Beaufighter Engine Restorations – June 2022

One of the most interesting and significant Aviation projects is that of Peter Brooke and Historical Aircraft Engines for the various Bristol Beaufighter restorations being undertaken in Australia and Europe. With the intervention of the COVID pandemic there has been quite a delay in our ability to revisit and report on the progress that Peter has been making. Since our last visit Peter has completed a large amount of work on this project to rebuild the Bristol Hercules engines.

The huge holding of spare parts acquired in New Zealand (in excess of 16 tons) has now been fully sorted and identified, catalogued and stored in an appropriate manner so as to be easily accessed when required. There were many thousands of components in this holding, so it was mammoth undertaking but a very necessary one if the actual restoration of the engines themselves was to be completed. The task in itself required many months of work but was a complete success as it has guaranteed that all of the components necessary to rebuild the series XVII Bristol Hercules from later series Beaufighters are on hand.

Following on from the parts cataloguing process work, the work has turned to the design and methodology of the actual engine rebuilds. Peter is a master engineer in the rebuild of radial engines, and as such has undertaken many hours of research and development into the rebuild of these very complex sleeve valve engines. This work has included detailed study of the available technical documentation and technical manuals. Peter has also dismantled several of the engines to confirm their condition and configuration. Now all the necessary preparation and research work has been undertaken, work has commenced on the actual rebuilding of the engines themselves – a very exciting time. To this end two engines have been placed in engine rebuild stands and “bulk stripping” of the engines has commenced.

Specialised tooling for Bristol Hercules engines

The stripping of a Bristol Hercules is a complex exercise and requires a lot of care and concentration as damage can be easily caused through lack of observing the correct procedures and sequence in the process. This process requires specialist tooling such as “pullers” and special spanners. Additionally, for some tasks special tooling has to be made so as to ensure no damage is done to fragile components and this is of itself a time-consuming task.

Once all the cylinders and pistons have been removed, various components, such as connecting rods have to be secured in place before the core crankcase can be separated and this is the current stage of the process. Once all is ready each segment of the crankcase can be separated carefully so as to not distort the castings and then the complex gear shafts, bearings and the crankshaft and connecting rods can be removed for examination, repair/restoration and then the long process of building up the engine can commence.

The rebuild phase will be complex and difficult as each task presents its challenges. Nobody has attempted these types of rebuilds in many years, so Peters skills and knowledge will be invaluable as he moves through each phase of the work.

Warbirds Online wishes to thank Peter Brooke and Historical Aircraft Engines for their help in preparing this news article. We will continue to report on this exciting work as the Bristol Hercules engines return to life.

© John Parker 2022