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Eco Power Building Tips from the Designer

Posted: Mon Jul 06, 2009 3:39 pm
by bvanarsdell
A few of the current batch of Eco Power engines had the holes for the
crankshaft punched too large. The holes where the wire crankshaft
goes through the cardboard upright triangle are supposed to be 1/16"
(1.5 mm) and some of them are 1/8" (3 mm).

If your crankshaft is very sloppy, then your engine is affected by
this. Fortunately it's very easy to fix. Simply cut a triangular
shaped doubler and glue it in place with your favorite glue over the
1/8" hole completely covering the hole. I used 5 minute epoxy.

When the glue has dried use your 1/16" drill bit to drill a hole in
the center of the old too large hole. Play with this until the wire
crankshaft fits smoothly without binding. Don't enlarge the hole so
much that the crankshaft is sloppy.

This should let your engine run very well.

Other tips for building this engine:

1. Scratch sand the thin aluminum plates with a coarse sandpaper (40
grit or so) before you glue to them.
2. After that, clean the plates off either with rubbing alcohol or a
high alcohol content grain alcohol. Let the plates dry thoroughly
before gluing. The plates come with some oil on them and this can
make the bonds likely to fail.
3. Consider gluing the bottom of the engine to the aluminum plates
with a brand of epoxy called JB Weld. This is a gray colored high
temperature epoxy that works very well for the bottom of the engine.
If you have to use an ordinary epoxy a 30 minute epoxy will usually be
stronger than a 5 minute epoxy, but it takes longer to dry.
4. If your engine runs well at first, but then later doesn't, look
for leaks along the bottom side of the engine.
5. RTV silicone adhesive is also a relatively high temperature
adhesive and is a good one to seal leaks with on the bottom of the
engine. It's also good to glue the bottom plate on after you have
already glued the "loop" cylinder into it's circular position and
glued it to the top of the engine.