That is the problem with dykes. Your tiny dribble of anti Oxford commentary and there's a flood.

(I was going to work-in a reciprocal dislike pointing at SEMT but I was late for my game of GO).

Not wanting to be pedantic but a person can hardly complain about thread drift if he himself introduced the topic.

Does anyone agree with me that an armful of Pfizer-Biontec would have benefited Mr W H Fullagar.

them old Leyland bus engines (the 600's) you needed whitworth, BSF and AF spanners to rebuild one.
Never had the experience of a fulager though did work on the reconditioning of an English Electric Diesel many moons back.

Guilty as charged :pint:

It's not a hanging offence.
But what is a hanged, drawn and quartering offence is to put a Fullagar or Doxford or H&W Opposed Piston engine in a ship. And I am unanimous on that.

Did Cammel Laird not look at the Fullagar engine, the Opposition and the Market and say let's cut our losses?

Most of my significant "experiences "were with Doxfords. I didn't think too much about them at the time 'cos i just assumed that's the it was and had to be. However, 50 years on and having time to reflect, my most frequent thought is something along the lines of:Bloody hell, did that really happen

The bit below is written on the assumption that I am granted a thread drift exemption certificate;
Way back in 1913ish Hugo Junkers and AG Weser in Germany built a "double Doxford" before the Doxford had even been thought of.
There were three units in each engine of a twin screw installation and each unit consisted of two cylinders, one above the other with two pistons in each. The bottom piston on the lower cylinder was connected to the upper piston of the upper cylinder and the upper piston of the lower cylinder was connected to the lower piston of the upper cylinder. Glad you all got that:applause:
The cylinder bore was 400mm and the engine was 8.4 metres high! Each engine was supposed to develop 1000bhp @ 120 rpm but it was a complete failure and the technical press of the time considered it to be the biggest failure in the history of marine engineering.:cloud: The owners refused to accept the vessel until the engines were replaced with steam engines and and Scotch boilers .
Despite this total failure, Hugo Junkers went on to design a large number of very successful opposed piston aero engines which gave the RAF so much trouble during WWII

As you say, Tim, looking back with 20/20 hindsight, the biggest "failure" were maybe materials, tolerances and lube oils. I suppose IF a Doxford, B&W, Fullagar or even Junkers Weser were built today, they would probably be more successful.

Remember the change in cylinder lube oil to counter-affect acid rain during first manouevres, the discovery of anaerobic crankcase bacteria, etc. etc.

I looked at a MAN B&W generator set installed on a power barge in Puerto Quetzal, Guatemala. The cranshaft had sheared - The RCA found an inclusion had initiated the crack. The inclusion was below 2 microns which is the limit for detection. Even today, nothing is perfect! ........I never forget the Yanmars which were numbers 1 through 5 off the production line!.......Bit of a brown underpants job when taking the log.

Regards,
Dave

No.5 went south, BTW! Piston excursion.

The Napier Fullagar Engine
 

The Fullagar Engine at the Faraday Centre in Napier has just had a major maintenance programme completed. This engine is not functional in terms of being internal combustion powered - but it is operating driven by a 3 phase electric motor which rotates the engine so that visitors to the centre can see all of the internal components operating as they would if it was under power.

Happy to provide photos etc to anyone interested - and even happier to receive any more information about the Fullagar engines that we could put on display at the centre.

Greetings GordonHart and welcome to SH. Bon voyage.

Thanks, Gordon, for the tip! Hopefully it will generate interest in the younger visitors.

Rgds.
Dave

and pray what is wrong with H&W built Burmeister and Wain injuns? Cut my teeth on those :smoking::jester:

H&W B&W, Big man you're safe enough now but 50 - 40 years ago you would probably have gotten a good kicking in any dockside pub. Eccentrically eccentric. In the name of all that's holy tell no one else.

BTW did Harlands build VT2BF at the same time as OP engines or was there a clean break?

B&W VT2BF engines overlapped for a few months when the opposed piston type were abandoned. Neither engine could be considered as H&W's finest idea.

Overlapped? Wouldn't that let the seats burn, that is if a few months lapping didn't see you through to the entablature?

Dear Gordon,
I just had an occurrence - All of the bearings must be checked for "settling". At 20rpm, deformation (flattening) may not be apparent, but if you intend to refire the engine, principally all the white metal bearings may have to be replace, quite a major consideration.

Rgds.
Dave

Thank you Dave - good feedback. I will put the warning in the lessons learned document that we have created for use by future generations. I doubt that anybody will be looking to refire the engine in the medium term - but you never know. We do actually have two big end bearing caps that have not been used since they were reconditioned with fresh white metal. Found some other interesting spares under the wooden walkway in front of the engine too. A bit of a treasure trove - and I will be pulling some out to clean up and display.
Thanks - Gordon

It wouldn't be too difficult to fire up the engine, two things are required; big cheque book and big balls.