Some Historic Equipment.

Discuss equipment which does not fit in in the other forums here, like cable cranes, material handlers, drilling, piling and screen equipment
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FOWLER MAN
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Some Historic Equipment.

Post #1 by FOWLER MAN » Sat Apr 07, 2012 12:24 am

Hi,
I found these pics. of some very interesting gear from 1939.

This Lima face shovel is loading a fleet of Hydraulic tip pans pulled by Allis Chalmers tractors.
I researched the Allises and they are model LO, these were about 80 h.p. and the Allis oil engines had a unique combustion system which is illustrated below.
e13890.jpg
img149.jpg


This hydraulic scraper box appears to have its own power unit. Ever seen anyting like that before??
e13900.jpg


In this pic of a vibrating concrete screed theres a pretty early readymix truck too.
e13920.jpg


The mixer in this pic has its own swinging arm and concrete skip to place the concrete, and if you look closely you can see it is self propelled. Theres a chain drive to the wheels.
e13930.jpg
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TaylorLambert
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Re: Some Historic Equipment.

Post #2 by TaylorLambert » Wed Apr 11, 2012 2:57 am

THe pans in the top photo are most likely Henry scrapers They were a rear dump scraper. My neighbor that ran alot of AC machines had one for back filling bridges and other areas that a dump was needed. It used just one set of hydraulics that lowered the bowl to cut then tipped it back for the carry and then dump. A company from Argentina makes one similar called a Grosspal. They also make towed graders as well.

http://www.grosspal.com/en_productos_pag03.html

The scraper with the power unit has me beat. I have seen AC crawlers pulling Heil pans that were hydraulic but this one looks different. We have a Heil truck bed plant nearby I can stop in and look at some old pictures.


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Re: Some Historic Equipment.

Post #3 by Julian » Wed Apr 11, 2012 7:07 am

FOWLER MAN wrote:Hi,
and the Allis oil engines had a unique combustion system which is illustrated below.[a]


I like that idea in a funny sort of way! All the disadvantages of a spark ignition engine all neatly combined with all the disadvantages or a compression ignition - I guess the designer was a disgruntled employee who was planning to leave and left them with this as his parting shot :D

Julian.

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Re: Some Historic Equipment.

Post #4 by XS650 » Wed Apr 11, 2012 9:17 am

Like the Allis engine ' ensures greater simplicity' spiel !
Fascinating photos Fred .
Craig
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Re: Some Historic Equipment.

Post #5 by TaylorLambert » Wed Apr 11, 2012 11:23 am

Dad had the misfortune of using one of these engines on a sawmill as a kid in the 50's. It ran on kerosene or another distillate called tractor fuel.

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Re: Some Historic Equipment.

Post #6 by FOWLER MAN » Wed Apr 11, 2012 5:44 pm

XS650 wrote:Like the Allis engine ' ensures greater simplicity' spiel !
Fascinating photos Fred .
Craig


The reason behind the design of this engine was probably because back then in the 1930s the larger diesels were notoriously difficult to start, especialy in cold weather.
International got round the problem by reducing the compression in the main engine and starting on petrol. Cat used the donkey engine approach whilst others like Rustons resorted to air systems, necessitating the fitting of a compressor.
This Allis system elliminated the need for the donkey engine, and was certainly no more complicated than the IH petrol/diesel system.
It had the advantage of having direct injection too, which is normaly associated with easier starting, Cat and IH both stuck with indirect systems.

Fred


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Re: Some Historic Equipment.

Post #7 by Julian » Wed Apr 11, 2012 8:08 pm

FOWLER MAN wrote:
XS650 wrote:Like the Allis engine ' ensures greater simplicity' spiel !
Fascinating photos Fred .
Craig


The reason behind the design of this engine was probably because back then in the 1930s the larger diesels were notoriously difficult to start, especialy in cold weather.
International got round the problem by reducing the compression in the main engine and starting on petrol. Cat used the donkey engine approach whilst others like Rustons resorted to air systems, necessitating the fitting of a compressor.
This Allis system elliminated the need for the donkey engine, and was certainly no more complicated than the IH petrol/diesel system.
It had the advantage of having direct injection too, which is normaly associated with easier starting, Cat and IH both stuck with indirect systems.

Fred


Fred I think you're comparing apples with oranges, this was never a 'Diesel' engine, it needed the sparks no matter how warm it got (unless I've missed something) It was just a spark ignition engine detuned to run on TVO and had direct fuel injection.

Julian.

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Re: Some Historic Equipment.

Post #8 by FOWLER MAN » Wed Apr 11, 2012 11:42 pm

Hi Julian,
Yes, your quite right these Allis engines were not a true diesel, they did not have a high enough compression ratio to ignite the fuel, they needed the spark ignition to run, but they burnt "Diesel Fuel Oil" not TVO or (kerosine).
Allis introduced the HD ranges from 1939/42 with the GM two stroke diesels, but before that they produced the "K", "L", "M", and "S".
All these were petrol or petrol/TVO powered.
They also produced the "KO", "LO" and "SO", the "O" signifying oil engine. They were designed to burn ,[quote],"the lowest grade of commercial heavy fuel oil".
These are the engines we have been discussing. They used 4 and 6 cylinder versions all with 5.25 in. bore and 6.5 in. stroke.
If they had been that succesfull I don't suppose they would have discontinued them in favour of the bought in GMs.
I was only pointing out what they may have been trying to acheive with this design, incidentaly Allis only produced 20 of the LO model.
Fred


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Re: Some Historic Equipment.

Post #9 by Julian » Thu Apr 12, 2012 8:17 pm

FOWLER MAN wrote:Hi Julian,
Yes, your quite right these Allis engines were not a true diesel, they did not have a high enough compression ratio to ignite the fuel, they needed the spark ignition to run, but they burnt "Diesel Fuel Oil" not TVO or (kerosine).


Fred, I'm still having difficulty here regarding the fuel type that this engine would run on.

I've been doing a little research, and (as I'm sure you know) TVO was commonly used in Spark Ignition engines like in the 'Grey Fergie.' With an Octane rating of between 55-70 it needed the compression ratio to be drastically lowered to stop detonation - indeed some manufacturers incorporated water injection to prevent detonation. Also for satisfactory operation it needed to start on petrol and switch to TVO when warm.

Now, pure Diesel fuel oil has an octane rating of between 15-25, (depending on where you get the info from) so using it in the spark Ignition Allis engine must surely give rise to almost instant destructive detonation within the cylinders.....Then there's the problem associated with starting a spark ignition engine fuel with heavy fuel oil?

Things are not adding up here for me :-(

Julian.

PS, the only other spark ignition engine with direct fuel injection that I can think of (from a previous era) is the Daimler Benz 601 engine from the Me109 - that was obviously petrol fuelled.

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Re: Some Historic Equipment.

Post #10 by modelman093 » Thu Apr 12, 2012 10:09 pm

The Allis engines used the Hesselman principle of controlled ignition. Starting these did in fact involve the use of a small amount of petrol sprayed into the inlet manifold using a hand operated primer pump. If too much diesel (not TVO) was introduced too soon (by the engine throttle) the plugs could become oiled up and would have to be removed and cleaned before another attempt could be made. This will be familiar to anyone who has been in too much of a hurry to light a Tilley lamp and introduces the paraffin before the mantle is hot enough to vaporise it - it soots up!


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