Petter A1- 1.5hp

Hi, I’m new to site so please forgive me if I’m in the wrong place.

I recently picked up a Petter A1 that used to be in a concrete mixer. The mixer had been left in the corner of a field for a few years but fortunately someone had put a gravel bag over the bonnet and the engine had survived with little sign of decay.  It won’t run yet, probably because it’s been sat idle for so long and I also quickly discovered that the carb still clogged with cement but that’s proving fairly easy to clear. Anyway there’s a healthy spark so I’m guessing that a return to running condition is feasible.  I attempted to fit a new plug but it wouldn’t go fully home so I took the head off and ran a tap down the hole so that’s done.  So the question is what torque should the nuts on the head studs he set to?  It’s a series 2 engine with an ally head.

The second question concerns the petrol tank.  It has a lid with a tube below it and is just pushed down into the tank through a rubber seal, a bit like an oil seal.  Unfortunately on mine this seal was a bit broken and when I went to pull off the loose part the whole thing started to come apart so I removed all of it and am now left with a lid that just flaps around in a hole!  So is this an original Petter thing and if so can I get a replacement seal from somewhere?

Thanks folks

Tony

Hi Tony, and a warm welcome to the forum.

I don't think you will find any torque settings anywhere - just have to tighten by feel.
That doesn't sound like an original tank to me but I'm happy to be corrected. Is it a petrol/oil tank?   Post a few pictures when you able and I'm sure someone will be able to advise.
If it's been in a mixer I'd go for a fairly major strip down to see what's been sucked into the works.
Good luck.

PS Let me know if you would like a manual

Thank you. I have a manual so that one’s covered. No idea on the tank though it’s only got one filler so I guess it’s petrol only. I’ll send a picture later. Staggered that it didn’t have an air filter on the carb!

Hope these are clear. The straps fit the tank nicely.

On some fuel tanks the tube under the cap could be a measuring device for two stroke oil, so it maybe a past replacement.

Maryalice

Ok, I hadn’t heard of that one. Looking back at other restorations on the group, the A1 restored by bloodhound seems to have the same shape of tank but that looks to be screw top. If you zoom in on my photo of the tank you can see a notch inside the hole but the lid has equivalent catches on the outside so I’m guessing that something is non standard.

I think maryalice is bang on. I had a similar tank with two stroke oil measuring cup that came off a Villiers powered Allen Scythe.

My A1 was also short of an air filter.  As  you will see from the manual it could be Vokes or Burgess but you may have to settle for a modern look-alike

The usual tank. This is a 1952 model


The usual cap and a Burgess oil bath air filter


I've no doubt your tank is not original and many neglected engines were tin worm infested

Ah, I understand. The cap is stamped to fill with 4 measures of oil per gallon of fuel. I haven’t seen this before on the little engines I’ve dealt with. Ok, that answers that one. So the next thing is does anyone know where I can get a suitable rubber seal for the tank as the filler tube was a push fit into one until I removed it as it was breaking up?

The filler hole does look like Andy’s but there is an extension presumably to allow for the rubber seal

Perhaps if that extension is removed then a regular cap may fit?

But it’s welded on. The ring running around the inside of this extension, just below the top lip,
is rubber or plastic and the only remaining part of the seal.

If it's soldered on it could be easily removed.

Well, I finally had an hour or two to spare this morning so had another look at the A1 fuel tank. Bluecat is right in that the filler neck was an extension that was soldered on - a little scrape of the joint with a knife blade revealed that. I was wondering how I could get it off given the amount of heat that I thought might be required to compensate for the volume of steel in the tank but the old faithful plumbing blowtorch made an easy job of it. It left me with a tank of the same pattern as Andy’s and the tank on my Villiers mk20 is seemingly identical except for the position of the outlet. Good news that it’s cap fitted the Petter’s tank and a quick ebay search got a replacement in the post and spurred on by this progress I spent some time stripping the paint off the tank. So how do you folks clean out the inside of the tanks? Mine is quite rusty but I have cleaned smaller tanks from Suffolk mower engines by just playing them like maracas with a load of small granite chippings inside them until there seems to be no loose stuff left. Is this regarded as acceptable?

Handful of nuts, cleaning fluid and some means of rotating it for an hour or so.

Maryalice

Thanks

Following on from maryalice.

Once you have the bulk of the loose stuff out try citric acid

https://www.wilko.com/en-uk/wilko-original-citric-acid-250g/p/0332009

Use a box dissolved in water - hot if poss' and pour into tank. Don't forget to plug outlet!


My original post here

https://ukengineforum.forumotion.com/t8394-rust-removal-using-citric-acid?highlight=rust+removal+citric+acid

Thank you. Definitely worth £1.75! I’ll head off the Wilko tomorrow morning.