I’m 71 yrs old and back in the 50’s and 60’s when I was a kid my great grandfather lived in an oil and gas company house on Oil Ridge Tyler County WV. His job was to keep the massive meaning HUGE hit and miss engine running he also oiled the belts that ran several pumping stations off of the flywheel of the hit and miss engine. The main belt ran a pulley that ran other belts that went to the pumps. It was a pretty amazing thing to see for a little kid, the engine could be heard for miles. In the late 60’s the operation was converted to electric motors for the field pumps and my great Gran Pap had to move into town and lived with my grandmother. He had some amazing stories about the old hit and Miss engine. Those days in the USA were amazing.
I would be willing to bet, that people who first saw these were in awe! I also think it will not be long till modern society, not having been exposed to these machines, will be just as in awe!!!
Great story. In the 1980's I lived in a village on the lower Yukon River in Alaska where I ran the power utility. A guy, who lived at a fish camp about 30 miles downriver had a failed Lister diesel generator and asked me for help. He took me by boat to the camp and I determined that the voltage regulator had failed. Sitting next to the Lister, in the generator shack, was an early 1930's horizontal, single cylinder, 15 kW Whitte diesel generator. I asked him about the unit and he said he never saw it run in his 35 years, but his dad, who was deceased at that time, had told him that there was nothing wrong with it. I filled up lubricating oil cups, bled the fuel line and filled the fuel priming cup with diesel, I found and opened the compression release and started spinning one of the flywheels, closed the compression release and off it went without hesitation. I initially couldn't get it to generate, so I stopped the machine, and arced the field with a car battery. Upon restarting, it generated, and I easily adjusted governor and voltage regulator to 60 Hz, 120/240 volts. It had a 50-pole alternator and turned at 144 rpm. He used it for a few months, until he got the Lister repaired, and said it ran flawlessly the entire time.
@@rossk4864really interesting story about those generators! History will repeat itself if Crooked Joe stays in office. Keep those diesel generators on standby.
Look I’m just happy to see somebody younger. That actually has learned how to do all this correctly. It’s very impressive to an old man. It makes me smile. !! keep doing what you’re doing because you have knowledge very few people in the planet will have??!!!
I'm not an engineer, nor a mechanic, but I found this fascinating. The way you have explained everything and the detail you went into was absolutely brilliant! Thank you so much. 😃
That's an excellent comment you made - in my case I had been around those engines and the large 500 HP power house engines growing up - Also up till the 1980s some were still in service and I worked on them - I still found this video interesting - much of that stuff can be a pain to get running - Sense those engines ran slow they had time to burn most of the fuel and could be 4 to 5 times more fuel efficient than modern high speed engines -
As an old ships engineer I must say your explanations are excellent. I did not had any knowledge of this kind of two stroke gas engines, how to time them or hot pipes. In an other video I learned about hit and mis engines, magnetos and how to re-magnetize them. You do this better than every teacher I had. One remark, the rod between crosshead and the piston we called the piston rod. You probably already knew this (sorry).
The longer the hot tube, the more advanced the timing. That tube seems to be too long and ignition is starting well before TDC. It also makes it very unforgiving to start. I'd go back to that 6" now that you have it running and see how it behaves.
I'd love to see a followup video about how to tune these things, per this suggestion. @rsmith2786 is it possible to advance the timing, if the tube is too short, by heating the tube to a higher temp? or would that just screw things up even more?
Also, the burn characteristics of Propane and Natural Gas are *very* different which is almost certainly why that old magneto ignition system was fitted.
My grandfather grew up near Sheffield Pa, and had a hunting lodge there. This is the heart of the Allegheny National Forest. Near his camp there were 2 stationary steam engines that ran push rods through the woods to run oil well pumps. Some of the rods are still strung through the Allegheny National Forest as of 2007. This engine was used to replace those steam engines. The Bessemer plant is still in Grove City, sadly boarded up. I went to college there. Fascinating stuff.
The part that got the tears from laughing flowing for me was when he said "if you've got one of these at home.......it is possible to blow one of these up by doing an air start" Priceless.
That was the first time I had heard a good explanation of a hot tube and timing. Nice instruction! Loved the CAD (Cardboard Aided Design) visual aids. It was cool (hot?) to see how the length makes a difference. It was almost like a diesel pre-chamber. Thanks.
The spring doesn't control the amount of gas. When that plate lifts, it allows both gas and air into the engine. The gas regulator controls the ratio of gas to air. The spring keeps the plate closed, so it only gets gas when it draws in air.
You BET the spring does..... It controls how far the valve opens, AND when. The more the spring tension, the less the valve will travel, and the later in the cycle it will open. No, it does not control the A/F ratio, but it DOES control how MUCH of the mixture ends up in the combustion chamber per cycle.
In 1991 when I was a young man right out of grad school, I was the HR Rep for the Cooper-Bessemer plant in Grove City, PA. Fascinating place. It had three sections - the Foundry, with three 35-ton electric furnaces; the Machine Shop, with gigantic machine tools, and the Assembly Shop, where the reciprocating engines were assembled, tested, and prepared for shipment.
Great video! I find that oilfield engines flood easily. They start easier and run better with needle valves so I install needle valves instead of diamond valves. I don't use an accumulator tank. Accumulator tanks can make starting harder because the stale air in the system takes time to flush out and throws the fuel air mixture off until it is out of the system. I also install a gate valve on the intake and only crack it a 1/4". The gate valve lets you fine tune the fuel/air mixture.
Surely there is a better method of turning rod without chewing up the rid with a monkey wrench??? WTH, damn, even a piece of thick cloth would be better than nothing??? Regards from South Africa
Remove the head and then turn the piston. You don’t want to damage the rod. A damaged rod will ruin the packing. A horse cock which is like a sleeve protects the packing when the rod is pushed through the packing. I have done this to dozens of reciprocating compressors which are similar.
EXCELLENT! THANK YOU for the detailed explanation of the parts of this engine and how it (engine) and they function. MOST TH-cam engine channels omit this 👎 Your very detailed explanation is VERY helpful to those of us who are not experts. PLEASE do more videos in this manner. 👍👍👍
I stumbled across one of these in a shed in western PA, Butler area about 40 years ago as a kid riding horses. the whole setup was there, even the belt from the engine to the main beam of the pump jack. It will had plenty of compression, it would hold me standing on the flywheel of about the same size as this one. Only difference is where this has a crosshead guide, the one I saw was directly connected to the piston that you could see the back of. Most of the valve gear and governor control was missing. I'd love to wander back into the woods some day and see if it's still in there. It's obviously big enough that someone would have to make concerted effort to get it out because it was way up a valley with minimal access. Thanks for the explanation of the hot tube ignition, I never understood how those worked... basically a diesel engine with a glow plug. I do wonder however if the type of gas would also have an effect on timing as it should be easier to light natural gas than propane since it's lighter. Now whether that means it needs more or less ignition, I don't know... theoretically running propane, you should only need 1/3 the fuel you'd use on natural gas to get the same thermal energy per ignition... So depending on where that engine came from, and what it was being fed, that may have played a role and explained its odd timing. Cool video!
You have done a great job again, I am sure your friend will appreciate the work you put into getting the engine running, it would be nice to see her again after you finish the fine tuning, to see how easy a start you can achieve, and if you give your buddy a crash course in air starting.
Great tutorial/instructional video on the explanation of how those engines work. Taking the head off, Taking the valve off and showing the intake and exhaust ports. Gives one a much better understanding of the engine internals. Thank you for this video.
Spotted that straight away too.🤠 And the big tool on the con rod eating it.... Though I'm sure it had plenty of marks already... The wobbly input valve.. That didn't look right, the empty oilers.... Flippin eck, I'd be a nightmare in there....
@@aussiebloke609I'm sure he just oil can lubed the surfaces. The oil drippers are vital for long runs, and I'd fix them, but for starting and running for ten minutes, not needed.
Amazing to think that Richard Trevithick born in 1771 was the inventor of high pressure steam engines. I know that everyone thinks that Stephenson was the inventor of railways but Richard Trevithick got there first. In the U.K. you can see and hear single cylinder boat engines and see beautiful old engines pumping water from underground to maintain water level on a canal.that are really huge still work, 17:44 operated by volunteers.
one thing I noticed, is that the way the propane is introduced into the intake valve via the multiple ring of holes directly under the sealing flange of the valve........the pressure of the supplied propane is actually helping to lift the valve open. The hot tube concept is eerily similar to the pre-combustion chambers that were common on diesels for some decades.
I'm 62 years old and lived on a farm as a kid but, never delt with such machinery as this. We did have an old tractor,( brand escapes me), with steel spiked wheels that a wide belt ran from the side of the engine area to a large cutting wheel/table combo behind it that we used to clear our land of trees and cut them into logs. So, I never experienced these combustion engines like this but I sure as hell am amused and love watching these videos! You got a new viewer for as long as you do your work on them. Thanks for letting me learn about how things work from the past.
I have loved old steam and hit and miss engines since my childhood. Thanks for clarifying with detail on how they work. Fascinating how they produced power from this in 1899. Thanks for sharing.
LOL....I was waiting for a misfire and it sending you flying through the garage when you were trying to kick start it.....wise choice using that air bump start.....great job getting it running
The small one I was Building was a 6 stroke - fired on both ends the piston has 2 plugs or ignition sites. Runs on Propane and air. has a large wheel and a smaller wide wheel. Somewhat like this but different. Complex timing. Nice explanation. Called a "Merry"
Well, I'm 62, and my first tractor was a model H "Poppin John" which was ancient when I was 20. It could be used to back into a 6 or 8" drive belt and become a stationary engine to drive a cane mill. Even though it was tiny tractor, it had incredible torque.
What an elegantly simple engine. Little but a piston port engine and a hot tube ignition. Thanks for explaining the ignition timing. Turning a screw adjustable hot tube would be more work but allow precise timing.
Great job getting this old machine running, shows lots of patience, grit and determination on your part, well done. Greetings from SunnyCoast Australia 🇦🇺 😊
In 1974 in Oklahoma staying with my grandpa, I was riding my dirt bike around on and thru a hilly trail in town. In the trail loop there was a large oil pump jack (oil well) that was belt powered with one of these, had the weight governor throttling it when it loaded up on the pump jack`s up stroke and it was running on the natural gas piped to it as a byproduct from the oil well. The muffler was just a pipe running 15ft away. I would stop and just to watch it run for long periods now and then. At night 1/4 away I would go to sleep listening to it and others around the town. It the engine ran as long as I was there for yrs. The old days music.
When you were on top with the engine running, it's sounds like that slide block is dragging pretty bad (i.e. insufficient lubrication) and I noticed some of your oilers are empty. Would probably be a plan to get some water in it to keep from making hot spots, which will also affect your ignition timing, and pull the torch off of it after it starts, so you can get a more accurate fuel mix. It seemed like it was awfully hard to turn by hand (also related to the slider). Pretty nice old engine though. Good catch on the port timing.😉
The noise your hearing are the outriggers on the trailer scraping the floor. I was hand oiling everything. The engine was pretty dry when I got it, so I was applying liberal amounts of oil to free it up, instead of relying on the oilers.
Looks like the exhaust release ramp on the piston clears the exhaust port first allowing the expanded exhaust gases to start exiting and scavenge the cylinder before the inlet port opens for the transfer port. To have to remove the spring from the inlet valve, either air is being drawn into the induction chamber past the piston rod or exhaust gases drawn past the rings. Probably
I am a mechanic also on modern diesel engines but you can change your ignition timing by how much heat you put on the tube less heat the slower the timing the hotter the tube is the faster the timing on the engine , I also noticed preignition some occasions when the pistion was only 1/2 up on it stroke when you was trying to manually crank it so back the glow plug heat off some to help ! This is gas not a diesel so you do not need as much heat for gas ignition as you do diesel ignition so back the heat off on your glow plug .
I was 40 years a mechanic and have to say you are a hell of a man. I really hate to see you wrestling with something that was a piece of junk even when it was “new”, but I understand why you can’t walk away from it too, you just have to show it who’s boss.
I bet not many of you youngsters have ever noticed why back in the day the head of a bolt was a different size than the nut. Actually it is pretty simple. Tools were exensive and ifa the bolt and nut took the same size wrench, it would require a mechanic to have to have two sets of wrenches. With the nut and bolt head being different sizes mechanic only needed one set of tools
15:00 A lot of small family fortunes were made with simple pumping setups like that. Half a dozen or more boreholes, with pumps driven by jerk-lines from a central power house, all off of a single-cylinder15 or 20hp engine. A good bit of money in the outlay, but after a couple of years it's paid for and then you start banking profits for as long as you can keep the oil flowing. Good times.
Looks like the trailer movement is making the engine run uneven. Anyway, it was good to learn about the timing issue with the hot tube. I guess it is not just the length but also the temperature that affects the ignition point. There are many variables to get right as you demonstrated, the gas pressure and the strength of the inlet valve spring. I assume that each engine needed to be adjusted to suit the conditions at each oil well, back in the day. I wonder if any of the old boys that kept them running are still around? I imagine the magneto was added to take some of the timing guesswork out of the equation. I suppose the hot bulb ignition needed a constantly running blowlamp? The air start was pretty dicey but better than seeing you run the risk of getting mangled in the flywheel. Good interesting video.
Visiting my Aunt in Smackover Arkansas in the 60's, she took me to an oil field between Smackover and Eldorado to show me a place she played as a girl. The 'play' involved walking the steel rods that were across the field running from a similar engine, but it was a gasoline powered hit and miss engine. The idea was to keep your balance as you walked along, and the rod went out, then back in, it riding on ground rollers set so many feet apart. The rods pulled several walking beam style pumps, and they moved a considerable distance. She was almost 70 at the time, hopped up on those steel rods and walked them like she was 12, first riding away from me, and then coming back, all the while walking away. I went back to visit about 40 years later, and the area that was a barren wasteland of black oil soaked ground, was totally restored, trees, grass, wild flowers, all the wells long gone. Can still remember it had a single Autolite spark plug. After watching this, I think the gas powered hit and miss was a bit less temperamental.
Great video! Thank you for posting! I worked for Cooper-Bessemer (Cooper Energy Services) in the 70's - 80's. Never saw anything about the Bessemer engines, even though I spent time in the Grove City 'Bessemer' plant.
If anyone cares, this engine makes roughly 415ft lbs of torque. How you find this the K.I.S.S. way is guess what torque it makes and plug it into the hp=tq×rpm÷5252 equation, and 415×190÷5252 is about 15hp. There you go
@@rollastudent it was more of an educated guess, and I mostly said "guess" because if I said it someone would come in and math it and be like "erm actually it's blah blah whatever"
That’s a lot of crap in the water jacket, obviously gravity keeps most at the bottom. Thanks for the knowledge! Super cool! I live in Oklahoma and have three of these that are visible from my house 💪
Thanks for the once over on that giant 2 stroke. I understood much of what you explained only because im somewhat familiar with 2 stroke engines. The hot tube is something like a glow plug on a diesel engine I'm guessing but you lost me a bit on the sizing of it, I'm going to go back and watch again to see if i missed something. I love old engines and appreciate the time you took explaining this one. Pretty cool how you timed this engine and i would really like to see that governor in action and see exactly how that comes into play. Thanks again
Love that these old bits of kit are still around. Also love the fact people still have the 'know how' on how to get them going and to fettle them!. Nice one, Nuff said!.
Thanks for the video, fun stuff! It looks to me like the counter rocking of the trailer was one of the reasons it was so hard to get it going. It was losing a LOT of momentum moving that trailer which would have gone into piston movement otherwise. Just an engineer's quick observation. Great video!
Nice looking piece of machinery. I remember my grandma telling how when she was little, they and their neighbors got a brand new threshing machine and had some guy bring his steam engine to run it after harvest.
That small propane tank contained within the engine, regardless what the maker called it, is an accumulator. It is nothing more than a space for the liquid propane to expand and create pressure. Very cool to see one in use like this. They only way I have seen them used is for flame effects setups.
i gathered the hot tube controls detonation timing the longer the tube the lower the cr, kinda diesel like,constant speed motor,i guess,had working people back then,very nice vid tks.
You persevered and eventually got it going when many others would have given up just like the owner did. Although a simple engine it takes knowledge as to how they actually work. Watching you work on this stationary engine made a nice change
Great vid !!! I'm an old 2 stroke motorcycle enthusiast so 2 strokes hold no terrors for me.......however that hot tube ignition system is something else again. Imagine timing the engine by varying the length of the hot tube !!! I'll be remembering that tip, for sure. Thanks for such an informative vid.
This is one of the best TH-cam videos I've seen! I love that a guy knows how to work on these. I have one of those tool and die lifts they're super handy.
11:20 Somebody's been there before... Paint witness mark is about the same distance the assembly needs to be shortened up. So I learned some stuff... but what I didn't see covered is the magneto. The engine seems to be a two stroke compression ignition with a permanent glow plug (hot pipe). So what is the magneto doing?
The magneto isn’t currently hooked up. It’s original to the engine but the linkage was missing and had to be fabricated. The hot tube ignition was simpler to build at the time.
We had two, similar to that one, on each Light Ship back in the 1950's, I admire your knowledge on something so old, well done. They gave us all the power we needed for the huge light and all our domestic usage we needed. You cant give it too much oil, so oil, oil, oil and in case I forgfot more oil. We had a platform on the top of the flywheel so we could run it round by foot. and the fly wheel mwas much wider than yours to make it easy to run it round. And ours were parafin. I wish I fcould be with you.
My grandmother was 13 years old when this was made! Just think by 31 years later the Allison V1710 aircraft engine was putting out a thousand horsepower. But I'd look into the owner getting a new upper con rod made, taking care of the wear and also add a hexagonal nut at the lower end so you can eliminate the pipe wrench. That old wrench is probably dull so the teeth don't dig in, but man that method will really tear up the surface. Maybe the machinist can weld new metal to the top end of it, machine it back to spec and weld a hexagon onto it for adjustment.
Question: This engine is over 100 years old. How's that Harbor Fright Predator engine going to be running in 2124? Who knows? We'll all be long dead [just like your Harbor Fright engine. eh?]
@@schizy Sure, but most of these engines got scrapped too. But also the harbor freight engines cheap and simple affair-it’s not something you care about, but even then I’m sure there will be plenty 100 years from now in sheds and whatnot. These big engines are really just a curiosity nowadays, they’re fascinating, but nobody really intended they last this long, they just happened to make it last many decades of newer better designs being implemented.
The harbor freight may have more HP than this engine but i wouldn't say it can do "more work". A cheap harbor freight could not come close to this level of torque and this engine was capable of powering numerous belts and pullys.
@@erich6150 Horsepower is horsepower- it’s the literal measure of work. A 22hp v-twin can do more work than this 15hp motor. Torque is fairly irrelevant, sure this engine makes more torque at the crankshaft, but if you geared down a lawnmower motor from 3600 to 300 RPM it would be making more, because it’s producing more horsepower.
@@AfterDark33 This old engine served for decades, your harbor freight engine will be worn out in a couple of weeks of 24/7 'work' that this engine survived. There is simply no comparing the two.
So many clever things. It looks like the "intake valve" is not just a valve but also a carburettor. It seems to be where the gas and air are mixed as they are pulled into the engine. Those old boys were pretty smart. I doubt any modern engine mechanic would ever figure out how to start that thing, let alone why it might not start. Interesting stuff.
By the way, your starting difficulties are probably coming from the fuel pressure regulator. These engines need to use a demand regulator, which will not supply fuel until the engine drawing a charge draws vacuum on the fuel line. At a standstill it gets flooded by fuel seeping into the intake, which will not happen using a demand regulator. Many of these engines used an early form of float valve: An inverted bucket for the fuel was floated in a bucket of water, with the inverted bucket controlling a valve to turn the fuel on and off. As the inverted bucket filled with fuel gas it would rise out of the water and close the valve. The engine would then suck in a charge of fuel when it needed it, making the inverted bucket fall again and reopening the inlet.
Excellent Video. I wondered how these old two stroke engines ran. Most 2-stroke engines have a large deflector cast into the piston to direct the transfer gases, but since the timing is adjusted with the piston rod, the piston has to have a cone shaped head to allow timing adjustments. Piston type gas compressors use a piston rod and packing gland to create a double acting cylinder. Used to build gas compressors way back in the day. The piston rod seems to be worn a bit with some scratches, but the low pressures in the cylinder shouldn't be much of a problem. Is the packing gland of the wound rope seal type? I really like your content. Enjoyed very much.
Awesome! We have the 3-day show at Jacktown where I'm from, everything from shoebox size to steam tractors. I grew up around this stuff, antique farming and all.
God I’d Love to get me one of them old hit & miss engines. They have a hit & miss engine shows in Portland, Indiana every year. There’s a bunch of them there. And it’s less than 30 miles from me. Thanks for sharing Bud. You have a nice one there.
I’m 71 yrs old and back in the 50’s and 60’s when I was a kid my great grandfather lived in an oil and gas company house on Oil Ridge Tyler County WV. His job was to keep the massive meaning HUGE hit and miss engine running he also oiled the belts that ran several pumping stations off of the flywheel of the hit and miss engine. The main belt ran a pulley that ran other belts that went to the pumps. It was a pretty amazing thing to see for a little kid, the engine could be heard for miles. In the late 60’s the operation was converted to electric motors for the field pumps and my great Gran Pap had to move into town and lived with my grandmother.
He had some amazing stories about the old hit and Miss engine. Those days in the USA were amazing.
I’m in Kanawha county. Used to hear old well pumps out in the woods from miles away. Haven’t heard one run since the 80’s.
I can't add to that I have seen them in old county fairs they're excellent.
I would be willing to bet, that people who first saw these were in awe! I also think it will not be long till modern society, not having been exposed to these machines, will be just as in awe!!!
Great story. In the 1980's I lived in a village on the lower Yukon River in Alaska where I ran the power utility. A guy, who lived at a fish camp about 30 miles downriver had a failed Lister diesel generator and asked me for help. He took me by boat to the camp and I determined that the voltage regulator had failed. Sitting next to the Lister, in the generator shack, was an early 1930's horizontal, single cylinder, 15 kW Whitte diesel generator. I asked him about the unit and he said he never saw it run in his 35 years, but his dad, who was deceased at that time, had told him that there was nothing wrong with it. I filled up lubricating oil cups, bled the fuel line and filled the fuel priming cup with diesel, I found and opened the compression release and started spinning one of the flywheels, closed the compression release and off it went without hesitation. I initially couldn't get it to generate, so I stopped the machine, and arced the field with a car battery. Upon restarting, it generated, and I easily adjusted governor and voltage regulator to 60 Hz, 120/240 volts. It had a 50-pole alternator and turned at 144 rpm. He used it for a few months, until he got the Lister repaired, and said it ran flawlessly the entire time.
@@rossk4864really interesting story about those generators! History will repeat itself if Crooked Joe stays in office. Keep those diesel generators on standby.
Look I’m just happy to see somebody younger. That actually has learned how to do all this correctly. It’s very impressive to an old man. It makes me smile. !! keep doing what you’re doing because you have knowledge very few people in the planet will have??!!!
Chewing the piston rod with a pipe grip don't seem very 'correct' to me............... 12:13
Gonna need these skills, Mad Max is just around the corner.
MG on a trailer too small in my Isuzu trooper was madness.
Lucky I built some up then @@kippie80
@@raymondo162 dont worry it aint nowhere near any glands or moving parts regards lawrence
I'm not an engineer, nor a mechanic, but I found this fascinating. The way you have explained everything and the detail you went into was absolutely brilliant! Thank you so much. 😃
way better than an animation explaining things.
That's an excellent comment you made - in my case I had been around those engines and the large 500 HP power house engines growing up -
Also up till the 1980s some were still in service and I worked on them -
I still found this video interesting - much of that stuff can be a pain to get running -
Sense those engines ran slow they had time to burn most of the fuel and could be 4 to 5 times more fuel efficient than modern high speed engines -
Old Engineer here from Ireland. Beautiful engine and wonderful to hear. Heavenly to watch and it's kicking my memory cells alive. Well Done young Sir.
Just had our gardner ,1.5hp hot tube engine running last night. Glad to see our hobby is alive in 2024
As an old ships engineer I must say your explanations are excellent. I did not had any knowledge of this kind of two stroke gas engines, how to time them or hot pipes. In an other video I learned about hit and mis engines, magnetos and how to re-magnetize them. You do this better than every teacher I had. One remark, the rod between crosshead and the piston we called the piston rod. You probably already knew this (sorry).
The longer the hot tube, the more advanced the timing. That tube seems to be too long and ignition is starting well before TDC. It also makes it very unforgiving to start. I'd go back to that 6" now that you have it running and see how it behaves.
I'd love to see a followup video about how to tune these things, per this suggestion.
@rsmith2786 is it possible to advance the timing, if the tube is too short, by heating the tube to a higher temp?
or would that just screw things up even more?
thats what i was thinking too as he was trying to kick start it and after when it was running
I think it's the other way around. Short tube lights early, (advanced), long tube lights later (retarded). No?
No, the longer the tube, the more retarded the ignition is.
Also, the burn characteristics of Propane and Natural Gas are *very* different which is almost certainly why that old magneto ignition system was fitted.
Towing 5k+ with a jacked up Suzuki. That's some balls.
I don't know if I'd consider backing it into the garage as towing lol. I'd definitely not take it on the street!
LOL! That one lunger probably weighs more than the Suzuki.
@@Cast_Iron_Curiosities LOL.
FIRST THING I THOUGHT........
That is just asking to wag the dog....
My grandfather grew up near Sheffield Pa, and had a hunting lodge there. This is the heart of the Allegheny National Forest. Near his camp there were 2 stationary steam engines that ran push rods through the woods to run oil well pumps. Some of the rods are still strung through the Allegheny National Forest as of 2007. This engine was used to replace those steam engines. The Bessemer plant is still in Grove City, sadly boarded up. I went to college there. Fascinating stuff.
5 minutes in, the display and description adds tremendous value to the learning curve ! Thanks mate ! 😊 Cheers from New Zealand
The part that got the tears from laughing flowing for me was when he said "if you've got one of these at home.......it is possible to blow one of these up by doing an air start" Priceless.
That was the first time I had heard a good explanation of a hot tube and timing. Nice instruction! Loved the CAD (Cardboard Aided Design) visual aids. It was cool (hot?) to see how the length makes a difference. It was almost like a diesel pre-chamber. Thanks.
The length of the tube also affects the final compression ratio, which is a big part of when it will fire.
The spring doesn't control the amount of gas. When that plate lifts, it allows both gas and air into the engine. The gas regulator controls the ratio of gas to air. The spring keeps the plate closed, so it only gets gas when it draws in air.
You BET the spring does.....
It controls how far the valve opens, AND when.
The more the spring tension, the less the valve will travel, and the later in the cycle it will open.
No, it does not control the A/F ratio, but it DOES control how MUCH of the mixture ends up in the combustion chamber per cycle.
In 1991 when I was a young man right out of grad school, I was the HR Rep for the Cooper-Bessemer plant in Grove City, PA. Fascinating place. It had three sections - the Foundry, with three 35-ton electric furnaces; the Machine Shop, with gigantic machine tools, and the Assembly Shop, where the reciprocating engines were assembled, tested, and prepared for shipment.
Arc furnaces are an AWESOME piece of equipment... 👍
Great description of a two stroke . Like the mock up, it explains a lot.
Glad you liked it! Thank you!
Careful, my grandma first husband got his coveralls caught in wheel. Died 3 days later. Widow with 3 children at 19years age.
He was in better place.
Thanks for the long detailed closeup of the engine running. And thanks for explaining all the components. Very educational.
Simple engines can still be a pain to get going, good job overcoming the problems.
Great video! I find that oilfield engines flood easily. They start easier and run better with needle valves so I install needle valves instead of diamond valves. I don't use an accumulator tank. Accumulator tanks can make starting harder because the stale air in the system takes time to flush out and throws the fuel air mixture off until it is out of the system. I also install a gate valve on the intake and only crack it a 1/4". The gate valve lets you fine tune the fuel/air mixture.
Surely there is a better method of turning rod without chewing up the rid with a monkey wrench??? WTH, damn, even a piece of thick cloth would be better than nothing???
Regards from South Africa
I was quite shocked he took that approach.
Use a strap wrench.
Remove the head and then turn the piston. You don’t want to damage the rod. A damaged rod will ruin the packing. A horse cock which is like a sleeve protects the packing when the rod is pushed through the packing. I have done this to dozens of reciprocating compressors which are similar.
exactly what I thought!
Horrors..... A Pipe Wrench?????????
EXCELLENT! THANK YOU for the detailed explanation of the parts of this engine and how it (engine) and they function. MOST TH-cam engine channels omit this 👎 Your very detailed explanation is VERY helpful to those of us who are not experts. PLEASE do more videos in this manner. 👍👍👍
I stumbled across one of these in a shed in western PA, Butler area about 40 years ago as a kid riding horses. the whole setup was there, even the belt from the engine to the main beam of the pump jack. It will had plenty of compression, it would hold me standing on the flywheel of about the same size as this one. Only difference is where this has a crosshead guide, the one I saw was directly connected to the piston that you could see the back of. Most of the valve gear and governor control was missing. I'd love to wander back into the woods some day and see if it's still in there. It's obviously big enough that someone would have to make concerted effort to get it out because it was way up a valley with minimal access.
Thanks for the explanation of the hot tube ignition, I never understood how those worked... basically a diesel engine with a glow plug. I do wonder however if the type of gas would also have an effect on timing as it should be easier to light natural gas than propane since it's lighter. Now whether that means it needs more or less ignition, I don't know... theoretically running propane, you should only need 1/3 the fuel you'd use on natural gas to get the same thermal energy per ignition... So depending on where that engine came from, and what it was being fed, that may have played a role and explained its odd timing.
Cool video!
As an older man with a steam boiler background, this was 38 minutes well spent!!!
You have done a great job again, I am sure your friend will appreciate the work you put into getting the engine running, it would be nice to see her again after you finish the fine tuning, to see how easy a start you can achieve, and if you give your buddy a crash course in air starting.
Great tutorial/instructional video on the explanation of how those engines work. Taking the head off, Taking the valve off and showing the intake and exhaust ports. Gives one a much better understanding of the engine internals. Thank you for this video.
Your engine, and obviously you know your engineering, but I cringed everytime you hit the rod and nut with that pipewrench.
@@NotchFox I was thinking the same thing.
Thanks- great explanation with simple but accurate pieces. I wish all the specialists doung stuff on you tube were as clear as you.
Loves the diagram
Looking at the connecting rod someone did not look at the original paint and adjusted it. I always look for clues like that
Spotted that straight away too.🤠 And the big tool on the con rod eating it.... Though I'm sure it had plenty of marks already... The wobbly input valve.. That didn't look right, the empty oilers.... Flippin eck, I'd be a nightmare in there....
@@martinda7446 it is detective work, realistically the engine gives you clues
@@martinda7446 Especially those oilers...all but one were bone dry (and I'd bet that's because that one was blocked.) Gave me the chills seeing that.
@@aussiebloke609I'm sure he just oil can lubed the surfaces. The oil drippers are vital for long runs, and I'd fix them, but for starting and running for ten minutes, not needed.
Amazing to think that Richard Trevithick born in 1771 was the inventor of high pressure steam engines. I know that everyone thinks that Stephenson was the inventor of railways but Richard Trevithick got there first. In the U.K. you can see and hear single cylinder boat engines and see beautiful old engines pumping water from underground to maintain water level on a canal.that are really huge still work, 17:44 operated by volunteers.
All the oil sight glasses seem to be short of oil, especially the one adding oil to the intake port.
one thing I noticed, is that the way the propane is introduced into the intake valve via the multiple ring of holes directly under the sealing flange of the valve........the pressure of the supplied propane is actually helping to lift the valve open. The hot tube concept is eerily similar to the pre-combustion chambers that were common on diesels for some decades.
I wonder if part of the issue might be that propane is less easy to ignite than natural gas which has a lot of methane in it.
I'm here in England and loving your video. I think it's important to keep the old technology running. Thank you from Graham aged 70 and a bit. XXX
Love the Suzuki, those things were awesome, bare bones, light and small but great 4wd and a lot of fun.
I'm 62 years old and lived on a farm as a kid but, never delt with such machinery as this. We did have an old tractor,( brand escapes me), with steel spiked wheels that a wide belt ran from the side of the engine area to a large cutting wheel/table combo behind it that we used to clear our land of trees and cut them into logs. So, I never experienced these combustion engines like this but I sure as hell am amused and love watching these videos! You got a new viewer for as long as you do your work on them. Thanks for letting me learn about how things work from the past.
God those big old two strokes sound sooooo lovely. Thanks for sharing her with us
I have loved old steam and hit and miss engines since my childhood. Thanks for clarifying with detail on how they work. Fascinating how they produced power from this in 1899. Thanks for sharing.
LOL....I was waiting for a misfire and it sending you flying through the garage when you were trying to kick start it.....wise choice using that air bump start.....great job getting it running
The small one I was Building was a 6 stroke - fired on both ends the piston has 2 plugs or ignition sites. Runs on Propane and air. has a large wheel and a smaller wide wheel. Somewhat like this but different. Complex timing. Nice explanation. Called a "Merry"
i appreciate the effort put into the diagram, felt like watching Watch Wes Work for a second there
BEEN GOING TO TRACTOR SHOWS FOR 60 YRS AND NEVER KNEW HOW ONE OF THESE THINGS WORK,,,,,UNTILL NOW,,,,THANKYOU !!!!!
Love the cardboard and tape explanation of two-stroke operation!!! Subscribed!
Well, I'm 62, and my first tractor was a model H "Poppin John" which was ancient when I was 20. It could be used to back into a 6 or 8" drive belt and become a stationary engine to drive a cane mill. Even though it was tiny tractor, it had incredible torque.
I can see parallels with later car engines but the primitive technology is amazing.
What an elegantly simple engine. Little but a piston port engine and a hot tube ignition. Thanks for explaining the ignition timing. Turning a screw adjustable hot tube would be more work but allow precise timing.
Excellent job getting that beast running. Great explanation on how it all works was awesome too. Thanks for the video!😀👍
Great job getting this old machine running, shows lots of patience, grit and determination on your part, well done. Greetings from SunnyCoast Australia 🇦🇺 😊
Thanks, a beautiful machine and the noise when running is very satisfying, I must be turning into one of those guys at the country fairs.
In 1974 in Oklahoma staying with my grandpa, I was riding my dirt bike around on and thru a hilly trail in town. In the trail loop there was a large oil pump jack (oil well) that was belt powered with one of these, had the weight governor throttling it when it loaded up on the pump jack`s up stroke and it was running on the natural gas piped to it as a byproduct from the oil well. The muffler was just a pipe running 15ft away. I would stop and just to watch it run for long periods now and then. At night 1/4 away I would go to sleep listening to it and others around the town. It the engine ran as long as I was there for yrs. The old days music.
When you were on top with the engine running, it's sounds like that slide block is dragging pretty bad (i.e. insufficient lubrication) and I noticed some of your oilers are empty. Would probably be a plan to get some water in it to keep from making hot spots, which will also affect your ignition timing, and pull the torch off of it after it starts, so you can get a more accurate fuel mix. It seemed like it was awfully hard to turn by hand (also related to the slider). Pretty nice old engine though. Good catch on the port timing.😉
The noise your hearing are the outriggers on the trailer scraping the floor. I was hand oiling everything. The engine was pretty dry when I got it, so I was applying liberal amounts of oil to free it up, instead of relying on the oilers.
@@Cast_Iron_Curiosities Ahhh OK!😉👍
Looks like the exhaust release ramp on the piston clears the exhaust port first allowing the expanded exhaust gases to start exiting and scavenge the cylinder before the inlet port opens for the transfer port. To have to remove the spring from the inlet valve, either air is being drawn into the induction chamber past the piston rod or exhaust gases drawn past the rings. Probably
Amazing, truly a thing of beauty...thank you for sharing this great machine ❤❤❤
I am a mechanic also on modern diesel engines but you can change your ignition timing by how much heat you put on the tube less heat the slower the timing the hotter the tube is the faster the timing on the engine , I also noticed preignition some occasions when the pistion was only 1/2 up on it stroke when you was trying to manually crank it so back the glow plug heat off some to help ! This is gas not a diesel so you do not need as much heat for gas ignition as you do diesel ignition so back the heat off on your glow plug .
I was 40 years a mechanic and have to say you are a hell of a man. I really hate to see you wrestling with something that was a piece of junk even when it was “new”, but I understand why you can’t walk away from it too, you just have to show it who’s boss.
Piece of junk? WTH? Are you 12 YO?
I bet not many of you youngsters have ever noticed why back in the day the head of a bolt was a different size than the nut. Actually it is pretty simple. Tools were exensive and ifa the bolt and nut took the same size wrench, it would require a mechanic to have to have two sets of wrenches. With the nut and bolt head being different sizes mechanic only needed one set of tools
Lot of skill and knowledge you have on these old engines. Very interesting vid and great to watch.
15:00 A lot of small family fortunes were made with simple pumping setups like that. Half a dozen or more boreholes, with pumps driven by jerk-lines from a central power house, all off of a single-cylinder15 or 20hp engine.
A good bit of money in the outlay, but after a couple of years it's paid for and then you start banking profits for as long as you can keep the oil flowing. Good times.
Looks like the trailer movement is making the engine run uneven. Anyway, it was good to learn about the timing issue with the hot tube. I guess it is not just the length but also the temperature that affects the ignition point. There are many variables to get right as you demonstrated, the gas pressure and the strength of the inlet valve spring. I assume that each engine needed to be adjusted to suit the conditions at each oil well, back in the day. I wonder if any of the old boys that kept them running are still around? I imagine the magneto was added to take some of the timing guesswork out of the equation. I suppose the hot bulb ignition needed a constantly running blowlamp? The air start was pretty dicey but better than seeing you run the risk of getting mangled in the flywheel. Good interesting video.
Visiting my Aunt in Smackover Arkansas in the 60's, she took me to an oil field between Smackover and Eldorado to show me a place she played as a girl. The 'play' involved walking the steel rods that were across the field running from a similar engine, but it was a gasoline powered hit and miss engine. The idea was to keep your balance as you walked along, and the rod went out, then back in, it riding on ground rollers set so many feet apart. The rods pulled several walking beam style pumps, and they moved a considerable distance. She was almost 70 at the time, hopped up on those steel rods and walked them like she was 12, first riding away from me, and then coming back, all the while walking away. I went back to visit about 40 years later, and the area that was a barren wasteland of black oil soaked ground, was totally restored, trees, grass, wild flowers, all the wells long gone. Can still remember it had a single Autolite spark plug. After watching this, I think the gas powered hit and miss was a bit less temperamental.
Great video! Thank you for posting! I worked for Cooper-Bessemer (Cooper Energy Services) in the 70's - 80's. Never saw anything about the Bessemer engines, even though I spent time in the Grove City 'Bessemer' plant.
Your one 🧑🔧
" hell of a mechanic "
Ole buddy 😁👍
If anyone cares, this engine makes roughly 415ft lbs of torque. How you find this the K.I.S.S. way is guess what torque it makes and plug it into the hp=tq×rpm÷5252 equation, and 415×190÷5252 is about 15hp. There you go
Thanks tbh lookin at the stats of an engine tell u a lot on how the whole thing is engendered to be optimized
Why guess when you could divide HP by rpm and multiply by 5252?
@@rollastudent because that's what I did???
@@UnreasonablyIrrelevant-gv8xx your directions said “guess”
@@rollastudent it was more of an educated guess, and I mostly said "guess" because if I said it someone would come in and math it and be like "erm actually it's blah blah whatever"
That’s a lot of crap in the water jacket, obviously gravity keeps most at the bottom. Thanks for the knowledge! Super cool! I live in Oklahoma and have three of these that are visible from my house 💪
Thanks for the once over on that giant 2 stroke. I understood much of what you explained only because im somewhat familiar with 2 stroke engines. The hot tube is something like a glow plug on a diesel engine I'm guessing but you lost me a bit on the sizing of it, I'm going to go back and watch again to see if i missed something. I love old engines and appreciate the time you took explaining this one. Pretty cool how you timed this engine and i would really like to see that governor in action and see exactly how that comes into play. Thanks again
That was fun to see how this big engine works and to see it up and running. I did notice though that the fly ball governor was not hooked up.
you did a great job explaining how this works. I like visuals
Love that these old bits of kit are still around. Also love the fact people still have the 'know how' on how to get them going and to fettle them!. Nice one, Nuff said!.
Always great to see you getting these going!!
Thanks for the video, fun stuff! It looks to me like the counter rocking of the trailer was one of the reasons it was so hard to get it going. It was losing a LOT of momentum moving that trailer which would have gone into piston movement otherwise. Just an engineer's quick observation. Great video!
i did have some idea how a 2 stroke gas/petrol engine worked, but you cleared some details right up. great job. sub +1
So is this not a hit or miss engine
@@thehourglasswithaman nope
Nice looking piece of machinery.
I remember my grandma telling how when she was little, they and their neighbors got a brand new threshing machine and had some guy bring his steam engine to run it after harvest.
"that's another reason your piston timing is important, because if your cylinder is too far forward it's gonna slap your cylinder head"
what
Yea, the cylinder head as in the thing he just took off. Where he mispoke is that he meant piston too far forward, not cylinder.
@@YuriGoofov how is a piston ever going to his the head? it might hit valves in an interference engine but that's it, right?
@@amicloud_yt
Because the piston is moved forward or back to set the timing. If it's set to far forward it will hit the cylinder head
That small propane tank contained within the engine, regardless what the maker called it, is an accumulator. It is nothing more than a space for the liquid propane to expand and create pressure. Very cool to see one in use like this. They only way I have seen them used is for flame effects setups.
I'm just glad I don't have to start one of these every morning.
Generally these rarely stopped
i gathered the hot tube controls detonation timing the longer the tube the lower the cr, kinda diesel like,constant speed motor,i guess,had working people back then,very nice vid tks.
I learned stuff I couldn't have imagined I needed to know. 🙂 Thanks and keep on chuggin'.
You persevered and eventually got it going when many others would have given up just like the owner did. Although a simple engine it takes knowledge as to how they actually work. Watching you work on this stationary engine made a nice change
I love these engines! Thanks for a great tutorial…
Great vid !!! I'm an old 2 stroke motorcycle enthusiast so 2 strokes hold no terrors for me.......however that hot tube ignition system is something else again. Imagine timing the engine by varying the length of the hot tube !!! I'll be remembering that tip, for sure. Thanks for such an informative vid.
This is absolutely fascinating - really informative.
Thank you, fascinating education! How many pounds of propane does it consume per hour of operation?
i like how you warn us. then proceed to do what you told us not to do. 😅 luckily no harm done.
This is one of the best TH-cam videos I've seen!
I love that a guy knows how to work on these.
I have one of those tool and die lifts they're super handy.
It's work mentioning that the exhaust port has to open first or the flame will burn backwards and cause major problems!
Thanks so much for this video. Terrific explanation of how this thing works. A bit of pucker factor starting the old girl!
11:20 Somebody's been there before... Paint witness mark is about the same distance the assembly needs to be shortened up.
So I learned some stuff... but what I didn't see covered is the magneto. The engine seems to be a two stroke compression ignition with a permanent glow plug (hot pipe). So what is the magneto doing?
The magneto isn’t currently hooked up. It’s original to the engine but the linkage was missing and had to be fabricated. The hot tube ignition was simpler to build at the time.
@@jessephillips3441 Gotcha. Thanks for the clarification.
We had two, similar to that one, on each Light Ship back in the 1950's, I admire your knowledge on something so old, well done. They gave us all the power we needed for the huge light and all our domestic usage we needed. You cant give it too much oil, so oil, oil, oil and in case I forgfot more oil. We had a platform on the top of the flywheel so we could run it round by foot. and the fly wheel mwas much wider than yours to make it easy to run it round. And ours were parafin. I wish I fcould be with you.
Great job and thank you for the education, greatly appreciated !!!
Casting the cylinder would have been tricky big ports and intricate lines what a beautiful engine ❤
I love how you use a pipe wrench on the piston rod and jam nut, i should bring my stuff into you to get worked on and destroyed.
Not so bad on the nut, but using it on that rod was sacrilege 😢
You should
My grandmother was 13 years old when this was made! Just think by 31 years later the Allison V1710 aircraft engine was putting out a thousand horsepower. But I'd look into the owner getting a new upper con rod made, taking care of the wear and also add a hexagonal nut at the lower end so you can eliminate the pipe wrench. That old wrench is probably dull so the teeth don't dig in, but man that method will really tear up the surface. Maybe the machinist can weld new metal to the top end of it, machine it back to spec and weld a hexagon onto it for adjustment.
It’s pretty absurd that a 100lb engine you can get at harbor freight can do more work than this monstrosity- we really have come a long long way.
Question: This engine is over 100 years old. How's that Harbor Fright Predator engine going to be running in 2124? Who knows? We'll all be long dead [just like your Harbor Fright engine. eh?]
@@schizy Sure, but most of these engines got scrapped too. But also the harbor freight engines cheap and simple affair-it’s not something you care about, but even then I’m sure there will be plenty 100 years from now in sheds and whatnot. These big engines are really just a curiosity nowadays, they’re fascinating, but nobody really intended they last this long, they just happened to make it last many decades of newer better designs being implemented.
The harbor freight may have more HP than this engine but i wouldn't say it can do "more work". A cheap harbor freight could not come close to this level of torque and this engine was capable of powering numerous belts and pullys.
@@erich6150 Horsepower is horsepower- it’s the literal measure of work. A 22hp v-twin can do more work than this 15hp motor. Torque is fairly irrelevant, sure this engine makes more torque at the crankshaft, but if you geared down a lawnmower motor from 3600 to 300 RPM it would be making more, because it’s producing more horsepower.
@@AfterDark33 This old engine served for decades, your harbor freight engine will be worn out in a couple of weeks of 24/7 'work' that this engine survived. There is simply no comparing the two.
Great hands on explainer, thanks. Makes sense that it could run on raw welhead gas. Love the sound.
A pipe wrench? Really?
If it hadn't already had one on it prior to me I would have taken a different approach.
2 wrongs don't make a right....correct
Why not clean the water jackets, atleast the head?
Really liked your explanation/illustration of the workings of this. Learned a lot. Thank you for posting this!
Very interesting. I love engines and this is amazing that our forefathers could engineer these fabulous machines.
So many clever things. It looks like the "intake valve" is not just a valve but also a carburettor. It seems to be where the gas and air are mixed as they are pulled into the engine. Those old boys were pretty smart. I doubt any modern engine mechanic would ever figure out how to start that thing, let alone why it might not start. Interesting stuff.
By the way, your starting difficulties are probably coming from the fuel pressure regulator. These engines need to use a demand regulator, which will not supply fuel until the engine drawing a charge draws vacuum on the fuel line. At a standstill it gets flooded by fuel seeping into the intake, which will not happen using a demand regulator.
Many of these engines used an early form of float valve: An inverted bucket for the fuel was floated in a bucket of water, with the inverted bucket controlling a valve to turn the fuel on and off. As the inverted bucket filled with fuel gas it would rise out of the water and close the valve. The engine would then suck in a charge of fuel when it needed it, making the inverted bucket fall again and reopening the inlet.
Excellent Video. I wondered how these old two stroke engines ran. Most 2-stroke engines have a large deflector cast into the piston to direct the transfer gases, but since the timing is adjusted with the piston rod, the piston has to have a cone shaped head to allow timing adjustments. Piston type gas compressors use a piston rod and packing gland to create a double acting cylinder. Used to build gas compressors way back in the day. The piston rod seems to be worn a bit with some scratches, but the low pressures in the cylinder shouldn't be much of a problem. Is the packing gland of the wound rope seal type? I really like your content. Enjoyed very much.
Thank you!
The rod is definitely worn, yes it does use the rope type packing.
Awesome! We have the 3-day show at Jacktown where I'm from, everything from shoebox size to steam tractors. I grew up around this stuff, antique farming and all.
God I’d Love to get me one of them old hit & miss engines. They have a hit & miss engine shows in Portland, Indiana every year. There’s a bunch of them there. And it’s less than 30 miles from me. Thanks for sharing Bud. You have a nice one there.