One other way to warm up the engine without glow plugs is to keep the coolant warm with a block heater.
Many diesel and even gasoline engines in trucks have that option and are used in the United States and Canada. It is a hot water heater, usually powered by 120v plugged into the garage power for a quick start in the winter. This also helps prevent the oil from being too thick in the cold.
Before block heaters, many had to start a coal fire under the pan of the engine and transmission to warm up the engine oil. The heat would rise of course and also warm the cylinders. My great grandpa had to do this every day up in the mountains in the winter with coals from his fireplace put in a tin pan for his Model A Ford truck.
Perhaps one could reverse engineer the glow plugs replaced with Hot Bulbs? Heated with a gas torch. Just preheating the intake air could be enough.
If I understand correctly, this tractor model has a dual-fuel engine, it can work as a diesel engine or as a gasoline engine with spark plug ignition, this method is also for starting the engine itself, since manually starting a cold diesel engine is impossible.
For several years I had a TD-14 International crawler.
While in the gasoline mode it was very weak and would only run just above an idle. Not strong enough to move the machine . Seemed to be a very low compression ratio.
After it warmed up a little while you could flip the lever for compression and diesel .
I don’t really know a great deal on diesel motors if the truth be known ,but I do remember having 1 pain in the neck forklift that would never fire up in the mornings without a gas flame gun pointing straight into the inlet or a squirt of either what ever was handy .
Yes, it popped up a few times on the forum. Still figuring out how it works and how to determine chipsize. Feed along the axis or on a almost 90 degree angle. The Laimet feed is almost dtraight on the axis. I think you need more power then but chips are smaller.
The first most important thing if diy is an equal distance between the srewblades, I think. If not done correct a lot of power is lost here?
Anyway, screwchipper is on hold for me. Bought a disc chipper this week for a price I couldnt lett it rot away.
Thanks for bringing this one up again GorenK.
I did not watch it back in August when SeanO. had posted it up on comment #33. Too busy then. One whole hour watching was too long of a commitment then.
But today I did watch it.
My Grandfather John/Jack Unruh was a master welder-fabricator as his mid-life carree into retirement. I was too young to ever see him work. This video I got to go-way-back and “see” him work. A true Master in steels.
Very good video as it first shows the machine working. Then ends showing the machine working. This system able to self feed right down to the wide spread twiggy ends. No pre-stripping prepping needed.
It would seem that how a person processes to chunked-bits will be very dependent on the actual form of the input wood form stocks. And then the intend purpose for those chunked-bits.
Not the wonder of a Master welder-fabricators creation.
S.U.
I tried some examples and came to very handy simplification. If you choose radius of helix circle equal to diameter of shaft, than pitch angle of the helix will be roughly 32,5° and helix height will be double of shaft diameter. Which seems very good angle to cut through the material at the edge. And good cut size. If you choose 1" shaft size, your chunks will be 2" long.
IIRC the ideal feed angle is roughly 30 degrees from the shaft. They use less energy then a disc chipper, but tend to be slower, and more expensive because of fabrication.
The difference between the laimet and this, is that the laimet varies the feed angle by varying the size of the auger flights so you can feed it parallel to the shaft. But they are the same idea. I don’t think laimet could get a patent for the auger without varying the auger flight sizes.
Well i got my blanks (flights) cut out a while back. Havent done anything else with them so far … im thinking i should chuck them up in the lath and put a bevel/cutting edge on them before attempting to press them open into an actual flight. I went way bigger than I needed too but still thinking just maybe i can push wider stuff threw it.
Im going to use a 1.5" shaft. My plates are 3/8" thick and i cut them out at 13" diameter…yeah, i know. They are quite large! But that was the size of the square plates i got my hands on and i can always cut them down.
With the thought being that im feeding a WK gassifier…
How far do you think i should seperat the flights?
Ive got my own idea’s about it, but thought i should run it by everyone else before i start.
Hi Chris,
The heat from the welding may warp the shaft a little, so maybe it would be better to recut the flights on the lathe after they are welded. Also probably better to recut the surfaces where the inner bearing races contact the shaft after the flights are welded to the shaft.
Rindert
Hi Chris, I don’t suppose you have had time to work on your screw chunker until you get the head gasket fixed on your Dakota, but how are you planning on bending the flights? I have been doing a lot of research, and I think I am going to build some like this:
It seems to be the simplest way I have found and looks pretty easy to make. I am using a 2" shaft I found with 10" flights. I am thinking 2 1/2" spacing between the flights. I agree with Rindert on re-cutting the flights after they are welded to the shaft, but I still might partially bevel the edges on the lathe beforehand, just to save on the grinding.
I had seen that particular video way back but recently when i went looking for it i coudnt seem to locat it… so thanks for reposting it Garry.
I did end up finding this one.
So im sure i will fab up something relatively simler to one of these methods. Either utilizing the wood splitter or shop press w/bottle jack as the source of power/leverage.
I dont plan on spreding my flights out nearly that much. (I realize they were building there flights for a different aplication and the videos are more of an example of how its done.) Just stating my intentions.
Im probably looking at a 2" spacing give or take. (So very simler to what your thinking)
I ended up going with 13.5" flights at 3/8" thick, because i had access to the material. I also came up with some 1.5" shaft material and a pair of 4 bolt flange mounted bearings. Again, what i managed to scrounged up.
I agree with you on the pre-beveling of the flights before pressing them. Thats my intention as well. Only because i feel it will be quicker and make it so there is less material to remove when it comes time to put an edge on the newly formed screw.
My flights are already cut out, have been for months, i thought i had a picture to share but apparently not. I Will post them and more on my progress when i get started. That way there is documentation on what to do…or not to do for others that are interested.
Well I am going to call this a success. I built this this afternoon. It is similar to the one in the video I posted a few posts back, but I used a piece of threaded rod instead of a hoist. The main center piece is 1 1/2 by 1 1/2” solid steel left over from a previous project. I used the bearing tool you are supposed to use when installing wheel studs to eliminate a lot of friction on the drive nut.
I only used maybe 10-12 ft pounds on the wrench to bend it this much. Granted this was only a trial with 1/8 inch steel, but I think it should easily do 1/4”.
