The Engine That Won World War II - Jay Leno's Garage

see what happens [Music] well another episode of Jalen's garage something a little bit different this week I'm here in the Merlin section of my garage the Merlin engine I think is the greatest piston aircraft engine ever built that we have the blueprints here I've got a number of books on it even got a rolls-royce Merlin a manual I've got two cars that have a Merlin engine in it my 32 rolls-royce and of course our big Bentley you've probably seen those in the restoration blog and featured on the show as well well this is a new addition we just finished up this is the engine as it would appear in an airplane instead of an automobile this is a Packard built rolls-royce Merlin engine with the designation V 1650 - 11650 is the number of cubic inches how big the engine is and the dash ones signifies that it's a single stage two-speed supercharger which is back here this is set up primarily for demonstration runs it's not going to be in an airplane and it's not going to be in a car it's just a fascinating thing to see running and the power it has you feel it when you get behind the controls since it's for demonstration purposes only obviously it needs fuel fuel goes on this side about five gallons and the oil goes on the other side over here come around with me this is the oil tank here this holds about five gallons of oil as well now obviously a Merlin leads needs way more oil than that but as I said this is just a demonstration purposes so 5 gallons is more than enough this here is the pre or since this engine sits for well probably months at a time without running you want to use a pre-order what that means is that you turn it on and it'll be pumps oil throughout the engine as if the engine was running so everything is well lubricated before you get started this engine was discovered down in Georgia in the early 80s by a man named Graham white Graham white wrote the book on Merlin yeah well he here he literally wrote the yes he is the book right here you need grand wife and he wrote the book so he knows everything about these here's this picture rather handsome young man as you can see well your trouble with buying one of these and taking it back to your garage at your house is you need specialized tools and a number of things to rebuild these engines they're extremely heavy you need special jacks to get the heads off so he rebuilt it as best he could on a limited budget and it ran but it wasn't quite perfect it takes you know ten times as much effort to go that last 10% is it that was almost the first 90% he sold it I don't know when I bought it from the gentleman that he sold it to who didn't really run it a whole lot and I think it kind of deteriorated a little bit I don't know whether it was outside or whatever but it really wasn't up to snuff when I got it I did the history of it I tracked it back to Graham he was thrilled that I found it I sent it up to vintage v12 up in Temecula California my buddy Jose up there he is a Merlin expert along with Pete Regina Pete with general Pete with Tina Aviation out of Van Nuys California he helped me with my Marilyn when I had it in my when my in my roles I've had that over 30 years and I've driven on the street with a Merlin engine in it and he helped me get this back into what would be considered air worthy condition they just did a great great job I can't thank him enough let me show you what this engine looks like in pieces here's just a few of the engine disassembly and reassembly here take a look this engine runs on aviation fuel which is 100 octane low led fuel you can run 87 gasoline in these they did during the war but modern fuels are no good because the ethanol if you'll eat through these very sensitive carburetors ethanol is the worst thing in the world especially for something like this so we have to run it on hundred low led octane aviation to it which is fine the vast majority of Merlin's used up draft carburetors the British Merlin used the SU carburetor the American Merlin used the pen dick the V the Bendix PD 16 dual throat carburetor it was that meant 16 pounds per square inch per throat so it's 32 square inches the fuel air mixture is injected right here at the intake elbow into the suction side of the centrifugal blower which is two-speed now this is a single stage two-speed supercharger which means only has one impeller but two distinct speeds when the aircraft reaches critical altitude then shifts in the second speed which is about 25,000 feet that's the second critical altitude this section here between here and here this is called the wheel case okay this is jam-packed full of gears and clutches this not only drives the supercharger it drives the ignition as well okay ignition has Magneto's one on each side aircraft always has redundant ignition system one Maglites the plugs and the intake side of the manifold the other side lights the plugs on the exhaust side now what they did in wartime most of the times when these would come back in for servicing they couldn't reach the plugs on that side so they just do this side because hey it's wartime you had to get back up there pretty quickly these here are engine mounts for all together this here is your starter motor now the vast majority of American engines use any number of starter motors that were adaptable but the Merlin only used this one this was designed by rolls-royce specifically for the Merlin and Packard just copied it when they when they built it this here is for timing purposes timing gears in the other so you can you can turn this to adjust things by hand this goal played a deal here this is the oil pressure relief valve okay high-pressure lubricates the crankshaft it's 75 to 90 pounds per square inch intermediate pressure about 15 pounds per square inch that lubricates the valve gear and low pressure feeds the reduction gears now we put a modern automotive type oil filter on here for obvious reason it's better than anything back in the day this here is the oil cooler okay the way that works is oil is sucked out of the scavenger pumps sucked through the filter into the cooler then back into the oil tank now this is to beer much like a Ducati Desmosedici a via bevel dry the single overhead camshaft under this valve cover and there's a four valve for similar to engine there okay under here you have four valves at two intake to exhaust this is a four valve per similar engine okay this part here this attaches to the main track of the similar banks the taxes similar banks are the cylinder heads up here this differs from common automotive practice where similar to banks and the crankcase are usually just all in one housing here it's two pieces ok this housing here this contains the propeller reduction gearing these are spur cut gears these are precision cut and grounded this being a liquid-cooled engine needs a radiator of course and this rate is off a canna Northstar sometimes called a DC 4m which is found by for these big Merlin engines you know a great thing about the Merlin community is everybody helps save one another my radiator was all just eaten away and there aren't any of these and I called everywhere I located the Canada a warplane Heritage Museum this is just a great museum up in Toronto they had one of these radiators and I was able to obtain attain that from them but what I found out was besides being a big great bunch of guys what amazing amazing planes they have at this museum they have a Lancaster bomber the only one really flying that takes passengers on a ride these guys rebuilt it themselves I mean we just doing the engine here these guys did the whole plane well here take a look at this this is unbelievable look at this plane [Music] you know Canada was a tremendous Allied during World War two hoo-wee an America tend to be a little myopic sometimes you know but up in Canada they were working their tails off to build these planes they used the packard built merlin from detroit just like this one to put in the Lancaster bomber and the fact that these guys were able to rebuild this plane and actually fly it it's really something to see so if you're ever up in the Toronto area be sure to check it out and and say thanks immediately and just so you know well name-dropping thing this here is the header tank this is how you fill it you fill it with coolant or water right here you fill it up to about here and then the rest of this is air and then it circulates much of the wooden standard automotive practice this propeller is a hamilton ii 2350 this was used on a lot a lot of aircraft from the period and it's just a beautiful piece of machine work I mean look at this thing and when we fire it up what do you see how this thing cuts wind it's it's pretty pretty unbelievable this over here is your generator this generator here is nothing special just a 24 volt generator and it's driven off once again the wheel case gears and all of that in here so uh oh come around let me show you the dashboard you have a full complement of gauges here I've got fuel pressure you've got a comedy we've got temperature rpm pre-order left mag right mag starter primer boost and of course your key I'm not gonna start this thing in here all you have to do is take this thing outside and then you got to change you've got to chain it down because it'll literally pull the building down it's pretty amazing imagine for these on a Lancaster bomber that's you got to get up to Canada to see that come on we'll hook this up to the trail we'll bring it outside all right here's our dashboard we have fuel pressure manifold pressure temperature rpm and the oil pressure it's a pre-order left mag right mag starter primer and boost pump okay you always want to have a checkoff list with an airplane okay first we want to have the throttle just cracked a bit mixed your idle cutoff mixture there we go yeah idle cutoff there go blower is on low master switch and we have our pre Euler which is whatever your logo did here it is right here okay see the oil pressure climbing what we're doing is just literally flooding the engine with oil so everything is lubricated before we fire out okay not how to do it okay boost your mags on left mag right Meg crank engine and use primer okay toggle it on and off all right there we go let's see what happens [Music] there you go got it again [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] I'll leave you some idea what it's like I mean we're barely awful I was only 1213 of our p.m. imagine this they hit 4000 rpm I mean if I gave them throttle I can feel it starting to pull it I don't know what the forklift weighs what five thousand pounds this lifts a 10,000 pound plane into the air so again thanks to the Canadian warplane Heritage Museum those guys I can't thank them enough for giving me that that wonderful radiator so I could make this thing of a living piece of history but those guys have really done the best part look there's some planes taking off now look at that okay at Southwest it's not exactly in Maryland but you get the idea but anyway if you ever up in Toronto please check out that Museum I'm gonna go the next time I'm up there because I want to see that Lancaster bomber it's the only one you can actually get a ride in so if you got a dad or a family member that's an airplane enthusiasts and they'd like to ride in a Lancaster bomber that's a great gift I don't how much it cost but whatever it is it's worth it because you'll never repeat it in your lifetime there's only two in the world that fly and only one will take you up in the air and that's the one up there at the Museum so thank for them thanks to Jose thanks to Pete Regina and thanks to a gram white gram thanks for saving this wonderful piece of history and III just hope you enjoyed seeing it fire up and see what it was like maybe further down the road when we get this thing chained down we'll open up so you see flames shooting out of it right now I can't afford to pull down the building see you guys later [Music]

Channel: Jay Leno's Garage

Views: 4,768,191

Rating: 4.8704085 out of 5

Keywords: bomber, Lancaster, merlin, engine, world, war, jay, leno, garage, packard, airplane, mustang, p51

Id: GYcKdK7hmEo

Length: 19min 51sec (1191 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 21 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/PixelBurnout]

Amazing video, really cool to see that Jay's passion for everything automotive also extends to the engines used in warbirds

[u/Jetset215]

Awesome video! And big up to the CWHM!!

[u/Not_One_Step_Back]

Sorry Jay but the Lycoming I/O 360 is the best piston aviation engine.