[SEL] SEL Digest, Vol 59, Issue 5

[Best, George]

I had a 1937 English Fordson for many years.

That particular model could be bought as gasoline version, a kerosene
version, or fuel oil version.

The kerosene and oil versions were started on gasoline and then after
the engine warmed up you could switch to the other fuel tank and run on
a cheaper fuel.  The main difference between the kerosene and oil models
was the material the heat exchanger was made out of.

I ran mine on diesel after it warmed up.  It still used the sparkplug to
ignite it as it wasn't a high compression engine.  It ran quite well on
diesel and actually ran better on diesel than if you tried to run it on
gasoline after it warmed up.

George



-----Original Message-----
From: sel-bounces at lists.stationary-engine.com
[mailto:sel-bounces at lists.stationary-engine.com] On Behalf Of Kangas,
James G.
Sent: Thursday, February 05, 2009 12:44 PM
To: The SEL email discussion list
Subject: Re: [SEL] SEL Digest, Vol 59, Issue 5

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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