"Cartridge paper" (in its original use) was a gasket for hot environments. Although it's harder to find it thick enough for that these days. Certainly the fibres are right for this.
Needs to be elephant (probably hyrax too, not that I'm obsessed with hyraxes or anything) It's the combination of both tough diet and poor ability to digest it. Ruminants don't leave enough behind, deer just nibble the good stuff.
The main point of the design was that the cylinder heads were supposed to be able to be removed and refitted without removing the intake manifold, to reduce servicing costs. I suppose they never thought of designing an engine that didn't blow head gaskets.
Surely the original use of cartridge paper was for cartridges?
From Wikipedia; "Cartridge paper is a high quality type of heavy paper used for illustration and drawing. It was originally used for making weaponry cartridges".
Don't really see what advantage that gives - removing the inlet manifold is an easy job, compared to cylinder head removal on an OHC design.
Yes - and a cartridge case is a one-use gasket for hot environments, isn't it?
I reckon that's stretching the connection a little bit far ... d;~}
Arfa
Quite high pressure as well - but a big leak doesn't matter.
Well it does rather for the early needle guns. Leakage around the needle blew back into the firer's face.
I admit I don't know the history of cartridge paper in relation to cartridges of the 18th and early 19th century (although enquiries are in place amongst the obsessional and sulphorous). By the time of the one-piece breech-loadable paper cartridge, the need for a long-fibre rag paper was well recognised - the high quality "cartridge paper" that we recognise as such. For the earlier muzzle-loading "cartouches", I'm not so sure. These were a pre-weighed charge and a way of keeping a pre-greased ball or bullet clean by wrapping the whole lot up in a one-use paper bag. The shooter would tear (or bite) the end off the package, and pour the charge down a vertical barrel, followed by the ball. If they had time, they'd use the paper case between these as a wad, ramming it into place. For rapid-fire though there was no time to ram and so the paper wad was skipped. The question is, were these early packages also seen as requiring such a good grade of paper? They were in use over a long period, from when the only paper made was high quality paper, through to a time when cheap newsprint had appeared. Did the paper used for loose-loading cartridges drop in quality likewise?
Seconded. Although Stag cams weren't too bad; the timing gear unbolts from the camshafts and can be fitted temporarily to a couple of brackets within the engine without losing chain tension or throwing the timing out. It was one of the nicer OHC setups I've seen.
Problem was that the steel head studs would corrode within the alloy heads, making it very difficult to get everything apart - probably not something the engineers ever anticipated when all was new, and which might have been dealt with if the car had enjoyed a longer production life.
I'm not sure where in the timeline the Stag engine, with alloy heads and an iron block, fitted - doubtless that didn't help with gasket failure if metals were expanding at different rates.
cheers
Jules
Apart from the simplex chains having a short life...
Rover had it sorted with their V-8 - use Scotchclad thread sealer on every thread or over a bolt etc going through ally. Stops corrosion between the two as well as locking it. But they also used waisted bolts to give clearance between steel and ally over most of the length.
Plenty used ally heads and cast iron blocks - Jaguar on the XK engine since the '40s, for example. It's not impossible to engineer it correctly. My impression of the Stag unit was there was someone in charge who decided to cut corners. Bit like some council house designers. 'Let's try this new idea just for the sake of it' ;-) The waterpump is a prime example. The Stag has room for a straight six - so why not a conventional waterpump which is tried and tested technology? And would have removed the need for a layshaft.
We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Andy Dingley saying something like:
Bush mechanicing, indeed. Did you also piss in the brake fluid reservoir?
Of course not, you use shampoo for that (really)
There's also a works tool for taking the heads off - a tube cutter for sawing the studs free of their corrosion.
Indeed. But using a modern sealer would have negated that problem. Or waisted bolts.
Really really? I thought shampoo was mostly water... but then I suppose water is pretty hard to compress...
Yeah, 15k miles IIRC*. Although replacing them was a pretty simple job, and they weren't *that* expensive an item, so I'm not sure it's any worse than the maintenance schedule on a lot of modern vehicles. Just worse than most contemporary ones. :-)
Interesting. ISTR copperslip was the stuff to use on Stag ones, but that was knowledge amongst the owner community, rather than something that the factory did. I don't know if the factory bothered with anything (I don't recall mention of it in the official workshop manual, but it's been a while)
I think there was someone in charge who was just plain bonkers, TBH - cutting corners was a secondary motivation :-) I've often heard a comment about the engine being essentially two Dolomite inline-fours merged together, but I've never taken a Dolomite engine apart to see if there's merit in that.
I think the brief was always for a V8, though - their 'six wasn't considered good enough. Which was fair enough (ignoring the fuel crisis), and ballsy of them to design their own - but they seemed to make a lot of fundamental screw-ups along the way.
I don't think that's inherently bad, other than adding a bit of complexity and extra weight - but again it was a design flaw with insufficent oil supply (and/or made worse by overheating).
I wonder if there was a reason they couldn't have used an electric water pump from the start, as various owners have done since... maybe the technology just wasn't there back then.
cheers
Jules
We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Andy Dingley saying something like:
Please, don't tell me what the conditioner was for.
Even just bolts, TBH. Studs are a complete nightmare when they get stuck in there - even locking a couple of nuts together on the ends sometimes isn't enough to shift them (I once made the mistake of buying an expensive stud extractor tool - it stripped itself to bits after about the third one).
cheers
J.
Most timing chains have a pretty long life. Cam belts are the things that need a routine change - but even then I don't know of any where this is
15k miles. Most are three times that or more.I can't remember either since my brother has the manual. But do know that steel protected with Scotchguard doesn't seize into ally. So much so I use it for other such things.
It essentially is. Now there might be merit in making a four cylinder as short as possible - and including a layshaft that can also be a balance shaft - but not really a V-8 which needs neither. They could still have used the basic Dolomite design but fitted a conventional water pump and a distributor driven off somewhere else. After all the inlet manifold wasn't common to the fours.
The prototype was made from a six cylinder car - IIRC an estate. And it is an easy job to fit that engine.
IIRC, the overheating was caused by a poor rad and waterpump - later versions were better.
They certainly weren't common.
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