Re: Stanley Engine Questions
Posted by: (---.wavecable.com)
Date: November 18, 2012 11:57PM
George, There is a lot to know about rebuilding a Stanley engine that is not covered in books. Also there is a bit too much to cover all of it here in just a few paragraphs. The slide valves have to go back into the same sides that they came out of and with the same side up as how they had been taken out. If they are not already marked for their location, I usually mark them with a die grinder. If they are flat and without scratches, leave them alone. The valve faces should be almost perfectly flat without any scratches across their faces. I reface my slide valves on an large flat surface oil stone. The valve port faces can be cleaned up by different means depending on how bad they are. For slight scratches, I have used a mill file at the first and moving onto emery paper glued on to a false slide valve. The false slide valve is moved evenly used across the whole port area. Next is bluing on the slide valves and the valve ports. Go through the valve movements to see where the high spots are. Address the high spots and repeat the bluing process until even contact covers both faces. From here, I lap the valves with valve lapping compound. Keep at it until there is a complete contact without any high spots on the faces. On reassembly, the valves should float freely on their valve stems without any lost motion. After valve face work, do not use hook up until the valves get lapped in with enough miles on them. With the heads, on reassembly, make sure that you return them to there original locations. The heads are usually marked with #1 or #2. To unscrew the heads, I used a soft driver and about a 16 ounce hammer to drive the heads around to unscrew them. If they will not move, I take a torch to the head and heat it up until color first starts to appear. Let them cool. When cold, they should have shrunk enough to be easily unscrewed. The steam chest cover also comes off the same way. Stuffing box packing is used for head gaskets for all of them. It hides in the last thread against the lip.