[SEL] SEL Digest, Vol 59, Issue 5

[Kangas, James G.]

Thank you Jerry for your response. You're right about paraffin being kerosene over here in the U.S.The first time I heard the term Paraffin I was confused as it's a wax product here and I couldn't see how an engine would run with it. I think it was an old British WW.2 move I saw that finally cleared that up for me.
My friend's Tractor was a '38 John Deere. I don't remember if it had a heater box on it but he also had a '21 Fordson that I do remember it having a heater box. I was schooled on that Fordson on the proper method of crank starting and engine.
   Jim

________________________________

From: sel-bounces at lists.stationary-engine.com on behalf of Jerry Evans
Sent: Thu 2/5/2009 1:18 PM
To: sel at lists.stationary-engine.com
Subject: Re: [SEL] SEL Digest, Vol 59, Issue 5



At 07:00 PM 05/02/2009, you wrote:
>Message: 12
>Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2009 09:58:39 +0000
>From: john palmer <ottoslidevalve at hotmail.com>
>Subject: Re: [SEL] question about oil engines
>
>The oil that the early engines used here in England,such as
>Hornsby,Crossley,Campbell,Petter,etc,etc,All used without exception what
>we called 'lamp oil'.What you guys call kerosene,we also called it paraffin.

<big snip>

Thanks John for the explanation.
         For Jim,
         Regarding the confusion of names "lamp
oil"/"paraffin"/"kerosene"/"illuminating paraffin". There was also (later)
what the Brits called "tractor vapourising oil" (Shortened to "TVO"), in
South Africa it was called "power paraffin", I think the yanks referred to
it as "kerosene" (shortened to "kero"). I think this is probably what was
used in your friends tractor that "ran on "gas" or "kerosene". "Gas" was
used to start it with and once the engine had warmed up it was switched
over to (cheaper) kerosene. This was TVO (Britain) or what we in South
Africa called Power Paraffin. The carburettor/manifold of engines designed
for this usually incorporated some kind of "hot box" to warm the paraffin
vapour prior to it entering the combustion chamber.
         Many stationary engines (such as Lister and Wolseley) and also
tractors were available in either Petrol only (Gas to you Yanks) or
Petrol/Paraffin (Gas/Kero to you guys) models. The main difference was the
addition of the "hotbox" and a 2 compartment fuel tank with a "switchable"
3 way tap to switch between the different fuels. The compression ratio also
differed slightly as the Paraffin models used a slightly lower compression
ratio but I'm not sure if all manufacturers worried about this. I know that
some engine manufacturers just used a thicker cylinder head gasket to
achieve this so the difference was probably minimal. Maybe the "Gurus" on
this list can set me right there.

         There is a lot more but that is it "in a nutshell".

Keep the revs up (or down)
Jerry Evans
Near Johannesburg in Sunny South Africa.
Etched Brass Engine Plates made to order:
<www.oldengine.org/members/evans/plates/index.htm>



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