In Loving Memory of Simone Gauthier,
August 26th, 1915 - February 18th, 2008

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Long awaited videos of the truck engine running

Here are a few pieces of video I took about two weeks ago of the engine for the truck.

The engine is an X6 Pocket Bike engine. It is 49cc 2-stroke and is running on about an ounce of 40:1 two-stroke mixed fuel. The engine is being started with a set of "self contained jumper cables" or a "jumper pack" in some shots, and pull started in other shots.

Several times during the videos, I lift the engine off the ground and it promptly stalls.. This is because the fuel is gravity feed, thus the engine runs out of gas any time it is higher than the gas tank. In the final build, the gas tank will be mounted inside the top of the sleeper cab. This will provide the same gravity feed that was present in the motorcycle (X6 Pocket Bike) that the engine came out of originally.

In the video the exhaust port is open so you get the full sound of the 2-stroke, but with the muffler in place the engine is surprisingly muted and quiet. I have no clue if I will make any attempts at manipulating the sound or not. I was considering injecting motor oil or "smoke oil" into the exhaust to simulate a hard working diesel engine.

Hope you enjoy these videos!



By the way, the large silver item to the right of the engine is an 8:1 reduction "Constantly Variable Transmission" or CVT. It is from the pocket bike and houses the clutch. There is also another reduction between the secondary pulley and the chain sprocket output shaft. The total reduction is unknown at this time, but so is the engine's total RPM so I can't do any calculations anyway. The rear tire on the pocket bike is roughly the same diameter as the tires on the truck so I expect the same speed if nothing else is changed. For this reason, I want to add MORE reduction to the drive train to generate more pulling power and less overall speed. My target is a top speed of 15 miles per hour, and as much as it can possibly pull.

Here is another video:

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