1957 Briggs 6BH
Why the strap on the tank?
Here's the reason. This blower housing has had it! The mounting holes have worn out and someone has brazed on washers to repair that. The tank has also been brazed but is sound. One of the mounting bolts is missing from the tank. The strap would have made it serviceable.
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Since the 6BH was also made with a rope pulley starter, and I like rope starts, I'm going to change this engine over. It's a little more involved than it might sound. First I dug up an old blower housing from the same time era and drilled holes to accept the fuel tank.
The is tank mounted up to the new blower housing. I drilled the rivets that held the ID Tag onto the old housing. It will be riveted to the replacement after painting.
Another issue with changing from a recoil start to a rope start is the crankshaft is different. The recoil start has a longer end and is right hand thread. Where the rope start crank has a left hand thread. Solution being, change the crankshaft.
That should cover the changeover.
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The block and sump cleaned up.
1 Intake Valve / 2 Piston Assembly / 3 Crankshaft / 4 Exhaust Valve / 5 Oil Slinger / 6 Camshaft
Above are all the internal parts cleaned up and ready for reassembly. First I need to get the external parts painted!
All the parts to be painted are prepped and masked. This engine was originally black. Since most of my older engines are black, and they did use many other colors for the early aluminum engines I think this one will be the common medium red.
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After a few coats of Ford Red engine enamel the assembly.
First all of the internal pats are installed. The rod cap bolts in this model are torqued to 140 in/lbs
The valves went in next. Intake valve clearance .005 to .007" and the Exhaust valve checked within the specified .007 to .009"
The ignition components went on next. New points and condenser. Points set to .020" gap. The then magneto was put on. The flywheel was temporarily installed to set the air gap of the magneto to the flywheel to .014 for this model. The second picture shows the points cover in place after all the adjustments had been made.
The flywheel nut is then torqued to 55 ft/lbs The head was then bolted on with the bolts being torqued to 140 in/lbs The carb blower housing and muffler were then installed.
The fuel shut off valve was missing on this engine. A trip to the spares box turned up a new one. Not sure why I had a new one, but it saved a trip to the parts store.
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The Finished Photos
The decals are once again home made. The third picture shows the ID tag that I had to rivet to the replacement blower housing using plain peen rivets. The first 6BH I did was sold on E-Bay. This one is staying!
And a video to prove it runs...
The aluminum engines have to have the weight of a blade to run. I made this plywood test stand to mount the engines to that safely encloses the blade. Click the Film Icon for a short video.
On to the next project...