Southern Cross 4HP Type PA

The engine looks to be in good condition except that the fuel pump does not pump. I removed the pipes from the pump and can pour fuel into the pump outlet, spin the flywheels and it pumps - I guess there is an obstruction at the entry of the pump stopping it from sucking in fuel from the tank. The pipes to and from the pump are fine.

The engine has good compression and the magneto delivers a very good spark. No restoration has been attempted by anyone else, but it is obvious that this engine lived under cover its whole life. It will be good to work on a virgin for a change, I'll only have to live with my mistakes! It even had an almost full tank of kero.

At the moment I have not even figured out which way it should be cranked. If I stand on the fuel pump side and crank clock wise the exhaust blows and the inlet sucks, but there is a "toggle" of some kind on the drive for the magneto which catches, holds for 1/4 of a revolution then lets go allowing the mag to spin again. It seems to make sense that this happens except that it makes a loud noise and the only other one of these I have seen was very quiet. The "toggle" is curved and hinged so it is possible that at full speed it does not hit anything as the curved face would be presented to the tab it is hitting on instead of the flat face.

If I go to the other side of the engine and crank so it runs the other way, the "toggle" does not catch on anything, but the exhaust sucks and the inlet blows. This could either mean that the timing is wayyy out or it should be cranked the other way. I suspect that it should be the other way.

I've ordered a hand book copy from Rally Badges which should turn up in the next couple of days so it may shed some light on things.

The first thing I am going to do is build a transporter for the damn thing - it is on a wooden sled and is about 350 - 400 kg which makes it very hard to move. I've got some good metal wheels which came of various farm machines so I'll build a transporter this week.

16 April 1999
I received some information from Southern Cross in Queensland consisting of a page out of their shipping register and a photo-copy of the hand book. At least I know which way to crank the engine now. The "thing" which was catching while cranking is called an "impulse starter" and is designed to catch and hold the magneto until the correct firing time and spin it fast "giving a hot fiery spark no matter how slowly the engine is cranked". Thanks very much to Gramhame at Southern Cross for his assistance.

21 April 1999
Having spent the weekend at the Guildford rally, I came home with some renewed energy and got to work on a cart. I used some wheels from a 1905 elevator and a 1910 plough as the base. I made the cart itself from treated pine and oregon all bolted and glued with liquid nails. After much generating of shim stock a friend of mine and I lifted the engine onto its new cart. The careful guesswork in measurements paid off as everything fits and seems very stable.

After the rally we toured the country side and stopped in at all sorts of junk shops. I found an old bilge pump with a brass mud filter and pipe which fits the exhaust manifold of the engine. It will do for an exhaust until I can get a real one. The next step is to finish the Rosebery I was working on before I encountered the Southern Cross, then come back to this engine. From there I expect to proceed with the fuel pump, followed by checking the timing, then we should be ready to run.

29 April 1999
Tonight my Southern Cross "spoke" for the first time in quite a while. I have been trying to coax the engine to life for some time with no avail. Even after obtaining a handbook and following the directions - nothing... At a loss to explain it, I started to trace the fuel path through the carburetor. There did not seem to be any air leaks anywhere. The engine has an air intake which is closed during starting, but opened later to obtain the correct fuel/air mix. This air intake has a hollow cap within its body. To try a theory (just to prove everything else was ok) I put a few drops of petrol into this cap then cranked. She fired! Off she went with three or four cycles before the supply ran out and she stopped again.

The next step will be to completely dismantle the carb and manifold - check it all for leaks and blockages, renew all the gaskets and see what happens. I suspect that there are significant air leaks around the governor valve, and that the tube which carries fuel from the venturi mixer (yep, 1930's - with a venturi) to the main mixing chamber in the manifold may be too constricted to generate enough suction to make the venturi function. This should not be a problem, I'll either clean or make a new tube. As this was a kerosene engine the tube is looped within the exhaust manifold to pre-heat the mixture. This is not needed under petrol and if I do make a new tube, I'll make a straight path that will not gum up as easily as the spiral in place now.

The "needle" (about the size of a really big nail) is very corroded and may stop the venturi from working correctly. I'll probably have to fashion a new one of these too. Before I start making all of these things, I am going to contact Southern Cross again and see if they make any of these parts still.

Any of you who have read the gasket page on Steam & Engine will notice that I gave as one of the reasons for needing gaskets was a lack of perfect machined joints. It seems that many of the joints in this engine do not have gaskets and never did - amazing work quality. It does mean that I have to be extra careful when handling the parts to make sure nothing gets dinged.

11 June 1999
Over the last weekend I stripped down the carby and manifolds, and scraped away all of the old gaskets and replaced them with asbestos/graphite/paper mix. I stripped down the combined fuel/lubrication pump and cleaned it up, replaced the gaskets and rewound the graphite/rope seals. The petrol plunger is a bit worn, and I'll look at replacing it some time. Interestingly the pump has brass check-balls, usually I find iron balls. I put everything back together, put in some fuel and cranked away - off it went! It runs beautifully and is easy to adjust to a nice clean exhaust. With no load it hardly ever fires at all, only about once every 20 revolutions or so. I've not put it under any load yet as I had not made the water piping and had no way to keep the engine cool.

I will have to strip the fuel pump again. As soon as it dried out, it failed to pump once again. I suspect that I may have to find some way to prime it before each start just to give it a chance to get going - seems to work fine once you get it to pump, but making it start pumping is difficult.

On December 31st 1999 I completed a quick and dirty overhaul of the engine and had it up and running just in time for the annual New Years Eve CrankUp.