Practical Hand Book of Gas, Oil and Steam Engines / Stationary, Marine, Traction; Gas Burners, Oil Burners, Etc.; Farm, Traction, Automobile, Locomotive; A simple, practical and comprehensive book on the construction, operation and repair of all kinds of engines. Dealing with the various parts in detail and the various types of engines and also the use of different kinds of fuel.

by John B. Rathbun

(51) Argyll Single Sleeve Motor.

The Argyll sliding sleeve automobile motor is unique in the fact that only one sleeve is used to control both the inlet and exhaust gases instead of the two sleeves commonly used on the Knight motor. This sleeve, instead of having either a purely vertical or horizontal motion, has a peculiar combination of the two, that is to say, it moves a certain amount in rotation within the cylinder, and an equal amount vertically, the combined motion constituting an ellipse. The external appearance of the engine is shown by Fig. 35, which will give an idea of the general arrangement of the cylinders, ports and piping.

In Fig. 36, is shown the successive movements and events determined by the sleeve, and the method of opening and closing the inlet and exhaust ports by the elliptical movement of the sleeve. The shaded ports are one of the inlet and one of the outlet ports, respectively, which are cast in the cylinder wall, and are afterwards machined true. The dotted port, which changes its position in each diagram, is one of the ports in the moving sleeve, its position in each of the figures is marked by the event that is occurring in the cylinder at that time.

In diagram 1, the shaded port to the right is the exhaust port, and the shaded port to the left, the inlet, this relative arrangement being true, of course, in each of the succeeding diagrams. It will be noted, that in the position shown, in the exhaust stroke (beginning of stroke), the sleeve port has just started on its downward stroke, moving also a trifle to the right as it progresses. Its progress to the right may be more clearly seen by consulting diagram 2, for the movement.

By consulting the other five figures it will be seen that the dotted port, in its relation to the shaded ports, first moves out to the right, and then reverses, moving to the left, and this combined with the up and down movement constitutes an elliptical path. In diagram 6 the exhaust is closed, and the inlet port has just begun to open, the dotted port now starting to move out to the left, and to rise.

Fig. 35. Elevation of Argyll Single Sleeve Motor from The Motor, London.

In diagram 10, the inlet is nearly closed, the sleeve port passing away from the cylinder ports to the water jacketed portion of the cylinder above.

Fig. 36. Valve Motion Diagram of Argyll Motor Showing the Valve Positions at Different Parts of the Working Stroke.

This series of diagrams shows the operation of the duplicated port of the sleeve (which port is the one shown dotted) in relation with one of the inlet ports and one of the exhaust ports in the cylinder wall, the latter ports being marked respectively I and E. The elliptical movement referred to in the text can be traced by following the different positions of the dotted port in the sleeve. In the top row of diagrams it is seen to come downwards and also to move over to the left, whilst in the lower set it rises—bearing still to the left—until, after Fig. 10, it goes higher up for the compression and explosion strokes, during which it bears over to the right and comes down again ready to commence once more the cycle, as in Fig. 1. The other ports in the cylinder wall are the same as those shown, and the other ports in the sleeve are akin in shape to half of the dotted port, but they are without the little tongue cut in the base of this double purpose port. This little tongue in the duplicated port is designed to give as much lead to the exhaust opening as possible, without interfering with the correct timing of the inlet port. The way in which it just misses interfering with the closing of the inlet port is seen in Fig. 10. We are indebted to “The Motor” for these cuts.