Starting diesels in the olden days....
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From: Lanesville, IN
Re:Starting diesels in the olden days....
Commatoze & Dieseldude, If you guys like old engines and tractors and tractor pulls you might want to try and make it to my home town next year. It's always the second full weekend in September. We ahve all kinds of antique farm machinery and tractors, old lunger engines, steam engines, and lots of good food to eat. we have people from as far away as Texas come for the weekend.<br><br>Take a look here http://www.lanesville.k12.in.us/Heri...ourWelcome.htm<br><br>I remember when I was about 6 years old there were maybe 20 tractors at this even now it's closer to 300 I think. 
<br><br>I love those old John Deere R's and the old Oliver 88's and 77's <br><br>Darrell
<br><br>I love those old John Deere R's and the old Oliver 88's and 77's <br><br>Darrell
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From: Omaha, NE
Re:Starting diesels in the olden days....
My uncle used to work for a Cat dealer in KC (I think it was Dean?). When I was a kid I remember him telling us all about the new electric starters that just came out on the new Cats. As mentioned above, everything he had worked on previously had the gas pony motors.<br><br>I was talking to a guy couple years ago, he had a crawler that started on gas, then you through a lever and it switched to diesel. No pony motor. Same cylinders burned gas, diesel. He said in cold weather, the burning gas heated the engine enough it would run ok on diesel. He also said it had enough power on gas that you could load it on a trailer without having to switch over to diesel.<br><br>Air starters - There is a Russian made (still in production I think) aircraft radial engine that uses a compressed air starter. I think its a model M-14? Several hp #s, I think the standard is 360. I got to hear and see it fly at one of our local EAA chapter meetings last year. Very impressive. I'm sure there are others that can correct any mistakes and fill in more info.
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From: Claremont, Virginia
Re:Starting diesels in the olden days....
Some of the older Farmall diesels started on gas and then switched over to diesel. There was a distributor and carb on one side of the engine and a diesel injection pump on the other side. The engine was started on gas and ran till the engine was up to temp. Then, you flipped a lever and closed off some ports inside the cylinders and the injector pump took over and shut off the carb side. They were some pulling machines if kept running properly. My R diesel has a pony but my 730 diesel is 24 volt electric start.
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Re:Starting diesels in the olden days....
Couple of things -- <br><br>I used to own an old Bucyrus crawler-loader that my father passed on to me -- it's long gone now -- that had a separate kerosene starter tank. You'd start it up on the kerosene, and then "dial over" slowly to diesel. The exhaust on it was three feet of five-inch pipe and a short straight-through muffler, so you'd get about a foot of flame out the pipe when the kerosene first ignited. BOOM-WHOOSH-RATTLE-RATTLE!<br><br>The same Bucyrus also had a sort of secondary "emergency" starter system called a *Kriegshoffer* system, which did not take 12 gauge shells. It was more like a shell for a flare gun -- it looks like a shotgun shell, but it's squat and maybe three times as big, and packed with powder and incendiary chemicals. You load it into a tube that passes into the intake just above the #1 cylinder, ram the tube shut and then fire it, and the heat and pressure wave should ignite the air/fuel in the #1 cylinder -- which you've already had to position to get the intake valve open. (There's a cam-driven indicator, and a crank.) I actually started the engine twice with the Kriegshoffer, but I couldn't find replacement shells, and it's pretty unpleasant, anyway. <br><br>I'd have liked a pony motor. They had them on big Cats well into the 1970s. <br><br>GP
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From: Claremont, Virginia
Re:Starting diesels in the olden days....
GP: <br>You sure it wasn't start on gas then switch to diesel? My dads old Farmall has the small gas tank for starting then you switched it over to kere once it warmed up. You had to switch back to gas to shut it down also.
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From: Branchville, Alabama
Re:Starting diesels in the olden days....
This thread is truly an old mans thread. When I was a kid there were chain drive dumps and cement mixers all over in upstate New York. They also had solid rubber tires on cast wheels. Air starters were normal and loud all night at the close truck stop. Most of the road tracters were gas though.<br><br>In 1966 in England we had a saw mill that was one cylinder and had a flywheel of several hundred pounds. To start it you pulled a compression release, turned the flywheel with a spring loaded handle and then released the compression release. It ran at like 80 rpm and sounded rediculous with its 4" exaust. The thing would burn anything with oil in it, cooking oil or what ever. Sure did have some power. At that time 90% of the cars there were diesel and tiny.<br><br>At the same time in the Army we had an international dozer that started on gas and switched to diesel. Multi-fuel 2 1/2 tons were just coming out.
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From: Sturbridge, Taxachusetts
Re:Starting diesels in the olden days....
[quote author=Haulin in Dixie link=board=8;threadid=5547;start=15#49252 date=1033950072]<br>This thread is truly an old mans thread. ....... [/quote]<br><br>Awwww Haulin', don't say that! :'( 
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Re:Starting diesels in the olden days....
dieseldude: No, it was kerosene -- unless I was using the wrong fuel for the starter tank . . . . . . . is that why the thing blew up? 
<br><br>Haulin in the Confederacy: *Who* are you calling "old"? Hey, I listen to Tool on the CD while I shave the grey stubble off my chin in the morning, you know. Better than coffee. <br><br>GP
. . . is that why the thing blew up? <br><br>Haulin in the Confederacy: *Who* are you calling "old"? Hey, I listen to Tool on the CD while I shave the grey stubble off my chin in the morning, you know. Better than coffee. <br><br>GP
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From: Sturbridge, Taxachusetts
Re:Starting diesels in the olden days....
I guess this is getting off the drift of my original question, but bigfoot asked for a picture of a chain driven truck. Here's one off a 1939 Peterbuilt. What's really cool though is a dump truck where the drive gear is up high and and is connected to the drive sprocket by a long heavy chain. The Smithsonian's display of vehicles has/had several restored chain drives in their collection. I'll always remember that buzzzzzzzzz.....
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Re:Starting diesels in the olden days....
All the Tug boats that I work on and run for a living have air starters. some have two one on each side of fly wheel or one stacked on top of the other. I have seen electric start small engines with PTO to a air compresser to make air to start the next engine also. I have also seen Hydro start diesels where you hand pump a hydraulic tank to run the stater. One try to a start, If you don't get started you have to hand pump up the tank about 3000 psi lots of pumping the handle.
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From: Cleburne TX
Re:Starting diesels in the olden days....
That’s a real nice picture but not sure why it is made that way? Is it because 3rdmembers strong enough to handle the torque were not available or is it because of other reasons? I thought I knew a lot about old trucks but now I feel like a snot nose kid.(but please don’t tell me wife). Been married for 15 years and I think she is starting to think that I’m not completely stupid. ;D
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From: Branchville, Alabama
Re:Starting diesels in the olden days....
I don't believe that they had a rear axle that would handle the load and with the gear reduction they were successful. The heavier axles (50,000) still use a double reduction and heavier equipment uses planetarys in the hubs. Remember the VW transporter? Those old trucks did not go very fast.
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From: Cleburne TX
Re:Starting diesels in the olden days....
Now I am beginning to understand, yes I do remember something about the old transporter. But it seems like all of the trucks that I used to drive would not go very fast. If I remember right you could only get about 60 out of them if you dropped them of a cliff. <br>Now when I get on the highway running 70MPH trucks with 19and 20 year olds driving them are passing me at 90MPH. (Can you say 80,000 # rolling bomb)<br>Personally I think they had better wake up Leroy because they fixing to have a wreak like he an’t never seen.<br> Thanks for the info.<br>