engine is basically a Meteor, but an oddball, because I built it out of five different piles of spares and one decent engine. This was done to get rid of the tank ancillaries, which meant brackets cast as part of rocker covers etc. The decent engine was early Centurion, other parts were Cromwell, we had manuals for both, though there's no way I can remember the differences now as I have slept!
The basic blocks/heads are Merlin, as is I believe the crankcase, there being an adaptor so the starter could bolt where the supercharger once lived. Mike Evans, who was the chairman of the RR Heritage Trust was quite clear though, very little was interchangeable between Merlin and Meteor, which is why always said it was a Meteor, and Paul would always say it's a Merlin, because that sounded better!! It isn't, and never will be an R Type.
The hull frames, sides, bottom, tail and fittings are original. We found some repairs to the frames in the deck area, and the deck covering was replaced in 1969 (it was written on the bottom of it when I crawled around inside) for the Castrol exhibition. I made the dashboard, and on there, about one third of the instruments are original, including the rev counter. I would say that it's about 75-80% original. The engine is fitted to a wooden sub-frame, made to fit in the original place but accept the smaller Meteor, by Ken Pope. When first installed, I was the only one who started and ran it, because the emergency stop system was very dodgy! So I was standing in the hull, operating the throttle by hand. But yes, it sounded bloody great! No flywheel, so it does rev well, though the mags cut power to the 24 plugs (like rally traction control) if the revs climb to high, which means unburnt fuel in the exhausts, so good to watch too!!