Most members of the Willys-Overland-Knight Registry are familiar with Charles Y. Knight and his sleeve-valve engine. Being unhappy with current poppet-valve engines, Knight in 1905 had introduced his double sleeve-valve design. Finding no one in the U.S. interested in backing his design, Knight took his principle to the country of his birth to search for support. In England, after a good deal of experimentation, the Daimler Company of Coventry took it up with enthusiasm.
By 1909, much of Europe had succumbed to "Sleeve-Valvitis". The Knight sleeve-valve principle was not only adapted by Daimler of Coventry, but shortly thereafter by Rover in England, Minerva in Belgium, Panhard in France, and Mercedes in Germany.
Peter Burt was a former Bailie of the City of Glasgow, Scotland and an enginer whose work with internal-combustion engines had begun in 1887. His firm was well-known for its stationary oil and gas engines. Among his early developments was a piston-valve unit that he patented in 1893. All along he was preoccupied with his search for a suitable substitute for the poppet-valve.
Some historians say it was unlikely that Burt's development of his single sleeve principle was influenced by the Knight double sleeve, however, Burt's design was provisionally patented on 6th August, 1909. When application was made for full production, it was descovered that a Canadian, J.H.K. McCollum had been granted British patents dated 22nd June, 1909 for a similar design. It seems to this writer that with 2 patents being applied for within 2 months of each other, in distant locations shortly after the sucess of the Daimler-Knight, the Knight principle more than likely had some influence on the development of the single sleeve.
The Scottish car manufacturing firm of Argylls Limited, of Alexandria had been investigating alternatives to the poppet-valve for some time. Peter Burt approached Colonel J.S. Matthew, the Managing Director of Argylls Limited on 9th August, 1909 with a model made of celluloid and the sleeve of paper. With this aid and discussion lasting from early in the day until late at night, Burt was eventually successful in persuading Matthew to advise his company to take up further development of Burt's engine.
Although McCollum's design would require a great deal of further work before it could be of any real practical value, the fact remained that it had legally-enforceable precedence over Burt's invention. With some difficulty and some luck, McCollum was traced to Toronto and invited to travel to London for discussions to resolve the problem now facing Argylls. McCollum's reply to the effect that he was on his way to Europe anyway, to discuss his patents with Delaunay-Belleville. Colonel Matthew set up a series of meetings between the two sides. In the end, agreement was reached and Argylls was granted rights to both the Burt and the McCollum patents - thus the single sleeve-valve engine produced thereafter was known as the Burt-McCollum, under these Argylls patents.
Although the first descriptions of the new 25/50 Argyll single sleeve-valve model did not appear until October 1911, experimental engines had been in existence since 1909. While the experimental engine had suffered "almost every imaginable handicap", there could be no doubt of the excellent impression made by it in production form. The Burt-McCollum engine was remarkably neat in appearance.
The layout of the new engine (and of the smaller 15/30 unit introduced a year later) was the joint work of Thomas Burt (Peter's son) and W. Ferrier Brown, the latter being responsible for mathematical formulae to determine port design and dimensions so essential if satisfactory results were to be obtained. Once convinced of the possibilities of Burt's engine, M. Henri Perrot, the Company's chief designer, did a great deal to establish its success. Perrot was responsible for the overall design of the new 25/50 car, which stood out in its day not simply because it was of excellent quality and powered by the single sleeve-valve engine, but because it was fitted with an effective four-wheel brake system.
What was this car as introduced in 1911 as the 25/50, and a year later a second smaller 15/30 model, and helped Argylls become the 5th biggest motor manufacturer in Britian? Outside of size, specifications of those two cars are similar. Engines were 4-cylinder, cast in two's (101 x 130 mm, 4082 c.c., approximately 50 B.H.P. at 2,000 r.p.m. for 25/50 and 8 x 130 mm, 2610 c.c., approximately 32 B.H.P. at 2,000 r.p.m. for 15/30). Single sleeve-valves driven from gear-shaft. 4-speed transmission coupled to a multi-disc oil clutch. Top gear ratio 3.8 to 1 with overhead worm final drive.
The Argylls patent elliptical single sleeve-valve was given its vertical and partially rotatory movement by means of a sleeve-actuating disc, driven by skew-gears from the gearshaft, that ran at half crankshaft speed and caused the sleeve to describe a complete ellipse for every revolution of the engine. The connection between the actuating disc and the sleeve itself was made by a pin set eccentrically to allow it a throw of 1 1/2 inches.
In each cylinder there were three specially shaped ports for inlet and exhaust respectively, but the sleeves had five ports only, the central one in each case being of double form, to serve both inlet and exhaust. At the top of the compression stroke, when the sleeve ports were at their highest point, they were protected by the broad lower ring of the edges of the ports. During the firing stroke no edges were exposed to the incadescent gases either. As the catalogue stated:
"The peculiar twisting motion of the sleeve has been found to possess inherent advantages. Its motion may be likened to screwing a plug into a plain hole, where, by twisting the plug round, and at the same time pushing it in, it can be entered with comparative ease. On account of the twisting motion, which reduces the resistance, the sleeve never comes to rest, but is continually in motion in the same direction; there is no sudden reversal of direction of travel. This means the minimum of wear and tear in the operating gear of the Argylls Single Sleeve-Valve Engine. Again the twisting movement which allows the sleeve ascending and descending by different paths, provides for a natural lubrication motion spreading the oil over the entire surfaces with which the sleeve comes in contact."
In practice this arrangement seems to have worked extremely well and the old timers can vouch for the fact that they were not smokers on the Knight double sleeve-valve scale.
As to durability of the single sleeve engine we can only draw attention to the very fine performance of a specially-prepared 15/30 that broke so many speed and distance records at Brooklands in 1913. The Brooklands attempt was to gain recognition of the fact that the present Argylls type of car and Argylls engine is a thoroughly sound proposition as The Auto put it. The original intention was to run the car for 12 hours only, but it went so well in the event that an extension of two or more hours was taken - and along with it no fewer than 26 Class D records, from one to 14 hours, and from 50 to 1,000 miles.
Over the whole time an average of 72.59 m.p.h. was maintained - a most praiseworthy performance for an engine of 2,614 c.c. capacity with 2,726 lb. to pull. If proof was needed of the ability of the single sleeve engine and the overhead-worm drive to stand up to hard work here it was in ample measure. An outstanding feature of the car's performance was its consistancy, the fastest hourly average being 73.34 m.p.h., the slowest 72.04 m.p.h. Superb organization was a feature of the run, Perrot being responsible for this highly important side of the attempt. One onlooker suggested that the Alexandria stores had been moved to Brooklands temporarily, so comprehensive was the array of parts laid out, but Peter Burt himself told The Auto reporter that the tool depot was enough to frighten any car from stopping.
Although this car was being driven close to its limits for hours on end, its sump was being constantly replenished, its engine was thoroughly warm and it was driven at a praticulally constant speed. What is more, we have to take the word of the chauvinistic opinions of fellow-Scots who examined its internal parts afterwards as to their almost complete lack of wear.
On 27th May, 1913, eight days after the successful run at Brooklands, the Argyll set off on another 14-hour spell, this time to attempt to break world records. Apart from some sparking plug failures and troubles with fuel feed lines, the car ran faultlessly for 14 hours (on Castrol oils and Pratt's Perfection Spirit), convering 1,070 miles and 57 yards at an average speed of 76.43 m.p.h., and making new worlds records as well as new class records in the process.
What a very great pity it was that, such success on the track was not followed up by a comparable commercial success.
Right at the beginning, however, it looked as if sales might be prevented altogether, for the announcement of the 25/50 was followed almost immediately by the issue of a writ regarding displaying at the 1911 Olympia Show in London a Picard-Pictet car fitted with a single sleeve made under license from Argylls. At once Colonel Matthew published an undertaking to indemnify all purchasers of the single sleeve-valve cars against any legal action that might ensue. He also asked the holders of the Knight patents, Messrs. Knight and Kilbourne to serve his frim with a writ also.
Argylls successfully contested the action taken against them and won both the case and subsequent appeal. The price was high in terms of money, loss of staff time and energy and potential sales. Almost overnight Argylls went into voluntary liquidation in 1914. Was it the cost of litigation, the decision to proceed with the development and manufacture of the single sleeve-valve engine or the fact that something like 200 1913 cars remained unsold at the beginning of the 1914 season, the main reason for the Company's inability to continue? Probably all were a cause as Argylls was in an unhloy mess before that fatal decision.
It has been stated that no one needed the single sleeve at that time, and Argylls was doomed. Luck and circumstances were against them, and even when Darracq tried to take them over as a going concern in 1914, the Bank of Scotland, which was acting for debenture holders, refused to sanction the offer.
In 1915 J.D. Brimlow, who had been Sales Manager of Argylls Limited, took over the old Argylls works in Bridgeton, Glasgow, and went on to produce single sleeve-valve Argylls from 1920 through 1928. In 1920, Brimlow introduced the 15.9, the post-war successor to the 15/30. At $900 in touring form it stood little chance of success against such well-known cars as the Rover 12 ($650), the 15.9 Humber ($850) or the Sumbeam ($950). In appearance and in specifications it was less distinguished than its predecessors, and although it now had electric lighting and starting as standard equipment it had lost its front-wheel brakes, its overhead-worm final drive and its handsome Dunlap wire wheels. The chassis and three complete cars shown at White City in November 1920 represented almost 25 per cent of the entire output of this model.
A smaller car, of 11.4 h.p., that followed in 1922 was the last of the single sleeve Argylls, and although it was a good enough machine it could not compete with the many excellent cars then available at much lower prices. It is rather surprising that so many, comparatively speaking, were made during the next six years. The Argylls disappeared from showrooms and exhibitions, though not from motoring history.
As published in The Starter, Frontenac Motors Corp. was established in August, 1923 to produce a new Frontenac into the luxury car market using a straight 8-cylinder single sleeve-valve engine under the Argylls patents. This was an effort by Louis Chevrolet and a group of associates. A time limit to the American rights to the Burt-McCollum engine ran out before the new Frontenac ever made it to the shows, and Frontenac was unable to raise the necessary funds to continue operation when that limit ran out.
It should be remembered that Continental Motors hired Stanley Bell away from Knight's Pasadena (California) Laboratories, for the sole purpose of design and development of a single sleeve-valve Continental motor. Although Contintental felt that this single sleeve-valve motor could be used for every purpose, according to Mr. Bell, the contract design was for use in the Jordan Automobile. Needless to say the onset of the depression caused this project to be stillborn.
In the end, however supporters of the single sleeve-valve principle were fully vindicated. In 1934 the Bristol Areoplane Co. adopted the Burt-McColm principle for use in air-cooled radial engines so well that Bristol power units of this type had great commercial and military success until the coming of the jet.
For those who may find some disparity in the singular and plurals in this article, it must be pointed out that the manufacturing company was known as Argylls Limited and a singular vehicle was known as an Argyll.