Norvel Big Mig via BRATCO/Shopatron for cheap!

Greetings,

I've got a Bratco Sky Baby coming from SIG's closeout sale and figured I'd check with Bratco for spare parts. On their website http://www.bratco.com they indicate that they sell direct via http://www.shopatron.com/index/123.0

I found that their price for the Norvel Big Mig Startup CLX .061 is only $36.99 so I placed an order over the weekend. The package arrived today. Somehow or other the order was routed through Mark's Hobby Warehouse in Pittsburgh, PA and it was shipped Priority Mail, leaving on Wednesday. 2 days shipping. Engine is new in the factory box with papers.

I'm pretty happy with the experience. Only thing is that I ordered 5 6x3 props and I thought they were using Tornado props, but the actual brand was not specified. What arrived are black Windsor 6x3 props. These are acceptable and were $1.69 each.

Anyway, now time to break it in on the stand...

Later,
Greg in PA

Greg, give us a product review. All you have done is give us an advertisement for a product. Look at the opening statement for how this should be done.

Sorry about that. I've seen other posts about where folks have gotten items from.

That being said, I took apart the CLX .061 and cleaned out the preservative oil from the factory. Then I put it all together and put it on a stand for break in. I also found that the bolt pattern for the Norvel tank mount is the same as a Cox Baby Bee and OK Cub .049A.

The engine was extremely tight at first. I used Norvel NVX 25 fuel and a Cox 5x3 prop. Starting it was easy, even with it tight. I used the spring starter and on the second try it caught and kept running. I varied the needle setting, enriching it and leaning it for the first tank full. It ran about 3 minutes on a tank. I ran it for 5 tank fulls and it got better each time.

When I was through it was feeling quite smooth. I have to take it apart and clean it out as I'm sure that there is some metal dust from the break in inside the case and the muffler.

My experience with 1/2A engines is limited to Cox Baby Bee and OK Cub .049A engines. My impression is that this will have a lot of guts when I put it on a plane.

FWIW, the reason I got this engine is because I am messing with an old Cox RC single channel trainer that originally had an .020 Pee Wee. The original radio gear was toast and I put in a Futaba receiver and standard servo and made up a battery pack. I knew it was too heavy for the Pee Wee so I put on an .049 Baby Bee. It was too heavy for that. So I figured a CLX .061 might work better. I'll find out soon!

Later,
Greg in PA

Another observation is that there is less vibration than with my OK Cubs and Cox reed engines. There was also no fuel starvation because the CLX .061 has a pressure hose between the muffler and tank mount.

The only real shame is that Norvel dropped out of production. I'd love to get my hands on more tank mounts to use with other engines. The bolt pattern on the engine mount is the same as the Cox TD .049, OK Cub .049B and Wen-Mac engines that I have on hand.

Later,
Greg in PA

Greg,

Do a Google search for "Norvel tank mount".

Here is one source that came up on the first page. Scroll down to find the tank mount, and to the bottom of the page for the extended tank mount (not sure what that is).

http://www.greathobbies.com/search/results/index.php?srchtype=AdvSearch&srchimg=0&srchvendor=NVL

Bill

Thanks for the heads up on the tank mounts. The standard tank mount is 1/2 oz., the extended one is 1 oz.

Later,
Greg in PA