Braddock, VC

Richard, if you have a mechanical bent it's fairly straight forward to modify a two stroke petrol pump from a portable petrol power tool to suit a 4 stroke. I have used this on several 4 strokes, particularly lasers and it sorts all repeat ALL the issues out. As guidance ignore what the self appointed experts say unless they have actually tried it. The procedure is along these lines. Remove the pump/carburettor from the petrol engine.You will see an orifice on the flanged face that sits against the crankcase. A short piece of brass tube 3mm od needs to be placed in this hole and secured with epoxy. NOT the main inlet tract btw. ALL the jets MUST be screwed tightly closed. you now have two inlets the 3mm brass one is to be connected to the exhaust pressure nipple of the 4 stroke - be prepared to replace this silicon tube regularly, the other inlet connects to your tank. Now you have to drill and tap a hole into the inlet fuel side of the carb and fit and seal a nipple there, this goes to the fuel feed on your engine. Secure the pump/carb to the firewall and connect up your pipes. What effectively happens is the engine carb draws fuel when the engine is on the inlet stroke and the carb float and needle valve close it off so it doesn't leak. I used this on several lasers and also on a big Italian 25cc two stroke glow where the tank was over 300 mm away from the firewall. It worked on that giving it a decent idle. You may find, as I found, that lasers will tick over reliably at around 1600 rpm. I can't give you any more detail as IIRC I did this over 20 years ago, in fact the pump is still on one of my planes. and my mate's 25cc one still has one fitted as well. I gave up modelling some years ago. At that time I had a friend with a lawnmower business and used pump/carbs were free. As you don't use the jets that little unreliability issue is sidetracked. This solution is cheap in both cash and time so rather than spending hours looking for something like a perry pump that probably won't work unless you spend hours setting it up this little gem relies on hydrostatics and works from the get go with a modicum of needle twiddling. Of course some experts will try and explain it's about as difficult to do as building the great wall of china. I always found that negative waves seemed to rule on this forum.

Slacken the glowplug a turn-ish then try again, soon as it gets going tighten the plug back up.

That's the finale on me trying to be helpful

I don't know if all are aware but the telephone preference service, (TPS) now applies to cell phones, too. tpsonline.org.uk

I've not been to the nats since 2005 so I won't either miss it or wring my hands over it, MOG that I am. If the FF one is on I'll make the trip up. I suspect that the relative ease with which we can obtain hard to come by items cancels out the need to make the trip to buy (or over buy) the supplies we think we need. I'll miss the bring and buy but it's a hell of a way to go just for that.

Having said that os f plugs are normally robust, I have an OS 40 pre surpass 4 stroke I bought new in 83 or 84 and it's still on its original plug, I swapped an engine for an OS 52 surpass in the mid 90s that came with a saito plug complete with bent central post and it's still in there. Que sera, sera. Don't lose sight of the fact it made us all look mugs and reinforces my belief that we always look for the worst case scenario when a quick cheap fix is the answer.

Go and sit on the naughty step ?.

A picture paints a 1000 words, here's 2000 + I bought it from machine mart in 2008, not only does it pull prop drivers, in my hands up to 180 4s, 160 nitro 2 s and 35cc gas. (I've not tried it on anything larger ), it also pulls battery terminals and windscreen wiper drive hubs, bearings on electric motors ( auto not model) I think they are about a tenner. The engine in the pic is a turnigy 26cc gas. At the other end of the scale it's also pulled the prop driver from an ed hornet which was a real pig to get shifted. Btw always leave the prop nut fitted, they come off at a rate of knots. BTE

Just my £0.02 - check that the valve timing is correct, it's quite easy to do on the 48, two cap screws to take out on the camshaft cover, prior to this set the engine at tdc. When the engine is at tdc there is a punch march (indent) on the end of the camshaft against one of the gear teeth, this should be in line with the pushrod tubes and the centre of the camshaft. It doesn't really matter if the indent is adjacent to the pushrods or 180 degrees opposite, it should be in line with those pushrods. If it isn't then you should reset it. FWIW they will run with the camshaft one tooth out of synch, only in one direction out of synch and I can't remember which. I did hear a story that if you set them up 90 degrees out of synch you can run the engine in opposite rotation but I can't confirm this. Next time I change bearings I'll give it a try.

Out flying today, using my 14th iirc wot4. I chose to power it with an OS 52 Surpass 4 stroke which is the least powerful engine I have ever used apart from an HB 50pdp in an early mk 2 back in 1982. I found an apc 12.25 x 3.75 prop and it matches the combination exactly. I won't say there's unlimited vertical or that the loops are the largest I've seen but it doesn't seem to be much different to one I had that used a saito 82 as prime mover. Ordinarily I would have used a 13 x 6 or a 12x6 on this engine as I was worried it would over-rev on this prop. Well pleased with my day out. Oh and it came back in one piece!!!!

If you get a text from phone number +447423596933 advising you that you have set up a new payee on your bank account and further advising you to click on a link to cancel the payee (in my case it purported to be from Santander) you would be wise not to click the link. If you are concerned go into to your bank account as you normally do and check to see if you have set up a new payee. Just saying.

BTW set up the tx for 7 channel operation, IIRC you do this under parameter on the menus.

Assumes tx is on beforehand.....

Button is between aerials, depress and hold it down switch on. Mine flashes red then flash green then solid green. HTH.

BTW that's one of the stuffed gimbals at the bottom of the pic. I take much more care of my equipment nowadays ?