The 1899 Locomobile Steam Car Replica, known as the Lykamobile is a full scale live steam automobile manufactured in 24 kits. This kit is available from a company called "Steam Traction World" located in Daventry, United Kingdom. Each kit is to be manufactured and sent once a month for 24 months. However for cost considerations I have chosen to have my kits batched and dispatched in larger crates to the United States (Topsail Beach, NC).

Specifications:
• Length 7ft 2.6in • Height 5ft 3in • Width 4ft 7.1in • Weight 904 lbs.• Water Tank Capacity 12 Gallons • Fuel Tank Capacity 7.3 Gallons

Construction:

CHASSIS Tubular steel fabrication, combination weld, bolted and silver solder.
STEERING “Ackerman” design tiller steering.
DIFFERENTIAL & DRIVE Spur gear differential similar to the original Locomobile, drive shaft and bearings.
WHEELS & TYRES Single tube pneumatic, treaded.
BREAKING SYSTEM Disc brake system.
ENGINE 21/4" diameter, 3" stroke modified “Hackworth” valve gear.
WATER FEED Twin mechanical pump.
BURNER Fuelled by diesel.
BOILER Multi Fire Tube, fully constructed and complete with necessary paperwork and inspected by notified body.
BODYWORK & SEATS Wooden with steel frame, seating capacity of 2 persons, with turned decorative spindles with leather style upholstery.
Gears: forward and reverse.
Assemble with hand-tools only
Step-by-step instructions
Technical service and help-line backup
Designed on ‘Solidworks’ CAD
Manufactured on modern CNC machines for build accuracy and high quality


Wednesday, August 12, 2020

Lyka Kit #21 Regulator-Inlet Manifold-Blowdown Valves

Finally kit #21 was found somewhere in the FedEx system of warehouses. I find it curious that when they called me they asked me if I was missing a box that had steam parts in it. They said they had to open the box, well Steam Traction World places on the outside of the box their own label with my name and destination address - which is a business address. It took them over 30 days to figure out how to call me and I had to tell them what the FedEx tracking number was so that they could send it on.  Things that make you go Hmmmmmm. We all were happy though!
The first challenge for this kit was placing a "T" fitting on one of the high pressure side pipes of the boiler. Steam Traction World instructs that you have to rotate the already assembled pipe about 30 degrees to allow clearance to twist on the "T".


What they didn't tell you was which end of the "T" was supposed to be fitted. Well I naturally put it on the wrong end as I found out later and had to re-do it.

From this joint the regulator will be mounted, but first the regulator must be assembled. Below shows all of the parts and its assembly.



A plunger/lever is assembled at the end that will actuate the rod that will push the ball bearing to open the regulator allowing steam to flow.

Next a bracket is assembled on the regulator that will house a cable coming from the "steam pedal" (accelerator pedal) on the floor board. The cable was not sent in this kit.



The next step I did for Kit #21 was placing the ball valves for the water sight glass. I followed Steam Traction World's suggestions for orientating the handles.




Possibly other builders have discovered that Steam Traction World has changed some of their brass flared fittings from a fine thread to a coarse thread. Unfortunately I discovered this too late to make a change on one of the fittings. It was a bit of a challenge replacing the fitting, but with some effort I got it done. I had a wrench that is meant for flare fittings, without it I don't think I could have done it. As you can see in the next image there was not a lot of space to work in.
Now the copper piping can be assembled. The regulator needed a brass fitting.
And then the pipe from the sight glass gauge to the boiler and the pipe from the regulator to the manifold.


The copper manifold is placed on the steam engine and final assembly of the pipe from the regulator.


Now on to the task of assembling the Blowdown Valves. The purpose of these valves is to remove condensate from the engine when first steaming up. If there is too much condensate the engine will lock up because water is not compressible. This is only an issue for start-up as I have read. Here are all of the parts. There are three valves that need to be assembled.
The following images show the assembling of the components. Steam Traction World only gave me 500mm of graphite impregnated valve packing. I had to cut the string in 167mm pieces and stuff it in the valve. It just barely was enough to do the job. I guess I will be looking for a supply.

Steam Traction World's instructions tell you to assembled the brass jam nut as shown above, but after assembling everything you read in the last paragraph a suggestion to place the jam nut on the other side of the bracket. It makes a lot better sense to do this. Only wish they made the suggestion a little earlier in the instructions!!



This is the preferred location of the brass jam nut. It affords you the ability to tighten up the packing a little easier. 


Two of the valves get mounted on the underside of the frame, one gets mounted to the back side of the floor board as depicted below.










All of the above assembling was done "dry". After being satisfied with the fitting I disassembled components that needed to be painted and applied "Steamseal" sealant to the fittings and tightened everything as final.
The final test fitting was the chain. I believe that the chain is a bit too loose, I believe Steam Traction World is going to provide a chain tensioner, but even then I probably think I will need to shorten the chain by a half link. Luckily I can acquire half links for the metric chain 12B. Below are my images for the chain.




The chain will slap too much with this amount of looseness. 


ONLY ONE MORE KIT!!

No comments:

Post a Comment

Popular Posts