Morris Minor Owners Club

I found this short YouTube video about a fellow that seems to have the parts of a 2 cylinder prototype A series engine.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?time_contin ... =emb_title

Surely it would be woefully underpowered.

Intriguing. Firing order - a 50% chance of getting it right. Not likely to be practical for every day use, but as he says, a great prank to arrive at a rally. I like the "shed".

Reminds me so much of my late Dad, probably what he would have been like if into cars/mechanicals.
But my Dad was a carpenter and his garage was always a woodworking shop, covered in sawdust.
He did however turn his hand to making comedic videos in his latter years.
That line about the Crank "What I intend to do, somehow or other, is to...." was just the sort of thing he's say.

From wikipedia.

Under the code ADO11, the twin cylinder was built with the intention to be used in ADO15(Mini). The it was based in 948cc unit, already in use by BMC. It has 474cc, with single H2 SU carburetor, and already has sump gearbox, FWD layout, that will be used in the Mini. In May 1957, the engine was tested in one Austin A35, alongside another "prototype", 500cc, two-stroke, this one was tested in one Austin A30.

Amazing one has survived, I would imagine they had the fiat 500 and bubble cars in mind.

Developed in response to complaints that the 803 was unnecessarily powerful

Is there only the two films , I wonder if he ever got it running or is it still a work in progress

The recent film was only three weeks ago and he has other projects in hand as well.

IIRC, BMC gave up on the concept, as they could never get it to run without an unacceptable amount of vibration and harshness.

It would be good to have a running example though, just for posterity...

If anybody can get it to run, Ivan can. Don't be too taken in by his bumbling modesty He is a highly respected old school engineer - not to mention successful racing driver

Perhaps with balancing and tuning they can get it to be somewhat smoother.

Or bolt it onto a 803 for a straight six!

The original Fiat 500s and Fiat 126's ran in line twos - albeit air-cooled.

Take a look at the short moped video he did and watch him lean on the peals to get it going. Not bad for an 80 year old

For BMC, it was a pretty short-lived project. Not only did it run unevenly but the production costs were not much less than the 4 cylinder 948cc engine and fuel economy was barely improved, so there was little point.

thanks for the link another great channel to follow with proper hands on engineering , how very British no crankshaft just make one from parts in the store shed !

I watched most of the other videos, dream workshop, not many of us have a supply of spare bugatti parts to use in our projects, he's also had throat cancer, he was using the syringes he had to feed himself to push glue into a steering wheel!

Wasn't hanging around when testing his climax engined lotus 7 either.

Coventry Climax mated to A35 smooth case gearbox as well. Noted the hydraulic (concentric) clutch release. The A35 gearbox must have had some work done to it to cope with the power of the Coventry Climax.

I managed the concentric slave.
Wasn't too difficult and has lasted longer than the engine!

In one of the you tube videos relating to the Bugatti midget racer the film 'To Please A Lady' is mentioned. It is still currently available on DVD and I have bought a copy.
I saw this film many years ago and has stuck with me ever since.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/To-Please-a- ... Swc-tY6iBd

Did he mention why there wasn't a crankshaft and camshaft?

He says that they aligned the camshaft lobes to be 180° apart. However, the crank was also made 180°. That won't work. There is no good arrangement for a 2 cylinder four stroke engine. It may look balance but the firing will only be every other revolution co the camshaft alignment should be 90°. The flywheel will be performing the compression for one cylinder and exhaust evacuation for the other. If the throws were on the same side, then the firing order would be even, but the crank would need a lot of counter weights. Not a high rev-er.

If they are looking for projects, a twin stick gearbox with overdrive would be interesting. The tail housing and third motion shaft is plenty long for it. Take one of the many laygears with bad first or second and turn it around. Cut the third motion shaft and cut the splines for the 3/4 speed wheel. Finish it off with a reversed input shaft and you'll have a 8 speed with 2 speed reverse gear box. A little aluminum fabrication and you are good to go. May need a GPS speedometer, but moving the threads on the fifth motion (input) shaft would do it.

Get your headphones on and listen to it running
https://youtu.be/rKik4DpKxvA
Regard John