My first vehicle! 1956 CJ5

[56willys]

Great info there Bm, I hadn't known about the timing marks on the flywheel. I saw there was no pointer on the front cover and no marks on the crank. So I'll check into the flywheel markings. The thing that concerns me is the fuel, we had a talk about this awhile back and LarrBeard posted about fuel being 68 octane in ww2. That will burn a lot faster then today's 87, so is factory timing really optimal if those numbers are for faster burning fuel?

Saturday was a car/airplane show at the local airport. So we drove Flossy out, and even drove through a roundabout and a big 4 lane road. But it handled those scary modern roads like a champ, there were plenty of people passing us going willys speed when people are in a hurry. With the vacuum leak eliminated its running like a top! And Flossy sure got a lot of attention, even with stiff competition from the airplanes. The traffic director almost didn't let us in the gate, I guess he didn't think Flossy was "car show material" but that's okay. Tons of people loved seeing it and it may not look good but it literally starts faster than 90% percent of others cars there, haha! Here's a few pics of the event.

[bmorgil]

Flossy fits right in, that's a nice little show!

Average octanes were in the 70's to 80's in the late 40's and early 50's. Not extremely far from the 87 of today's regular. The octane effects the fuels ability to resist detonation. It is slower to explode (or burn, a relative term) as the octane increases which resists detonation. In the low compression 134 detonation really isn't a factor. The best time to ignite the air fuel mixture is based on many things other than octane, octane being a very small part of the best timing for combustion. As you increase the engines pressure at ignition you need to increase the octane to prevent detonation. Advancing the timing because you have the octane to do so without detonation, isn't necessarily going to make more power. Now if you could not achieve the best cylinder pressure because you didn't have enough timing, because it was detonating, more octane would allow more timing and more power. In the case of the 134 there is plenty of room for as much timing as you can give it. It doesn't need it however as the low compression keeps it far from detonation at the optimum timing numbers, with a broad range of octane. That is why you can crank in a bunch of advance and get great idle vacuum with a bunch of timing and it wont detonate under load. You will be losing power and it will be harder on components however, though it may sound great at idle! Engines love a lot of timing at idle. The fuel air mixture is dirty and vacuum is medium to low. More timing helps light it. The distributor has a range of about 20 to 25 degrees of mechanical advance built in. The most important timing in the engine is the timing at full load at around 3000 RPM, not idle. So if you add the total advance of the distributor and the initial timing lead you get the total advance at max RPM. Around 25 to 30 deg in the 134. Adding idle timing adds total timing. Igniting the fuel too early for the engines mechanical design under load (think total timing) will waste a lot of its energy and can cause damage.

[gmwillys]

Two of my favorite things to be around, vintage Jeeps and vintage aircraft. Great photos '56!

[LarrBeard]

Now you just need to find a steam locomotive and you have the trifecta...

[gmwillys]

I can agree with that Senior Chief on that. Steam locomotives or steam traction engines, both are awesome to watch work.

[LarrBeard]

I want to get a picture of the '48 alongside NKP 765, but they are very conscious of photographs and copyright matters ...

[bmorgil]

I love the story you have on that one Larry, isn't it a legendary locomotive? Is that the one that used to set speed records between Ohio and Indiana?

[56willys]

I want to get a picture of the '48 alongside NKP 765, but they are very conscious of photographs and copyright matters ...

A Willys and a Berkshire, that would be an incredible photo. I remember seeing a promotional film from back in the day saying that a willys could pull a boxcar. Not with ease and speed of a 2-8-4 but it could pull it.

One of the many things on the bucket list is some type of steam engine. (Steam tractor, garden train, steam car etc.) They are just simply fascinating, they are so complex, I wonder how people figured them out 100 years prior to gas engines. When you look back now and a gas engine is far simpler.
But it's hard to beat the raw power of expanding super heated steam, all it takes is a little fire, a little water, and a whole lot of know-how!

[gmwillys]

The complexity of the engineering and the casting of the iron for these behemoths is unbelievable considering that they used pencil and paper and slide rules to figure everything out.

[bmorgil]

......they used pencil and paper and slide rules to figure everything out.

I can still remember having to learn how to use the slide rule way back in time. I remember thinking to myself... did I get that right or, am I guessing? Life before the pocket calculator and the Dial Indicated calipers!