Unusual Engine Designs. Wooler Motorcycles.

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Just had to post some pics etc here, as one of these is going on my 1940s train layout ...


http://www.hendersonmotorcycle.com/Restoration.htm

It's the 1945 Wooler prototype with the transverse 4 engine

And the guy sitting on it in the picture which was taken in 1948 is C.H. de Whalley

John Wooler was a very innovative designer, he began production under his own name in a factory at Willesden in 1913.


What led me first to this interesting trivia was the crankshaft design. This display is at the Sammy Miller's Motorcycle Museum in England.



Here is the crankshaft. The engine is also referred to a beam or swash-plate design.
http://www.micapeak.com/winona/strange/wooler1.html


The complete engine; 1948 Wooler 500cc four

^I bet you’re a good mechanic

My Dad was always fixing up cars, and I was a “helper” though way too gurly-gurl for him to even allow me to change a tyre! I used to love being a pillion passenger on the back of a motorbike! Now, I find myself driving an electric car, but I love older classic cars! You are probably far more of a mechanic than I’ll ever be, KK .

Watched the other vids again and on second watch/listen - being radial engines they have a sound that’s similar to the radial engines so many airplanes have.. soo, I see no reason why they would be shunned based on a wimpy exhaust note or anything.

This video played. Very weird macaroni cylinders in a sphere engine. I don’t understand 99% of German so have no idea what’s said about them. Would have been neat to see this thing in a motorcycle vs a concept in an engineering lab. Same for the Duke, really - but at least there’s a/v of the Wooler.

I can change a tire. Not much more than that. I can change some fluids, but can’t do an oil change.

I once changed two tires on a very busy highway (motorway). That was in 1997, after both my rear tires blew out.

I’m sure you Could do an oil change, though. If you can change a tire and top up fluids you have all of the required skills to do an oil change. Very simple turning of a couple different wrenches & pouring fluid - it’s truly a pretty simple process and I’m confident you could do it if you had to. Plenty of YouTube tutorials to guide you, too.

Most people don’t change their own oil, though. I’ve only done it once or Maybe twice when I was Super Poor and pinching every penny. Most of us just use some local mechanic or oil change shop because it’s a messy job and we don’t want to have to dispose of the used oil etc - worth the extra few bucks to pay someone else to do it and keep the mess to their shop. 2-3 oil changes ago I was referred to a shop that’s 40% or so cheaper than what I was paying so now I don’t have a reason to Ever do it myself And can justify leaving a cash or beer tip for the mechanics there once in a while.

Yep...disposing of the used oil is a problem.

I know a guy who works on his own car. Even his brakes.

I changed the front brake pads on one of my old Honda civics once. Again, when I was very poor and pinching pennies. It cost me $13USD for a pair of clearance sale priced brake pads from rockauto.com and I did it myself at the end of my driveway. It wasn’t that hard. There’s a make and model specific YouTube tutorial for almost everything these days. Monkey see, monkey do.

This thread needs more Wankels. BRRP BRRP BRRP

What’s that? Dirt bike? Snowmobile?

Mazda!

Basically the kugelmotor is surrounded by its own crank & timing mechanism, which also includes an electric motor/generator.

i wonder why nobody has made a hybrid of an ICE or ECE that has within it the ability to generate electrical current sans appended generators/alternators?

Mazdas are (or were when the company started in the 80s) all powered by Wankel engines. AKA "rotary engines".

Instead of pistons going up and down cylinders Wankels consist of one big triangular thingy that spins around in side of a big cylinder that does the job by compressing and igniting the gas on one side of the cylinder with one side of triangular thing ...which causes the gas to explode and to spin the triangular thing around -thus repeating the cycle (of sucking in more gas and air and of expelling the exhaust) and driving the crankshaft. The Japanese adoption of that long ignored German invented system for a whole new make of cars was quite a radical move when it happened back in the 80s.

I do not know much about cars or engines, but as far as I know, the first Ford car engine created by Henry Ford was actually powered by hydrogen, the extraction of hydrogen from water, rather than petrol and as far as I know, it was viable method of fuelling a car and a cheap one, unless it came with contact with flames, then it would explode at the equivalent of a small hydrogen bomb. Unlikely that the engine would come in contact with flames... The creation was pushed aside and replaced with a petrol fuelled version and obviously, petrol: more consumer money.

Last edited by nadroJ on 18 Jul 2020, 11:56 am, edited 1 time in total.