In the Test Stand - A Restored 1949 DC Wildcat 5cc Diesel Engine

[00:00:01]Hi there. Welcome to the restoration and renovation of a lovely 1949 diesel engine. Now, this is the Englishmade DC Wildcat, and it's the very first engine that DC Davis Charlton ever made. And I tell you what, it's a lovely looking engine. Now, I've spent quite a bit of time over the last few weeks restoring this and bringing it back to uh to the lovely engine it is.

[00:00:33]It mechanically it was sound, but the outside of it was just a little bit tired and there were like the tank assembly and stuff like that was completely missing. So, it was really good to have the opportunity to to renovate this engine. It was an engine given to me by Jeff for which I'm really grateful.

[00:00:53]Now, I finished this a few days ago and I've been desperate to get out and see if it runs, how it runs, and whether the uh the fuel cut off works on the tank.

[00:01:06]And we've had some really wet and windy weather, but I reckon we've got a couple of hours of bright blue sky at the moment and a little bit of cloud. Um, so I'm going to get out now and see if we can get this running in the test stand.

[00:01:20]Before we do that, we'll take a very quick closer look, but I am dead excited to see how this engine runs.

[00:01:28]So, here we have the DC Wildcat, and I absolutely love these engines. It's a long stroke diesel engine. It's 5cc.

[00:01:38]And I just think they're they're great looking engines. So, what have we done to this over the last few weeks?

[00:01:45]And because this is uh the culmination of a of a restoration series, we've cleaned up the uh spinner nut. We've cleaned up the prop driver. We've removed um what were vice marks, crisscross vice marks on both sides of the crank case and both of the lugs.

[00:02:05]I've replaced one of the fins on the head that had been broken off. Um, I think it's this one on the front here that uh we completely replaced. So, that head is looking absolutely lovely now.

[00:02:21]And I've made the tank assembly. So, I turned a new tank. I've made a cutff lever which essentially opens up a hole and stops it from drawing fuel. You can see there's a just a hole there that opens up.

[00:02:36]I've uh made a new fuel pickup. So the whole lot of this below the Venturi is new. And I've also sort of touched up the end of the Venturi. It was dent and sort of a little bit hooked round where it looked like it had been dropped. So done quite a lot of work on this engine.

[00:02:54]And like I said, dead excited now to see how it work uh how it runs. Oh, and there's a brand new nut there on the Venturi we made. So anyway, let's get this in the test stand. And I'm going to be running it on this uh 12 by oh 12 1/2x 6 prop. And uh I think that should be a good size for it. That'll make it work, I think.

[00:03:19]Well, there's some black clouds around today, but fingers crossed uh we'll get a run of this. So, let's get some fuel in.

[00:03:30]First time it's had fuel in this tank.

[00:03:34]Oh, there we go. Gosh, packed up quite a lot of fuel.

[00:03:38]So, right, fuel tank full. We've got the uh stop closed. Just little bit of squirt of fuel in there. And uh we'll see how it goes.

[00:03:55]Now, I have no idea where the settings are for this. So, could take a little bit of time just to get it uh get it running now.

[00:04:12]Oh, well, that's certainly sucking fuel up, which is good. Let's give it a bit more compression.

[00:04:23]A little bit more compression. Let's just close that needle valve a little bit.

[00:04:39]A little bit more compression.

[00:04:42]Perhaps another just squirt of fuel.

[00:04:48]Oh, that's sounding good.

[00:04:50]Now, just because it doesn't start first time doesn't mean say it's hard starting. It means we just haven't got the settings right.

[00:05:02]Just [snorts] Heat.

[00:05:34]Heat.

[00:05:50]Heat up here.

[00:06:23]Heat up here.

[00:06:32]Heat. Heat.

[00:06:51]Heat. Heat.

[00:07:14]Heat.

[00:07:23]Heat.

[00:07:31]Heat up here.

[00:08:07]>> [laughter] >> Well, I suspect that is out of fuel. Uh, I can't see in there, but it's been running for a while, and the oil coming out is is nice. It's got a little bit of color to it, but it's looking nice. Uh I tried to use the um the stop lever, but [laughter] but because of the screw sticking up, it wouldn't uh it wouldn't go back far enough. So, um yeah, I'm not sure [laughter] I'm not sure how I can get over that other than bend the lever up. Um but that was nice. That ran really nice. So, I'll get it fueled back up. I mean, it's not Oh, it is a bit hot, but it's not that hot. And what did we get? Looks like we got about 5,000 RPM on this uh this 12 by six. So, yeah, we'll just wait for that to cool down a bit and we'll get it going again.

[00:08:59]Right, I've got this thing fueled up again, and I haven't adjusted the settings since it stopped, since it ran out of fuel. So, I thought what I would do is just give it a couple of chokes and see if that will work on the settings we've got. I suspect Oh, I was going to say I suspect it will need a port, but let's just give it a couple more.

[00:09:29]Let's give it a port prime.

[00:09:56]Heat. Heat.

[00:10:09]Right. So, I'll increase the compression a little bit and uh see if it'll start on a port porter prime now. One, two.

[00:10:19]Let's give it three for good measure.

[00:10:32]Well, that was really nice. Let's try it again. One, two, three.

[00:11:04]Heat.

[00:11:09]Heat.

[00:11:34]Heat. Heat.

[00:11:46]Heat.

[00:12:12]Heat.

[00:12:26]Heat.

[00:12:33]Heat. Heat.

[00:12:59]>> [laughter] >> took it down just a little bit too low.

[00:13:02]Although to be honest, could have run out of fuel, I suppose. Actually, I haven't checked, but there's no leak on the underside of the tank, which is nice.

[00:13:12]Right. Well, I've put about half a tank of fuel in. Obviously, I'm not sure cuz I can't see, but I haven't filled the tank up. And I've moved the uh the mounting lug here. Well, not the lug, but the mounting beam out a little bit so we can operate the kill switch because we got we got to try the kill switch. It's nice and secure, so it's not it's not going anywhere. So, we will see. Hopefully, that will work. And I'll put the camera that side. So, I might be in the way a little bit. Now, let's Right. Let's have another go.

[00:14:06]Excellent. Oh, we'll have to do that again. That was good.

[00:14:11]And a relief. And a relief. I can tell you it'd have been a bit embarrassing if it didn't work. One, two, three.

[00:14:36]Well, that is pretty conclusive.

[00:14:39]Excellent. Oh, that's exciting.

[00:14:47]One to two.

[00:14:59]Brilliant. What more could we ask for?

[00:15:05]Well, didn't that run absolutely gorgeous? I just love this engine. I mean, we had a nice steady top speed. I think the the highest we got was about 5,600 at one point and it ticked over really comfortably at about 3 12,000 RPM. If you took it down a little bit less than that, it it didn't like it. But wow, that just ran so nice and it started really easily. And thankfully, it actually stopped on the uh on the uh control lever here to stop the engine, which is a real relief. And I was slightly nervous when I when I pulled it over and it just paused a second before it stopped. Uh but it just I've blown away running this engine today. Just so much fun and so exciting. And you know, I put quite a lot of work into this with repairing the head and the spinner nut and the tank and everything. But I tell you what, every single second was absolutely worth it just for this few minutes of running. And it makes me think two things. One, I've got to get this in a model. And I do have a model in mind, and I've got a a couple of 5cc engines I'd like to to make a model for.

[00:16:25]So, that's the one thing. And the second thing is, why not make a Venturi that I can put a car on and see how it throttles? Cuz it would be I think it'd be an easy job to make. and uh and if it throttled that would be dead interesting and quite nice. It's nice to have it original, but also it's nice to make it a little bit more versatile when we get it in the model of the field. So anyway, I hope you've enjoyed seeing this run today.

[00:16:54]And uh you can see by the smile on my face how much I've enjoyed this lovely, lovely engine running. So thanks very much for watching.