Sopwith Dolphin Retrospective No. 8 - Project Saved

The project saved

 I decided to see how hard it would be to remove the engine, just supposing I was mad enough to attempt such a thing. I discovered that there was quite a bit of play in its mountings; and if I gently rocked it backwards and forwards, its points of attachments seemed to become weaker. Then it suddenly came out, without taking any of the framework with it.

I decided to see what would happen if I tried to remove the port cylinder block. I put the points of a fine pair of tweezers under the cylinder block and exerted leverage. The cylinder block pinged off, with all the ignition leads still in place.

So that was surprisingly easy.

I reset the engine, using my plans as an alignment guide this time, and in due course glued the whole thing back in place. This time, the engine came out pretty much vertical. This is important, by the way, because it will be visible from the front through a big aperture in the engine cowling.

Admittedly, the cylinder blocks still look slightly out of kilter in this view, but take my word for it that the photo is slightly misleading.

Next: the present day