Excursion down memory lane

[mettisse]

Recently, my wife got an offer on the tinternet for a reduced price to stay at the Brooklands Hotel at Weybridge, very handy for a visit to the Brooklands Museum and Mercedes World. As a surprise for me she booked it for a Sunday night, the upshot of it being I spent the whole of Sunday in the museum and as I don't work on Mondays I got spend the whole of Monday in Mercedes World. I can proudly boast that when it comes to anoraking I qualify for the Olympic squad.
The museum is one of those work in progress jobs which makes it feel "alive"
for me the star being the Napier W12 Railton which they still run, through to the Gold Stars, Manx Nortons, Broughs, and wide selection of race cars through to the airplane section, I loved it all, the grub was good ( roast pork dinner) a great day out.
Mercedes World was also great, they have a team of 6.3 gofast models roaring round a skin pan which if you a brave enough ( not me) you can pay and have a passenger ride, and a very, very tame off road course for the M series which they will give you a passenger ride. The museum exhibition building is awesome, I loved it. We took the guided tour for £4? I think, well worth it, you get a guide that knows the values and history of the vehicles. All in all a good day out, free entry no charge,
The hotel was A1, food ( tad dear but good) spa, ( for the gals) cocktail bar, the lot very good.
bearing in mind I only live just an hour away from the place I want to go again, lovely thing is it's easy accessible too just off the the big car park, the M 25, so next time you are looking to spend a day anoraking, this might be for you
best regards to all Bill Westley

 

[Chas]

Recently, my wife got an offer on the tinternet for a reduced price to stay at the Brooklands Hotel at Weybridge, very handy for a visit to the Brooklands Museum and Mercedes World. As a surprise for me she booked it for a Sunday night, the upshot of it being I spent the whole of Sunday in the museum and as I don't work on Mondays I got spend the whole of Monday in Mercedes World. I can proudly boast that when it comes to anoraking I qualify for the Olympic squad.
The museum is one of those work in progress jobs which makes it feel "alive"
for me the star being the Napier W12 Railton which they still run, through to the Gold Stars, Manx Nortons, Broughs, and wide selection of race cars through to the airplane section, I loved it all, the grub was good ( roast pork dinner) a great day out.
Mercedes World was also great, they have a team of 6.3 gofast models roaring round a skin pan which if you a brave enough ( not me) you can pay and have a passenger ride, and a very, very tame off road course for the M series which they will give you a passenger ride. The museum exhibition building is awesome, I loved it. We took the guided tour for £4? I think, well worth it, you get a guide that knows the values and history of the vehicles. All in all a good day out, free entry no charge,
The hotel was A1, food ( tad dear but good) spa, ( for the gals) cocktail bar, the lot very good.
bearing in mind I only live just an hour away from the place I want to go again, lovely thing is it's easy accessible too just off the the big car park, the M 25, so next time you are looking to spend a day anoraking, this might be for you
best regards to all Bill Westley

I'm only about 20mins away, I've been to the Brooklands Museum before but not the Merc one. A flying friend of mine from ages ago was one of the men restoring the I think it was a Wellington bomber there and I got a close up look at that. As it's so close I really should go again.

 

[Dave2000]

Looks great, despite my involvement with vehicles I confess I have never been there . Another one for the bucket list!

regards

Dave

 

[BobMurphy]

For me the star being the Napier W12 Railton which they still run.

This was at the "Bo'Ness Hill climb" at Kinneil House Estate, on 15th Sept last year (Bo'Ness is on the south bank of the River Forth, upstream of the famous bridges) . . . . .

I heard it go - but unfortunately I was in the wrong place to take pictures (drooling in the paddock ).

It looks a bit of a handful .

Bob

 

[clivehorridge]

Oh man, what an engine!

I've never been able to imagine how 3 banks of 4 cylinders in the 'W' configuration are attached to a single crankshaft... but I found the answer here... 3 conrods to each of 4 journals... amazing

Thanks Bill, most enjoyable, there's several utoob vids of it running on a stand, too...

 

[StarCruiser]

The con rods attach very much the same as the 9 and 13 cylinder radial engines…that do the same all to one crank!! [emoji15]

Great vid here from up the road last year…
http://youtu.be/PK7nI2EGulQ
Enjoy, especially the heat haze from the last one…

 

[Towpack]

Radial engines differ in that they only have one 'main' conrod and the rest are attached to this main rod by a rotary cam arrangement.

Those pre war Auto Unions and Mercedes were real monsters. The Mercedes W125 in particular is legendary. Producing over 640bhp from a supercharged straight 8 they could touch 200mph. After the war the Grand Prix formula was altered from the 750kg class to a limit on engine size which meant the power of the pre war Mercs wouldn't be exceeded until the arrival of the turbo cars of the 80's.

Here's an excellent program worth watching if you're interested in Grand Prix history, originally shown on BBC2 years ago and appears on BBC 4 occasionally.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCP_GJ8JBOE

 

[frank rabbets]

WTF 3 x 2 inch carbs. A bit pointless using a strangled aircraft engine. The 27L Merlin had 2 x 6 inch butterflies in the intake manifolds. I've got one here.

 

[mettisse]

These old soldiers really are awesome eh? In Brooklands aside the Railton they have a cutaway W12 Napier engine showing infernal ( internal?) detail, also a wooden mock up of how the configuration works, also a crankshaft with the crank rods attached, those engineers were really switched on with some really avantguard ideas. 4 valves per cylinder, the lot. I think the things that " held them back" were electronic management and material limitations, ( advanced metals, plastic etc) I really love the fact they were achieving huge power figures out of the machine shops of the day, I wonder is it any less exciting for those priveledged to work on such research and engineering today, albeit different goals ?
Its funny how probably the link of a love of mechanical things can spark up interest to those of us who cut our teeth on ex GPO BSA Bantams and Tiger Cubs, 50 cc Yamaha and Suzuki mopeds, 100cc go carts, and the like, makes us unite in appreciation of these pioneers in engineering. Strange eh? ( or not)
best regards to all. Bill Westley

 

[clivehorridge]

These old soldiers really are awesome eh? In Brooklands aside the Railton they have a cutaway W12 Napier engine showing infernal ( internal?) detail, also a wooden mock up of how the configuration works, also a crankshaft with the crank rods attached, those engineers were really switched on with some really avantguard ideas. 4 valves per cylinder, the lot. I think the things that " held them back" were electronic management and material limitations, ( advanced metals, plastic etc) I really love the fact they were achieving huge power figures out of the machine shops of the day, I wonder is it any less exciting for those priveledged to work on such research and engineering today, albeit different goals ?
Its funny how probably the link of a love of mechanical things can spark up interest to those of us who cut our teeth on ex GPO BSA Bantams and Tiger Cubs, 50 cc Yamaha and Suzuki mopeds, 100cc go carts, and the like, makes us unite in appreciation of these pioneers in engineering. Strange eh? ( or not)
best regards to all. Bill Westley

Certainly with you on the last part Bill. As well as a 175cc Bantam (mounted in a Tiger Cub frame) I was weened on very basic stuff such as a BSA C10L sidevalve 250 single and the slightly later C11G. Girder forks, sprung seats and all that stuff. It was great and so simple by today's standards. But at an early age, it gave me an insight into mechanical things and sparked an interest which has stayed with me, if not necessarily in practice these later years, but at least in theory.

I really admire all those that tinker, repair, build from scratch. History should be preserved IMO, if for no other reason than for the next generation to appreciate the extent of progress over the years.