<-=- Club Bevel Heaven -=->

Beat this: 27 litres, 2600bhp, camshafts over a yard long...
Yes it's the Rolls Royce Merlin engine, most famously fitted to the WW2 Spitfire and P51 Mustang but finding a home in tanks, boats, a few crazy cars and even a motorcycle (somebody band- sawed the first two cylinders off one, only 4500 cc!).
I was crawling over one today, recovered from the Mediterranean off Malta, when I noticed the characteristic tubes up the back of the engine, yes, cam drive shafts with 45 degree straight cut bevels on the end, don't suppose they were that bothered about valve-train noise then. No Desmo either, probably hard enought to shim up anyway with the Luftwaffe bombing your hangar day and night.
I wonder if this engine had any influence on Dr. T ?
Yours Historically,
In-Two

pix pix pix

[attachment=1]Merlin engine scotland, rusty bevel gear visible.jpg[/attachment][] I have no pics of the actual engine i was looking at, these are of one still on a remote mountainside in scotland showing the rusty bevel drive and gear, a shot of the top bevel, a diagram and a painting of a spitfire in action over Malta.
The fighter plane applications of the later Merlins (also built in the States by Packard) have the two stage supercharger covering the back of the engine where the camshaft drive towers are, so they are not usually visible. The engine I have been looking at is in a museum on Malta after an heroic undersea recovery operation. I'll try and post links to the story if anybody is interested.

It's amazing there are still a few of these laying out in the open. They are very, very sought after in the vintage car/boat race crowd. I would think even the wrecked ones would have some useful parts. Please post a link to the articles.

The bike was built by a bloke called Lucky Kursuo,its definatly Lucky but not sure about the 2nd name.Ossie bloke from out near Dubbo NSW.Made all the local bike mags 25years or so ago.

[url][http://www.rafbea.org/stories/pat_patie ... it.htm/url]
Here's a link to the story about the Maltese Spitfire

Put "Lucky Keizer merlin" into google image search for lots of pics.

Lucky's bike had belt drive cams so no bevel.

From memory he found a war surplus engine in a crate on some old blokes farm, the farmer thought it would make a good irrigation pump but ran out of motivation.

I remember that bike dropping a trail of oil round the entire Oran park circuit doing a demo lap prior to a race meeting, they used the media helicopter to blow the excess cement dust off the racing line,
WH&S would have a heart attack if you did anything like that nowdays

Lucky is a mate of mine and he is about to crank Merlin up again in a bike for dirt drags.
Also working on a V12 Meteor (land based Merlin) in a speed car destined for the salt flats along with his Merlin 2 streamliner.
From memory, he cut the 2 cylinders off a wrecked engine.
Regards,