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| Thread ID: 96724 | 2009-01-20 08:21:00 | A tale of a diesel engine | tut (12033) | PC World Chat |
| Post ID | Timestamp | Content | User | ||
| 740560 | 2009-01-21 06:38:00 | I did visit the Council a few years ago and asked but they weren’t very interested so I dropped the idea. It did look similar to the Ruston-Hornsby I remember well the Lister diesels driving small shearing plants. Very reliable. Cooling was from a water tank usually and the water circulated in a way similar to that in a domestic wetback. On that subject there was also another engine used, mostly as emergency power in milking sheds. A single cylinder petrol engine with a water jacket around the head and cooled in a similar way to the Lister. It was interesting to hear in operation as it would fire once or twice and then coast through 3-4 rotations then fire again some time only once if it wasn’t under load. Spark was from a magneto and the carburettor was very crude, almost just a petrol filled bowl that the down going piston sucked air across the top sucking in petrol fumes. There was also a twin cylinder version which I saw on a large concrete mixer. They were built by a Christchurch firm called Anderson who also built some of the Central north island Viaducts. I am sure many have seen them around still, fully restored. While I was with the Council I was involved in the installation of the standby generator at Hamilton Airport. My long suffering leading hand had the job of testing this once a month. On the first power failure the engine didn’t start and the airport had to close down My dear friend, after his testing had left the main switch off. A couple of weeks later the power failed again, the engine started ran for a couple of minutes and then shut down. The airport was closed again. The problem this time was that as it was during the day the load on the generator wasn’t balanced and the electrical sensors shut the thing down. We installed three big flood light one on each phase that came on and kept the load reasonable balanced. Well, the next power failure saw the diesel start just fine and generate power. All was good for about 30 minutes and then it shut down. The airfield was closed. The turbo diesel sucked air through a grill on one of the walls. With the doors closed the room was fairly airtight so the only air coming in was from the grill. Unfortunately the Design Engineers had placed the engine exhaust just above the grill so when running the engine sucked in its own exhaust and after a while this triggered the fire detectors and shut everything down. The airport was closed. Do these sorts of things still happen today? |
tut (12033) | ||
| 740561 | 2009-01-21 07:21:00 | Do these sorts of things still happen today? I'm surprised it happened then. If the exhaust didn't choke the engine it probably wouldn't have been doing the people in the building much good. The Post Office engine sets that I got to push the button on in the 70's were apparently based on emergency power plant for sewerage pumps. All burst into life and were ready for load almost straight away. No faffing around with blue touch paper :D |
PaulD (232) | ||
| 740562 | 2009-01-23 02:34:00 | I've worked on all sorts of antiques that shouldda been in the Smithsonian but weren't . One was an International gas-starting diesel engine design originally developed by Waukesha (a modification of the Hill variable compression system) that allowed the operator to convert the diesel engine to a gasoline engine by shifting a lever . It had dual intake ports, a spark plug and then the diesel side of the engine hat a cross-over hotbulb combustion chamber . Wasteful, but quite unique . We had Enterprise ca-1917-1925 diesels that looked like they'd take your arms off if you walked near them on the engine catwalks . How about Fairbanks Morse Colt-Pielstick 16PA6B STCs that are as modern as you can get in the diesel line? I've worked on a couple of them and had to be an adviser on a couple more that had vibration problems in custom personal yachts . My favorites have always been the Junkers engine though . Imagine two-engine blocks, installed deck-to-deck with the pistons in the two blocks coming toward each other on twin crankshafts, one slightly retarded in rotation from the other to keep the combustion pressures more constant for a longer period of time, and then both pistons are forced away from each other powering both cranks and then to a single geartrain . In the early '60s in Huntington Beach, Cal, there were a few old "walking-beam" ( . ci . huntington-beach . ca . us/centennial/upload/user_images/user_image56C50544-5056-940F-EA7F4F630DBBA9D5 . jpg" target="_blank">www . ci . huntington-beach . ca . us) engines that were running oil wells, pumping crude from the ground . These ran on the natural gas (methane) that was also in the wells, and the ignition was by a single sparkplug, run by a Wico magneto . Cooling was by "thermal-siphon" whereas the water ROSE as it was heated, and was displaced by cooler water flowing into the bottom of the multi-thousand gallon water tank to keep the engine cool . Some of these engines had ruin since the big oil-strikes in the 1920s and hadn't stopped running yet . I imagine that if they had not been removed, they'd run long after all the generations of man ceased to exist on earth - should that happen - and keep right on running into eternity . Or until the methane ran out . These things fired every 4th cycle and once in a while they'd all get into sync and the drumming in the ground would make you think there were tens of thousands of soldiers marching into town . |
SurferJoe46 (51) | ||
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