Lyka Kit #12 Engine Part 1a

On May 10th, 2018 Steam Traction World dispatched the first kit of three for the steam engine. There were two parcels, one was the mainframe for the engine, and the second was the machine parts for the cranks, cylinders, mounting brackets and hardware. I was excited to see that one of my parcels arrived on May 17th. Pretty darn good!, however looking at the tracking history, I could see that the parcel with all of the various machine parts was stuck in Memphis, TN (FEDEX's main hub). I waited to the 21st to file a missing parcel report. Luckily my package was found and was finally delivered on the 23rd. The box was beat up, a tear in it and some of the hardware was loose. Also most of the machined parts had dings from rattling around in the box. I made a suggestion to Steam Traction World to possibly double box in the future for overseas shipment - especially if it is a heavy box with many parts. The box was more round than rectangular. Anyway - all the parts were present and accounted for - luck me 😊
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So of course the process is to deburr, prime and paint. I have chosen to paint the mainframe, cast bearing blocks black.

The cranks and cylinders I decided to paint them bright red to add a little pizazz, similar to the chassis. However thinking about the temperature that the steam cylinder would see, a little research indicates that the steam will be around the 300°F mark for a pressure of 200 PSI, this I believe requires a better paint than what I used on the chassis. So off to the local auto parts store to browse the paint section. I found a pretty good match that is used on disc brake calipers that can withstand temperature up to 500°F. The only down side is that this paint has a 7 DAY cure time !! I decided to paint the Cranks with this paint to match the cylinders.

Before painting the steam cylinders, I happened to go on Alan's Steam Car Blog and noticed how Alan was modifying the steam exhaust port. Alan's right about smoothing the transition. As currently machined the exhaust port sees a sharp obstruction. This would cause an unnecessary restriction with turbulence, reducing the flow. Who knows by how much, but design-wise it is common sense to smooth this transition. (By the way, I check all fellow Lyka builder's blogs a lot! I learn so much from their experiences because they are usually ahead in their build). You can just barely see in the next picture how the exit port is occluded. See below:

After a little Dremel tooling with a dremel cutter....

A much smoother transition.

I actually elongated this a bit more. Now the cylinders are ready to be painted with the red disc brake caliper paint....and wait seven days!  In the meantime, I will try to assemble the crank shaft into the main engine frame.

The first task is to see if the chain sprocket will fit into the mainframe.

Whelp, it doesn't. It appears that the weldment bead for the rectangular tubular steel is just barely interfering.

Again using my Dremel and dremel cutter I remove as much as necessary to allow the sprocket clearance to be assembled.

And the placement of the sprocket with the shaft in the mainframe pictured below:

 

Next I need to assemble the bearings into each bearing bracket. This is achieved by using my vise that I have equipped with plastic jaws to gently press the bearing. You never want to press a bearing into a housing by pressing the inner race - only the outer race for a bracket like this one. If you were to press the inner race you would be pressing on the ball bearing balls and indenting them, making a "ding". This would cause premature failure.

Of course if I had an Arbor Press I would use that instead of my vise. Next picture shows the bearing bracket assembled on to the mainframe and sprocket shaft.

At this point I disassemble everything to touch up the paint from grinding away the inside weld in the mainframe and wait the 7 days for the red caliper disc brake paint to cure before attempting any more assembly. That will be covered in my next posting Lyka Kit #12 Part 1a.

Lyka Kit #10 - Tanks

Kit # 10 comprises of two water tanks and one fuel tank. Steam Traction World made these tanks out of Stainless Steel, which is great! They realized that the added expense was well worth it and I agree. I live in a place that experiences high humidity, salt air and it is not uncommon for all of this to condense on to our cars, in our fuel tanks etc. With the introduction of ethanol into our fuel many of the boats around hear have water in their tanks and it is just a mess. So the condensation is an issue. We will have a choice of fuels and I am leaning to diesel. It is readily available and safe.

The first step was to clean and degrease the tanks for priming. I used multi-marine primer from Epifanes -- a company from Holland.

Then I sprayed painted the gloss black mono-urethane paint - again from Epifanes.

After letting the paint cure for about two days I tried to fit the tanks into the frame, however I had some fit issues. As Steam Traction World warned us in the instructions, the welding of the Stainless Steel material produced a fair amount of distortion as evident below from the scratching of the paint.

The issue here is two fold. One, the tank is rather bowed outwards from edge to edge and two, the angled flange that bolts the cross member to the side rail was slightly non-perpendicular. I took my right angle flapped sanding disk to remove some material to true up the flange. See the shiny two raw steel edges below.

This allowed some additional clearance. I also took my plastic/rubber hammer and gently coaxed the bowed tank flat, with possibly a small amount of indention. I did this on both of the narrow sides - opposite to each other on the lower sections that passes through the frame. Luckily the other side tank only needed the tank bow removed from the narrow tank sides. So again I test fitted the tanks and discovered a few more issues. The welds on the large flat side next to the interior flange for the boiler was hitting - an interference fit. So I took the tanks out again and with my right angle sander smoothed away some of the weldment. The following images shows the final test fit after sanding down the weldments.

On this trial fit I discovered that the tank flanges that seat the tank against the side rails will need a little adjustment as noted with the blue tape. These flanges need to be tweaked down a bit and also I'm considering placing some welt or rubber material under them to provide a little cushion if space will allow. Now the tanks are ready to have their final coat of paint to repair the scratches etc.

All tanks having scratches etc. have been repainted and installed. It appears though that I will have to remove the two back water tanks later to attach the side panels for the final time. That won't be for months and months.

For the fuel tank (lower front tank) we were instructed to use M6 (6mm) bolts and washers, however the mounting holes were actually drilled for M8's (8mm). I used M8 x 20mm hex bolts with washers and a lock washer too (see below).

The water tank without the fill tube appeared to have the two flanges that rest on the side rail chassis member located a little off, making the tank tilt to the side just a bit. I took a level to the tanks along the sheetmetal right angle bends and decided that this tank needed to be trued up. I had some rubber flat stock and I cut two rectangles and glued them with 3M super weather-strip adhesive to the side rails.

The other tank with the filler tube was tilted slightly forward so I used again a piece of rubber to shim this tank too.

And final assembly of the tanks!

The next two pictures shows the clearance of the two rear water tanks to the red painted leaf springs. As they say "a miss is as good as a mile" 

And the final picture where I have just loosely attached the side plywood panels for safe keeping.

Can't wait for the next kit to arrive. I believe it will be one of the three engine kits. And finally I couldn't resist and I penciled in some louvers and trim molding on a print of the above image that I'm trying to figure out. See below.

Lyka Kit #9 - Body Frame Part 2

I decided this time instead of building the complete frame off the running chassis on the floor to instead build just the lower portion first on the floor. This made it a little less of a challenge to place the frame on the running chassis and I was able to do it by myself - the wife much appreciated that! Once I had the frame on the running chassis I made sure that I had the frame equidistant from the steering column to each side rail.

Lower section assembly.

And then upper section assembly.

The next few images show closer up details of the various sections. Reading from a previous builder of the Lykamobile (Jim) on the Steam Traction World blog, Jim expressed a need to weld the upper sections of the frame. Through his experience of running the Lykamobile, he comments that the upper frame seems to want to disassemble itself over time - loosen up. While I have not gone to welding any of the frame (yet) I did add washers and lock washers to try as a first attempt to mitigate this issue. It may prove in the long run that I will have to weld some of the members together. Steam Traction World didn't supply any washers or lock washers and in their instructions nor did they suggest any thread lock. Because I'm replacing my hardware with Stainless Steel, I ordered all the lock washers and washers too. I believe at a minimum thread lock should be used, but I'm a believer in the lock or spring washer.

I even added lock washers, washers and nuts to the protruding screws on the lower frame. This would be like a jam nut for the protruding screws.

And finally Kit # 9 is complete.