Tornado .049 First Run...... Sort Of....

Well, it has been a long time coming, but I managed to do 2 things. Firstly is I did manage to run an engine I have had for a while, but had never attempted to run due to problems with it. And secondly, it did run. Sort of.... So I received this old Tornado .049 a couple of years ago. It was and still is in rough shape. The head was pooched, and tapped for a standard glow plug. However, the head was in very rough shape overall, very ugly, rough, and fins were kind mangled into one. But that was the start. The reed was damaged beyond repair and they too are unobtanium, so I did set out to repair it. After many attempts, I ended up with one that very closely resembled a Cox style reed that did work and pass the suck-blow test. The tank/backplate assembly is also slightly deformed and has a major leak somewhere as when I filled the tank it kept leaking out on my bench. Anyways, I put a glow starter on it, primed it, and it showed some promise by firing. I ended up using my electric finger on it, and after a few attempts, it fired and came to life. It did run with the glow starter on it as seen in the picture. A couple attempts of removing it did work, but no difference in running. It did run out the fuel in the tank that it was able to before it emptied itself. But by me saying running, it did, but very rough, erratic, and not a whole lot of power. Actually I can say it was running terribly rich as all the fuel oil all over the engine was very clean. The only time it peaked out was at the end when it was running out of fuel, and then at that it did seem to have some really good power. Any settings while running did not make any difference. It is kind of upsetting as I did have hopes for this engine and had a plane ready for it. But on teh bright side, it did again run at least one more time since only it knows when last. I will be taking it apart one last time to see if I may be able to diagnose a possible problem in case I may be able to get it to run properly. If not, a good clean up and will retire it in the hopes that one day I may just be able to find a correct reed replacement as I do feel this may be the problem even though passing the test.

Sorry for the bad picture, but lens was dirty at time of taking the photo.