I live on Long Island and grew up in the 80s farming. Almost every farmer I knew had these engines running their irrigation wells. There were different sizes of both 4 and 6 cylinder versions. By the way these engines are extremely heavy! Most had no mufflers, and at night, when it was quiet, you could hear a symphony of these engines running through the night. By the end of the 80s when parts for these were getting scarce, they were phased out. We still have a couple that run, for conversation pieces. Most were scrapped and repalced by detroit diesel 471 and 671 two strokes. Some are still in use today. We are usually about 40 to 50 years behind the times in these parts. There's always the saying, if it aint broke, don't fix it!
The reason for starting on gas wasn’t because glow plugs weren’t available at IHC. It was because the standard for automotive electrical systems of the day was 6 volt. Cranking a large diesel engine on a 6V electrical system would have required ridiculously large electrical components. Multiple batteries, huge cables, a monster starter motor, etc. This is why we had pony motors and gasoline start engines. Because we had a lack of cranking power, not pre-heat capability. The gasoline start IHC diesels were smaller, lighter, and arguably simpler than adding on a whole separate engine just to crank the main engine. Once you see the components involved, it’s all really pretty simple. Crank with the “3rd valve” (decompression) chamber open. It starts up as a single-speed gasoline engine. Once she’s stable, advance the injection pump under it starts to smoke and sputter a bit, snap the decompression lever over, which closes up the 3rd valve in the cylinder head and closes flaps in the intake manifold that valve off the carburetor. And you’re running on diesel!
Yep, that’s pretty much it. I had an idea that I’d read somewhere that the engine in some IH models, had it set up to automatically switch after 300 revolutions of the crankshaft, using a reduction gear system to manipulate the compression release etc., which was about a minutes running on petrol, but the reference manual that covered the system on some detail is long gone. Never seen one in real life, only ever seen them in technical publications
@@RB-qq1ky I ran one (Farmall MD) as a kid in the early 2000s. It’s hard to describe the feeling of snapping one over to diesel but it’s highly addictive! They bark, spit a little smoke, and the engine tone totally changes to a more aggressive growl. You feel like you just did something significant!
I grew up on a farm in Northern Minnesota in the 1980s, and our family had an International TD-9 dozer, and an IH 650 tractor that had the 4 cylinder versions of this engine. The sound of switching over from gas to diesel is just wonderful to experience in person. My dad would have a tendency to throttle up the diesel at the same time and it always worked best to be snappy with the compression release/diesel activation lever. The result was a nice puff of black smoke and a beautiful rev on diesel. The idea of dual fuel wasn't even new in the 1930s when these engines became popular. Previous International engines from the early 1900s had options that started on gasoline and then ran on kerosene, still with spark ignition, but very difficult to start when cold. Other engines ran on so called "distillate" and used similar concepts. Really it all came down to supply chain -- kerosene could be used for heating oil as well as motor fuel and was cheaper. Gasoline was more expensive and was very inconsistent quality, particularly before the 1920s. Gas stations weren't everywhere, so it made sense to have a large tank of more versatile and more stable kerosene that could be filled on the farm a few times a year when you had the funds.
My uncle born in 1948 , says kerosene, like a lot of guys , referring to the engine that you could switch over once they warmed up. My father was born in 1937, he talked about "distillate" many times😊, guess he knew what he was talking about. (He also talked about them having a can of "white gas" around, was the best thing if you had grease or worse, anything in clothes that wouldn't come out in typical washing, grandma used the white gas. I could be wrong, I think I read somewhere, or maybe from watching American Pickers talk about early 1900s stuff, and ppl having to go to the back of a blacksmith's shop to buy camphor, in liquid form, and many cars ran on that before there were gas stations, I've wondered if grandma's white gas in their day was similar to the camphor)....Naphtha may be what I was thinking of instead camphor, [not that it matters] early engines/naphtha
@Sheisthedevilyouknowwho-ft9we Yup, white gas is still available in many stores today as Coleman lamp fuel. In the early 20th century many branded petroleum distilled fuels were just sold in 1,2, or 3 gallon square tin cans at the general store. (Also there's a whole story about those disposable cans being supplanted in WW2 when the Allies captured and copied the jerry-can)
@@rhekmanthanks for the info, interesting. Someone interested in history as much as me (and obviously engine and mechanical things). I grew up in the '80s too, in Nebraska. My dad had a Farmall M for a long time, then a 560 diesel, (I think he wanted an MD, and 100 more others) an H from an uncle just to start and have around. I still have his Cub and all the implements that went with it. When he retired he insisted on painting the appropriate parts of the implements IH blue. My father passed at 82 in 2020. But good to know like I wrote before about distillate, my dad used to refer to it. Often I'll hear guys on the RFDTV shows talk about kerosene, but not distillate as he called it.
@@Sheisthedevilyouknowwho-ft9we I use diesel to 'wash' my motorcycle final-drive chain. Its a heavy hydrocarbon and seems to work great on old, dirty chain lube.
I remember my dad talking about some that ran kerosene, but started on gas . You had to switch back to gas and let it run through before shutting down, otherwise you had to start on kerosene. Some times the only way was to pull it with another tractor. Some people who were cheap would park on a hill , let it run down and pop the clutch .
Was at the Albert City Threshermans show at Albert City, Iowa a few years ago. Someone had restored a TD 24 motor from a gravel pit on the Red River valley up close to Canada. It had s belt pulley on it to pull conveyors. Big 6 cylinder started on gas and switched to diesel. He had it on a trailer and had his young grandson start it for me. I think the ground shook when switched to diesel. If I remember right he said it was 1066 cid engine. Was very impressed.
Our old TD-6 would actually loaf along in 1st gear on gasoline. It helped build heat faster, and it was nice to pull it out of the shed before you switched to diesel. It made one HELL of a lot of smoke on switchover.
@@GMCOGRE Not the same thing. The IH engines were never designed to operate under power on gasoline. It was just to preheat everything so it would start easier on diesel.
Interesting stuff. I wasn’t aware of this starting method. My father in law had a woods operation. They used long auxiliary coolant hoses and quick-couplers on their pickups. On cold mornings, they’d drive up to their Timberjacks and skidders, connect the coolant systems of the pickups to those on the equipment and idle for a bit, circulating the warm coolant through the cold equipment engines. The warmed up engines started much easier even in near -40 weather.
This type of engine was manufactured by International Harvester (IH) for about 20 years, from the 30's to the 50's, in both 4 and 6 cylinder models of various displacements. Easier starting was the primary goal, but not just for the starter, IH had a policy that all of their engines should be able to start by hand power (crank starting) as batteries and starters of that time were not always reliable, and cranking over a gas engine by hand is easier than cranking a diesel. Before stopping one of these engines it was recommended that you switch it back to gasoline mode to have gasoline in the fuel system for easier starting the next time. After shutdown, it was also recommended to move the compression lever back to diesel to allow the starting valves to cool on their seats so as not to warp. The next day you could flip the lever back to gas and start the engine normally. The gasoline side of this system really only had an idle circuit and had no provision for throttle to increase power output. It's possible to sometimes move a machine on the gasoline circuit but it will be terribly slow and any obstacles would likely result in stalling out. Once warm on gas, you moved the throttle lever to diesel idle and switch the lever to diesel position. This does several things simultaneously: it closes the needle valve in the carburetor stopping any possible gasoline flow, it flips a grounding circuit on the magneto stopping and spark from reaching the spark plugs even though the distributor continues turning with the engine, It also engages a valve in the injection pump which starts diesel flow through the pump even though the pump always spins when the engine runs to maintain it's timing. This explains why this pump has it's own oil supply rather that being strictly lubricated by fuel as most later pumps are. This oil has to be changed at service as well as the engine oil. Lastly, the compression lever closes the starting valves in the head. These valves do decrease the compression to allow for easier starting but it's often more than 8:1, as this would require a chamber to almost double in size. As I recall the starting compression was closer to 10:1, low enough to start and idle on gas. These larger starting chambers are not empty, as they contain the area where the spark plugs enter the combustion chambers which allows the plugs to be protected from the diesel combustion process and thereby keeping them cleaner for easier starting on gasoline at the next starting cycle.
That was the first dozer I learned on .My late grandfather had one on his 1500 acre farm. We used it for many years and did everything with that old International dozer. It started great in the cold. It is still in operation to this day.. My uncles own and run the farm now and still use it. Every thing explained and info on the TD 20 is accurate and well explained. Excellent video!👍🏻
The Farmall MD used this engine technology I believe. ( I grew up with my dad owning a Farmall M. He wanted an MD too😁, he had seen one start and switch over to diesel). Amazing to think how IHC developed this head/valves etc so far back. Thanks Adam for making this video 👍. I didn't grow up on a farm or in construction, but like many guys, any internal combustion engine I find interesting, especially the ones that most of us haven't heard of before, or know very little.
@@rickvonderchek6898when my father passed away 4 years ago, a guy here in Nebraska that came to buy some parts told me about his collection. M's, Super M's, diesel versions, the ones with T-A. I don't recall the breakdown of his whole collection and how many of each of the different versions, but he said he has 7 of just the Super M-TA 😂
We had several gas start IHs on the farm. WD-9, SuperWD-9, MD, 400D, TD-14a dozer, and TD-24. The 24 was a horse, and had planetary steering, making steering with power on both tracks possible.
When I was growing up in the 60’s my dad operated a couple of different draglines (cranes) equipped with these engines. I’d go to work with him some Saturdays, and he’d let me crank the engine at the start of the day. When I was a little kid, it took ALL my strength to push that compression release lever over. The change in the sound when you switched over to diesel was pretty dramatic. Good memories.
As a kid, my dad had a model B Mack dump truck. The engine had a weird 8 cylinder engine that had a mechanical cylinder cut out feature. It would change from a 4 to 6 to 8 cylinder engine. I guess it was to make it idle using less fuel or better fuel efficiency running empty vs. loaded. Driver had levers to engage/disengage it. The truck also had a Jacob's engine brake separately. Setting it on 4 cylinder mode sure made starting easier on cold mornings.
My Grandfather had a Farmall Model H that ran on gasoline and kerosene, I always thought that was neat. Old M35 2 1/2 Ton Studebaker/AM General trucks had the Multifuel engine that could run on gasoline in a pinch with some motor oil added for lubricity, they were still in service when I joined in 2002, mynbasic training company at Fort Knox had an old multifuel Duce and a Half.
Adam, I think this has to be the winner for your most imaginative video!! I love how the tiny carburetor barrel IS the governor, and you mentioned what an elegant solution this is: Compared to huge batteries and glow plugs, or the pony motor, this is has to be the smallest & lightest solution. (I'm also surprised that they bothered with a vacuum advance on the distributor...)
While at the postal service, the Mack i drove had the compressed air system, worked flawlessly. Also had a Allison automatic transmission (not auto clutch) drove like a car, wonderful for city driving.
This was something I had forgotten about! I grew up in farm country and had occasion to drive tractors a few times (Dad was a high school teacher, but did some farming as a hobby). One of the tractors I got to drive was an International TD-18.
Up north when it was extremely cold, we used to start diesels using propane, as it is compression friendly. You can also use propane like nitrous for added power, since nitrous is not compression friendly.
@@Leemur2335 Propane is very high octane, can handle the compression in a diesel engine without knocking. Adding the propane into the diesel when the cylinder fires... a little diesel flashing off ignites the propane. Burning propane gets ALL the diesel to burn off, until the oxygen is all gone, plus the energy of the propane (maybe 10-20% additional to the diesel). More power, cleaner exhaust.
@@erickleven1712Yes I'm aware of this and you're 100% right, but the original comment says nitrous oxide isn't "compression friendly" which makes no sense at all. It's not even a fuel, just an oxidizer. Your added power potential with nitrous oxide injection plus extra diesel fuel to match it is way greater than propane injection. The higher concentration of oxygen supplied to the engine coupled with a colder and denser intake charge makes a giant difference. I'm sure that running propane in conjunction with nitrous could make a lot of clean power, but then you're adding extra complication and potential reliability issues. Especially if temps get hot enough that the propane does pre-ignite. I'd say that the biggest inherent performance advantage of a diesel engine is that you DON'T have to worry about pre-ignition or detonation at all, as long as you set your injection timing properly. You can run as much boost as your heart desires and you never need to worry about switching to a higher octane fuel or pulling timing to avoid knock. Adding propane injection via the intake charge removes this certainty (as high as its octane rating may be).
I’ve never had good luck getting propane to ignite from compression. Only seemed to work if you had some diesel fuel injected or starting fluid along with the propane mixture. That being said, I only used it in an attempt to get a cranky old engine primed up when it had been run out of fuel. Learned later that an old “hairspray” type nozzle on a can of WD-40 that could fog into the intake of the diesel actually worked better than starting fluid sometimes. Most modern engines seemed to just want to lock up if there was only ether in the cylinder. Might have been using too pure JohnDeere starting fluid vs the cheap stuff!
Well done Adam! Great content as always. I really like the one-on-ones with Lutz. I know its difficult to get them in person but hearing the nuances of the designs and evolution of the projects some of those folks were involved with is just a pleasure to listen to. Thank you,
My first car was a old beat-up 1963 Mercedes 190D, "a neighbor gave it to me." On cold winter mornings it was a bit of a task to start it, but once going it was a great little car. I still have my official Mercedes glow plug wrench to change out the glow plugs. The wrench is great for changing spark plugs on older V8's with headers.
We had an International Farmall W400 Diesel (would be 1954 or 55), on the farm, started on Gasoline, throw the lever and after a bit of sputtering away you go on Diesel! This was 4 clyinder.
This was to get around the electric starters of those days. They couldn't turn over the high compression diesel engines. These engines had a third valve in each cylinder to reduce compression. But with lower compression a diesel won't fire so they used a gas set up until the engine warmed up then you switch to diesel. Other companies used what pony motor . Never mind he got there.
IH also had Farmall tractors back in the 30's and 40's that would run on both gasoline and Kerosene. Kerosene was very common in rural areas as it was widely used for lighting and heating and was cheaper than gas.
Another bit on the Pony motors. These were generally plumbed into the main engines cooling system so heat from the pony motor warms the main engine. There were air cooled pony motors, I've seen one on a large cable operated excavator where the pony motor is a 65 ish HP Wisconsin so you can imagine how large the diesel engine is. .
Many years ago I worked for a John Deere dealer and on the used tractor lot there was a Cat D7, which had a pony motor to start the diesel. You had to start the pony with a rope (yes, a rope), and these things were notoriously cantankerous to start. Once you had expended enough sweat and expanded your vocabulary of curse words, the thing would finally cough to life. Now, have patience, because the last thing you want to do is clutch this thing into the diesel to roll it over before the pony was thoroughly warm - you did NOT want to have to restart that pony again. Once it was nice and warm, you pulled lever gradually and it would clutch into the diesel and roll it over until (with a liberal amount of ether) it finally would start. Whew, I breaking a sweat just remembering...
Good story, but not so. D7's had no provision for starting with a rope. The 7's 8's and 9's starting engines used a crank, if, unlike most of them, there was no electric starter for the starting engine. On the D7 the crank most typically protruded straight up from the hood. The starting engines were a great idea because, if they were in any sort of shape and if the operator had even the slightest idea what he was doing, they started very easily and once they were going they heated the intake air (the starting engine exhaust pipe was routed through the intake manifold) as well the coolant. Ether was NOT necessary even at temperatures of 10 below zero. Just follow the directions and let the starting engine do its work to warm the diesel before applying fuel.
My Dad had an old Caterpillar D2 that ran on the same principle....Rope start the gas pony engine, let that warm up for a few minutes, then use it to start the diesel. Once the diesel started, then the gas pony motor would be shut off.
Sounds like Dave Allen's dealer friends had no idea how to start a Cat properly, in combination with an old Cat that was seriously in need of maintenance. To do firebreaks on my hobby farm I bought a very old Cat D4 with the usual rope-start pony. It had seen about 40 years use pushing rubbish around in a huge land-fill tip before I got. it. Both the pony and the diesel engine were beautifully easy to start no matter how cold it was. Incidentally the pony turns the diesel by means of a bendix pinion on the diesel flywheel the same as a car starter motor, but there is an intermediary dog clutch so you don't turn the diesel until it is time to do so. The pony isn't there just to turn the diesel. It shares coolant with the diesel and its exhaust is routed through the diesel intake manifold, so that it warms the diesel up, making it start easy. A common problem with very old Cats is that the water passages in the pony get clogged up with white gunk, preventing coolant flow. So the pony overheats and it takes an excessive time to warm the diesel engine up, so people think it is hard/cantankerous to start.
What a cool concept! I have never heard of this type of engine, but it makes perfect sense. I would imagine that this was pretty 'high tech' for its day. At first, I was wondering why a tractor was on Adam's channel, but it's all so clear now.
Farmall tractors are built by International Harvester. So the gas/diesel technology must have been shared throughout the company. I know of a much smaller (TD6), IH bulldozer with this style engine. Caterpillar used pony motors, and the exhaust pipe ran through the air intake manifold to preheat the air before engine starting. In the ‘50’s and ‘60’s, potatoes were a big crop here in north central Connecticut. Irrigation pumps sometimes were powered by gasoline Chrysler industrial engines, and one grower i know of would start them on gas and switch to diesel after warmup, simply because diesel was less expensive at the time.
Back in the late 70's i had a White road tractor and i bought a Southwind gasoline fueled engine coolant preheater. Worked great even after Wisconsin wintertime cold soaks and was a lot less complicated! The international engine solution seems like the most complicated solution possible to a simple problem.
When I drove for Consolidated Freightways back in the early 90s those old Freightliner semi tractors they sent us out in were pretty crude equipment had either Cummins or Caterpillar engines and they were all equipped with ingersoll/rand air starters a company that they owned and hauled Less Than truck load freight for LTL is a special freight style of shipping instead of big full truck loads the customer would be able to ship just what a customer ordered smaller shipments but the truck lines that specialized in this genre made a fortune because they charged a premium price for this service but any way they or their founder Leland James started the company and invented the Cabover engine design Freight Liner high way Tractor I was told their were some Detroit diesels but the only ones I dealt with were Caterpillar or Cummins No power steering no A/C no upholstery your just sitting up their in that shakey noisy metal box bouncing down the road no air suspension on the older ones from the 70s on back the ones I drove were 6 speeds & 7 speeds the 6 Speeds were a real kooky shift pattern took me all day to figure it out some idiot tore the shift pattern label off the drivers door got it by mid week by Friday I was proud it was like an old friend But to get back to the Air Startters they were reliable just had to make sure your big red tank on the back of the cab never ran out of air there were no keys to these old girls you just flipped a toggle switch and heard your Air buzzer then pushed a button or what looked like a plunger with the palm of your hand and held it down until she fired
A friend of mine told me about these engines a long while back. His family had a farm, they had a collection of different tractors they used to work their farm, and they loved these engines. All of their tractors were used for working in the late spring to early fall, but only their International-Harvester tractors got used once the temperatures started to hit freezing. Their straight diesel engines were a pain to start, and once the snow fall started the gasoline tractors did not have the grunt they needed to move snow. These were cheaper and easier to maintain than diesel engines with pony engines, you didn't have the weight of that second engine when it was not in use, and the battery to start one of these was a lot cheaper than buying batteries for the straight diesel engines to start them. He did admit, the other diesel engines seemed to be more durable, and generally easier to maintain over all, but they worked best in summer.
Time 818 Note the funnel below the carb, from seeing one of these motors years ago, I recall it leads to the engine oil crankcase. Dumping gasoline into the oil would thin it out making the engine easier to crank. As the engine warms up, the gasoline evaporates.
International made a decent amount of those type of engine range in size from 4 liters up to around the 18 liter size they were a very popular power unit UD series and there is a decent amount of them around the country . They were a good engine for the time but the heads were the weak point on them as time went on and today its hard to find them with a decent head and valves and knowledge as to how to fix them . IH did offer one direct start diesel engine in 1956 but it was not a IH made engine instead they used a continental GD193 4 cylinder IH played with diesel all the way back in 1919 with Pre chamber single cylinder diesels . but the 1st direct start diesels were really the 1958 intros of the 460/560 tractors offering the d236 and d282 IHs most used diesel was the DT series mainly the DT 466 which sold over 2 million engines to the point that deere had came out with their own 466 cubic inch
As a kid, I worked on a couple of stationary irrigation pump engines that were like this. The one big difference I noticed from the ones you featured is they had magneto ignition systems.
There might be a one cylinder diesel European tractor I've seen that starts with a shotgun shell you hit (with a hammer or whatever) (edited: Field Marshall, that might have been the green tractor I saw on CTF ON RFDTV)
Tractors and such with those systems are for emergency use only if the regular starter wasn't operable. Shell going off was very hard on the engines and would never last long term as the only way to fire up
.. good point I dot think it was preferred for cold starts I know bank barns were used to bump start the tractors 1ST start of the day then the hand crank was used @@plap.
Back in the 70’s when I was in the Marines our vehicles ran on just about anything, mogas (slang for motor gasoline), diesel, and just about anything else that would burn.
This is great general overview. I have a WD9 and it’s awesome how simply complicated these engines are. It’s probably also not fair to call that F8 “starting carburetor” a carburetor. It’s barely a fuel mixer, only adjustable by the “choke”.
A pretty good explanation from a car person. By 1960 IH had pretty much gotten away from this method of starting, ane went, like Caterpillar, and John Deere did when the "10" series tractors were introduced went to battery start, with glow plug assist. (NOT JOHN DEERE, unless it was used on the 1010 and 2010 engines) You would be impressed if you ever run across a TD-24, or UD-24 engine with, IIRC 1087 cubic inches. The TD-25 was late enought to use battery start, BUT IH did keep the need to use glow plugs for their Diesel engines up until the introduction of the "06" Series of tractors. (Caterpillar also was a beiliever in "glow plugs' I was thoroughly impressed when, in the John Wayne movie about Red Adair, when he started a D7 with battery start! There is nothing like the sound of a cranking engine spinning over the main engine, and then having the main engine come to life, on one, two, or three cylinders, UNTIL the others decided to join in, LOTS of black and white smoke! The company I worked for had some engines that used a HYDRO-STARTER, which allowed you to crank the main engines as long as needed by using a smaller engine with a hydraulic pump to supply the starting 'power'. Enjoyable presentation! Now talk about the early Allis-Chalmers crawlers with the SEMI-OIL engine.
It's a departure from your usual topics, but that's not a complaint. I'd never heard of this engine, and was fascinated to hear about it. I would welcome other similar diversions from your normal content.
Another reason that these old engines used start on gas or a auxiliary gasoline pony motor is because starter motors and batteries were pretty weak. There are farm tractor engines up to the 1950's that start on gasoline then switch to kerosene to run. This was done because gasoline was $$$ in the day but kerosene was less $$ . In modern times, there are diesels that partly run on natural gas. These are found in large backup generators where diesel might be in short supply during an emergency but there is an onsite supply of natural gas.
Not just stationary gensets. 30 odd years ago I interviewed with a company pioneering the diesel/NG technology. They were (and are) selling it to vehicle operators all over the world, and had a prototype system retrofitted to a (very) old London taxi. Cool tech.
It used to be a good way to get a power boost from a diesel to add some propane into the intake when extra power was needed. It was pretty simple and operated on the principle that there was always excess air in a diesel engine cylinder.
The Bergius-Kelvin company in Scotland built marine-designated engines of this type. Very strange to initially see one and try to make sense of it :-). Great video / subject!
The most famous of these and I am somewhat familiar with and even have promotional video of is the 1949 international TD 24. Manufacturers were in a race to develop the largest bulldozer and international was the first post-war large bulldozer TD24. It started on gas and then you pushed in a lever like you said to transition over to diesel. My uncle mined coal with one of these and I was fascinated with that machine what I would watch it in operation as he would have it come to life when it transitioned to diesel it would make a noise that I can't even describe.. international td24 was the first to have planetary gears and planetary steering where you could push the lever to go left but it did not brake that side of the track it would continue turning so both tracks were supplying power all the time even when turning. That was a first and huge invention for bulldozers. Now the downside my uncle loved the machine but it also had a lot of problems. Having the extra valve and spark plug in the head you could not run extra cooling vanes for fluud to flow to keep the heads cool. They constantly cracked and was a major headache. International rushed to get this machine out but did not properly test it it almost broke the company and was one of the contributing factors for IH going under. I could go on and on about this machine but no doubt about it it is a major contributor of history for construction equipment post-world war ii. Fascinating history look it up on RUclips. TD24.
The "empty pocket" also had the Spark Plugs, as that way to keep the diesel carbon off the plugs while running on diesel.... (Many engines like Detroit 53/71 also used Spring Starters, or Inertia Starters)
Cummins didn’t use glow plugs because they really didn’t need them in larger displacement engines, cats and Detroits were the same. Cold weather starting they used a grid heater/intake heater to heat the air intake and change the density of the air.
The reason engines of that vintage (Cummins, Detroit) did not use glow plugs was because they were direct injection which starts far easier than the precombustion chamber design used in these Internationals and also early Cat's (up to the late 50's at least).
I was 18 and was working in construction in 1972 and there was a Fiat Allis (I believe) dozer with side boom that was quite large and had a 4 cylinder gas ( I believe) engine that was used as the starter motor for the large diesel engine. I thought it was kind of cool idea.
Perkins had yet another method for firing a cold diesel. They had an injector in the manifold that squirted fuel in while being ignited by a hot element (kind of like a glow plug). It was basically a mini flamethrower that fed the cylinders with hot gases to get the diesel to ignite. Despite the engine basically ingesting diesel exhaust, there was enough oxygen left in the intake charge to allow the engine to fire.
Thermostart device. Old Yanmar diesels had it too. You turned the switch to the left instead of the right on those. That heated an element like a glow plug. This heated a thermostatically operated valve which allowed diesel to dribble in and ignite on the hot element. The ones I have use fuel from the injector return lines so not any pressure to squirt it in.
At the Maritime Gloucester Museum in Massachusetts, you can learn details about marine "semi-diesel" engines in the pre-WWI era. I'd never heard of them.
I use to run a Gallion road grader 45 years ago that had an IH gas diesel. Ours had a throttle in the carb to rev up the engine to about 2000 rpm then you would pull the diesel throttle from the off position to full throttle while pushing in the compression lever which then it would start on diesel if you were lucky. If not you shut down the diesel fuel and quickly pulled the compression release and get it going back on gas awhile longer. In the winter it would put out enough smoke to engulf a city block before hitting on all 4 cylinders. That is why I think they got rid of them due to the excessive smoke during start up.
Ferguson Tractors that ran on kerosene (known as TVO: Tractor Vaporizing Oil) had to be started on petrol to warm the engine sufficiently to vaporize the kerosene.
Bucyrus Erie operated exactly the same way. It used a Marvel Schebler tractor carburetor until you closed the compression valves. This is a perfectly sound way to start and warm up a large diesel and save wear and tear.
There were ether spray devices on some early diesels that got them started. They were problematic because if they dosed in too much you could get pre ignition and a broken crankshaft. If your local climate did not run to being that cold in winter these devices were usually disconnected. A more reliable system was a blow torch on the inlet manifold then crank.
Plenty of diesels, older or modern, do not use glow plugs. They can use other starting aids such as decompression, intake grid heaters, ether injection, or just start well with direct injection with no aids. As a notable example, all of the Ram trucks with Cummins engines running around over the past 35 years do not use glow plugs. They have intake grid heaters, although they'll also often start straight away with no help. IH did use glow plugs, but only for a short time on just a few engines, and those engines were very glow plug dependent (most infamously the D282 6-cyl). The most famous and well respected IH engines, the Melrose Park 300 and 400 series which debuted in 1971, start quite well with no starting aids. They can have ether injection systems built in if needed, but in practice ether is rarely needed.
You should have thrown the Coffman starter mechanism into the mix. Although not as common as pony motors or gas/diesel engines it is still a really cool and innovative mechanism that uses what looks like a shotgun shell to crank the engine over. On the subject of engines starting on compressed air, growing up we had some engines that were air start that acted directly on the pistons instead of using an air motor like a conventional starter motor. No clue what their lineage was, brand or anything, but I seem to recall that they had an additional lobe on the cam that would operate an air valve to push the piston down.
Fascinating. I think it was a sliding piston that lifted upwards to increase the combustion chamber area to allow this. I was at a car show in Wilton Manors, Florida a few months ago and this man had an old Peerless 125 from 1929, and it had an inline 8 of....I can't remember the cubic inches, but to help it start it had a "start" lever that not only retarded the ignition, somehow it reduced compression. This was a gas engine, and it would win Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance if he took it there. But it was a purely gasoline engine.
Are there any shadetree mechanics or professional mechanics who say : be careful with using ether, I seem to remember years ago hearing old timers saying they only used ether rarely & if absolutely necessary and they had to get something moved, as an an engine can "get addicted" to ether.....won't start without it if you make it a habit and overdo it. And possible engine damage if ya just use too much on any given day. Any truth to that. ? I may have picked this up from guys that were drinking for all I know, it was a long time ago.
@@Sheisthedevilyouknowwho-ft9we : I've heard this too but I'd trust the word of the people who designed and built the engine over some farmer. Nearly all the diesel engine manufacturers that didn't use glow plugs have recommended using a 'starting aid' (ether) to start the engine on cold days. Older semi trucks even had an ether start button in the cab to accomplish this. If a diesel suddenly wont start without ether, it's usually a problem with injectors or something wrong with the cylinder head. Nothing to do with addiction and the same problems can happen on engines that never used ether LOL!
Adam, A rich blend of heavily leaded gasoline and high sulfur Diesel fuel must have made for a delightful mixture of exhaust particulates for the bulldozer operator to inhale all day. 🤢
@@jamesonpace726 Not quite...I drove an old 13:09 TD-6 with this setup back in the 80s. Once it was running on diesel, you shut off the gasoline fuel at the tank.
M35 deuce & a half truck had multi-fuel power. Runs on diesel, gasoline, kerosine, jet fuel, bunker fuel. Running on gasoline requires adding engine oil to the gasoline (for fuel system lubricity).
A side note - there are diesels with a throttle body that uses vacuum to control the injection pump. Vacuum regulator system. A bit of a weird setup, but it works. Some non-turbo Scania engines had that in the 60's.
How exactly does the vacuum signal tell the injection pump what do do? Like does it cut off the pump at high speed? It must be artificially generated venturi vacuum, because they have no natural manifold vacuum.
@@gregorymalchuk272 there's a vacuum operated piston on the injection pump that is taking the vacuum from the intake manifold, and the vacuum is based on the position of the throttle so the fuel is restricted based on the vacuum level.
A rancher next to us had a 118 Gallion motor grader that they maintained feed roads with. My dad worked for them quite often. I remember going with him to use it and him starting that thing up on gas and switching it over to Diesel. It was an IH 6 cylinder engine but I have no idea of the cubic inch of it. It ran good though.
I read that years ago, Cuban taxi drivers jury rigged something similar to allow the car engine to start on gas, then switch over to kerosene which was much cheaper, although it developed a lot less power.
I remember when I got my first apartment. Didn't have any gas money, but had a lot of kerosene. Warmed up my mother's Buick Roadmaster on gas, then dumped that kero into the tank. Didn't run very good, but good enough for me to move to my first place. I was about 18.
IH started this in the 30's I believe with the diesel version of the McCormick-Deering W40 which was the WD40, started on gasoline then switched to diesel, took 7 steps to start it. Today if you can find a Farmall Super MD-TA for a good price btter snatch it up, you'd probably have a hard time finding an old WD40.
I've seen our IH gas powered jet A tanker truck run 100s of miles on jet A. Our guy ran out of gas in the middle of nowhere servicing our Aerospatiale Llama helicopter doing drill rig support in Wyoming.
We use old case skidsteers that dont have glowplugs, instead use intake manifold preheaters to start when cold. Ofc it's broke or weak on one, so we have to resort to using a blockheater for it.
I live on Long Island and grew up in the 80s farming. Almost every farmer I knew had these engines running their irrigation wells. There were different sizes of both 4 and 6 cylinder versions. By the way these engines are extremely heavy! Most had no mufflers, and at night, when it was quiet, you could hear a symphony of these engines running through the night. By the end of the 80s when parts for these were getting scarce, they were phased out. We still have a couple that run, for conversation pieces. Most were scrapped and repalced by detroit diesel 471 and 671 two strokes. Some are still in use today. We are usually about 40 to 50 years behind the times in these parts. There's always the saying, if it aint broke, don't fix it!
Howdy neighbor.
Hi, small world!
@@tomromanski7925 indeed!
Cool story
manorville , Riverhead guy here...
Now all golf course and condos ..
Potato farms and Sod.
The reason for starting on gas wasn’t because glow plugs weren’t available at IHC. It was because the standard for automotive electrical systems of the day was 6 volt. Cranking a large diesel engine on a 6V electrical system would have required ridiculously large electrical components. Multiple batteries, huge cables, a monster starter motor, etc. This is why we had pony motors and gasoline start engines. Because we had a lack of cranking power, not pre-heat capability.
The gasoline start IHC diesels were smaller, lighter, and arguably simpler than adding on a whole separate engine just to crank the main engine.
Once you see the components involved, it’s all really pretty simple. Crank with the “3rd valve” (decompression) chamber open. It starts up as a single-speed gasoline engine. Once she’s stable, advance the injection pump under it starts to smoke and sputter a bit, snap the decompression lever over, which closes up the 3rd valve in the cylinder head and closes flaps in the intake manifold that valve off the carburetor. And you’re running on diesel!
Yep, that’s pretty much it.
I had an idea that I’d read somewhere that the engine in some IH models, had it set up to automatically switch after 300 revolutions of the crankshaft, using a reduction gear system to manipulate the compression release etc., which was about a minutes running on petrol, but the reference manual that covered the system on some detail is long gone.
Never seen one in real life, only ever seen them in technical publications
@@RB-qq1ky I ran one (Farmall MD) as a kid in the early 2000s. It’s hard to describe the feeling of snapping one over to diesel but it’s highly addictive! They bark, spit a little smoke, and the engine tone totally changes to a more aggressive growl. You feel like you just did something significant!
Military used 24 volts
I grew up on a farm in Northern Minnesota in the 1980s, and our family had an International TD-9 dozer, and an IH 650 tractor that had the 4 cylinder versions of this engine. The sound of switching over from gas to diesel is just wonderful to experience in person. My dad would have a tendency to throttle up the diesel at the same time and it always worked best to be snappy with the compression release/diesel activation lever. The result was a nice puff of black smoke and a beautiful rev on diesel.
The idea of dual fuel wasn't even new in the 1930s when these engines became popular. Previous International engines from the early 1900s had options that started on gasoline and then ran on kerosene, still with spark ignition, but very difficult to start when cold. Other engines ran on so called "distillate" and used similar concepts. Really it all came down to supply chain -- kerosene could be used for heating oil as well as motor fuel and was cheaper. Gasoline was more expensive and was very inconsistent quality, particularly before the 1920s. Gas stations weren't everywhere, so it made sense to have a large tank of more versatile and more stable kerosene that could be filled on the farm a few times a year when you had the funds.
My uncle born in 1948 , says kerosene, like a lot of guys , referring to the engine that you could switch over once they warmed up. My father was born in 1937, he talked about "distillate" many times😊, guess he knew what he was talking about. (He also talked about them having a can of "white gas" around, was the best thing if you had grease or worse, anything in clothes that wouldn't come out in typical washing, grandma used the white gas. I could be wrong, I think I read somewhere, or maybe from watching American Pickers talk about early 1900s stuff, and ppl having to go to the back of a blacksmith's shop to buy camphor, in liquid form, and many cars ran on that before there were gas stations, I've wondered if grandma's white gas in their day was similar to the camphor)....Naphtha may be what I was thinking of instead camphor, [not that it matters] early engines/naphtha
@Sheisthedevilyouknowwho-ft9we Yup, white gas is still available in many stores today as Coleman lamp fuel. In the early 20th century many branded petroleum distilled fuels were just sold in 1,2, or 3 gallon square tin cans at the general store. (Also there's a whole story about those disposable cans being supplanted in WW2 when the Allies captured and copied the jerry-can)
@@rhekmanthanks for the info, interesting. Someone interested in history as much as me (and obviously engine and mechanical things). I grew up in the '80s too, in Nebraska. My dad had a Farmall M for a long time, then a 560 diesel, (I think he wanted an MD, and 100 more others) an H from an uncle just to start and have around. I still have his Cub and all the implements that went with it. When he retired he insisted on painting the appropriate parts of the implements IH blue. My father passed at 82 in 2020. But good to know like I wrote before about distillate, my dad used to refer to it. Often I'll hear guys on the RFDTV shows talk about kerosene, but not distillate as he called it.
@@Sheisthedevilyouknowwho-ft9we I use diesel to 'wash' my motorcycle final-drive chain. Its a heavy hydrocarbon and seems to work great on old, dirty chain lube.
I remember my dad talking about some that ran kerosene, but started on gas . You had to switch back to gas and let it run through before shutting down, otherwise you had to start on kerosene. Some times the only way was to pull it with another tractor. Some people who were cheap would park on a hill , let it run down and pop the clutch .
Was at the Albert City Threshermans show at Albert City, Iowa a few years ago. Someone had restored a TD 24 motor from a gravel pit on the Red River valley up close to Canada. It had s belt pulley on it to pull conveyors. Big 6 cylinder started on gas and switched to diesel. He had it on a trailer and had his young grandson start it for me. I think the ground shook when switched to diesel. If I remember right he said it was 1066 cid engine. Was very impressed.
Listening in as a 40 plus year old mechanic.You're smart and I love your content.
Our old TD-6 would actually loaf along in 1st gear on gasoline. It helped build heat faster, and it was nice to pull it out of the shed before you switched to diesel. It made one HELL of a lot of smoke on switchover.
sounds like a hercules multifuel engine used in army 2 1/2 ton trucks. way to much fuel to prevent detonation. smoke like hell.
@@GMCOGRE
Not the same thing. The IH engines were never designed to operate under power on gasoline. It was just to preheat everything so it would start easier on diesel.
Interesting stuff. I wasn’t aware of this starting method.
My father in law had a woods operation. They used long auxiliary coolant hoses and quick-couplers on their pickups. On cold mornings, they’d drive up to their Timberjacks and skidders, connect the coolant systems of the pickups to those on the equipment and idle for a bit, circulating the warm coolant through the cold equipment engines. The warmed up engines started much easier even in near -40 weather.
This type of engine was manufactured by International Harvester (IH) for about 20 years, from the 30's to the 50's, in both 4 and 6 cylinder models of various displacements. Easier starting was the primary goal, but not just for the starter, IH had a policy that all of their engines should be able to start by hand power (crank starting) as batteries and starters of that time were not always reliable, and cranking over a gas engine by hand is easier than cranking a diesel.
Before stopping one of these engines it was recommended that you switch it back to gasoline mode to have gasoline in the fuel system for easier starting the next time. After shutdown, it was also recommended to move the compression lever back to diesel to allow the starting valves to cool on their seats so as not to warp. The next day you could flip the lever back to gas and start the engine normally. The gasoline side of this system really only had an idle circuit and had no provision for throttle to increase power output. It's possible to sometimes move a machine on the gasoline circuit but it will be terribly slow and any obstacles would likely result in stalling out.
Once warm on gas, you moved the throttle lever to diesel idle and switch the lever to diesel position. This does several things simultaneously: it closes the needle valve in the carburetor stopping any possible gasoline flow, it flips a grounding circuit on the magneto stopping and spark from reaching the spark plugs even though the distributor continues turning with the engine, It also engages a valve in the injection pump which starts diesel flow through the pump even though the pump always spins when the engine runs to maintain it's timing. This explains why this pump has it's own oil supply rather that being strictly lubricated by fuel as most later pumps are. This oil has to be changed at service as well as the engine oil. Lastly, the compression lever closes the starting valves in the head. These valves do decrease the compression to allow for easier starting but it's often more than 8:1, as this would require a chamber to almost double in size. As I recall the starting compression was closer to 10:1, low enough to start and idle on gas. These larger starting chambers are not empty, as they contain the area where the spark plugs enter the combustion chambers which allows the plugs to be protected from the diesel combustion process and thereby keeping them cleaner for easier starting on gasoline at the next starting cycle.
You explain it well. I had a Super MD that operated on the same principles.
I still have the original operator's manual for it.
You really know these engines! Thanks for sharing your knowledge
That was the first dozer I learned on .My late grandfather had one on his 1500 acre farm. We used it for many years and did everything with that old International dozer. It started great in the cold. It is still in operation to this day.. My uncles own and run the farm now and still use it. Every thing explained and info on the TD 20 is accurate and well explained. Excellent video!👍🏻
Still runs. ? That's amazing
I pushed alot of snow with an old international td6 that started on gas and ran on diesel. Fantastic machine.
This is similar to having a pony engine but all in one engine. You brought back some wonderful memories Adam, thank you so much.
Exactly what I was thinking of! I remember winding up a piece of rope on the gas engine "in the cab" to spin up the diesel...
The Farmall MD used this engine technology I believe. ( I grew up with my dad owning a Farmall M. He wanted an MD too😁, he had seen one start and switch over to diesel). Amazing to think how IHC developed this head/valves etc so far back. Thanks Adam for making this video 👍. I didn't grow up on a farm or in construction, but like many guys, any internal combustion engine I find interesting, especially the ones that most of us haven't heard of before, or know very little.
Farmall had multifuel with gasoline and kerosene too. My Grandfather's Model H did it.
We had what was called a super m that used that system
@@rickvonderchek6898when my father passed away 4 years ago, a guy here in Nebraska that came to buy some parts told me about his collection. M's, Super M's, diesel versions, the ones with T-A. I don't recall the breakdown of his whole collection and how many of each of the different versions, but he said he has 7 of just the Super M-TA 😂
International WD-9’s and WD-6’s had the same architecture. They made tens of thousands of them 1940-1954.
We had several gas start IHs on the farm. WD-9, SuperWD-9, MD, 400D, TD-14a dozer, and TD-24. The 24 was a horse, and had planetary steering, making steering with power on both tracks possible.
Waiting for Matt at Diesel Creek to buy one for his channel 😂
All of my amateur mechanic experience running through my head..... I'm stumped, and have never imagined such a thing. Should be an informative video
I've known about these gas diesel engines for a while but I still like to get all the info I can on them. I find it very interesting. Thanks.
When I was growing up in the 60’s my dad operated a couple of different draglines (cranes) equipped with these engines. I’d go to work with him some Saturdays, and he’d let me crank the engine at the start of the day. When I was a little kid, it took ALL my strength to push that compression release lever over. The change in the sound when you switched over to diesel was pretty dramatic. Good memories.
As a kid, my dad had a model B Mack dump truck. The engine had a weird 8 cylinder engine that had a mechanical cylinder cut out feature. It would change from a 4 to 6 to 8 cylinder engine. I guess it was to make it idle using less fuel or better fuel efficiency running empty vs. loaded. Driver had levers to engage/disengage it. The truck also had a Jacob's engine brake separately. Setting it on 4 cylinder mode sure made starting easier on cold mornings.
My Grandfather had a Farmall Model H that ran on gasoline and kerosene, I always thought that was neat. Old M35 2 1/2 Ton Studebaker/AM General trucks had the Multifuel engine that could run on gasoline in a pinch with some motor oil added for lubricity, they were still in service when I joined in 2002, mynbasic training company at Fort Knox had an old multifuel Duce and a Half.
Adam, I think this has to be the winner for your most imaginative video!!
I love how the tiny carburetor barrel IS the governor, and you mentioned what an elegant solution this is: Compared to huge batteries and glow plugs, or the pony motor, this is has to be the smallest & lightest solution. (I'm also surprised that they bothered with a vacuum advance on the distributor...)
While at the postal service, the Mack i drove had the compressed air system, worked flawlessly. Also had
a Allison automatic transmission (not auto clutch) drove like a car, wonderful for city driving.
This was something I had forgotten about! I grew up in farm country and had occasion to drive tractors a few times (Dad was a high school teacher, but did some farming as a hobby). One of the tractors I got to drive was an International TD-18.
Up north when it was extremely cold, we used to start diesels using propane, as it is compression friendly. You can also use propane like nitrous for added power, since nitrous is not compression friendly.
Propane is a fuel and nitrous oxide is not. Nitrous oxide works great in diesel engines, what are you even talking about?
Propane injection on diesel engines is what he is talking about. @@Leemur2335
@@Leemur2335 Propane is very high octane, can handle the compression in a diesel engine without knocking. Adding the propane into the diesel when the cylinder fires... a little diesel flashing off ignites the propane. Burning propane gets ALL the diesel to burn off, until the oxygen is all gone, plus the energy of the propane (maybe 10-20% additional to the diesel). More power, cleaner exhaust.
@@erickleven1712Yes I'm aware of this and you're 100% right, but the original comment says nitrous oxide isn't "compression friendly" which makes no sense at all. It's not even a fuel, just an oxidizer.
Your added power potential with nitrous oxide injection plus extra diesel fuel to match it is way greater than propane injection. The higher concentration of oxygen supplied to the engine coupled with a colder and denser intake charge makes a giant difference.
I'm sure that running propane in conjunction with nitrous could make a lot of clean power, but then you're adding extra complication and potential reliability issues. Especially if temps get hot enough that the propane does pre-ignite.
I'd say that the biggest inherent performance advantage of a diesel engine is that you DON'T have to worry about pre-ignition or detonation at all, as long as you set your injection timing properly. You can run as much boost as your heart desires and you never need to worry about switching to a higher octane fuel or pulling timing to avoid knock. Adding propane injection via the intake charge removes this certainty (as high as its octane rating may be).
I’ve never had good luck getting propane to ignite from compression. Only seemed to work if you had some diesel fuel injected or starting fluid along with the propane mixture. That being said, I only used it in an attempt to get a cranky old engine primed up when it had been run out of fuel. Learned later that an old “hairspray” type nozzle on a can of WD-40 that could fog into the intake of the diesel actually worked better than starting fluid sometimes. Most modern engines seemed to just want to lock up if there was only ether in the cylinder. Might have been using too pure JohnDeere starting fluid vs the cheap stuff!
Never knew these engines existed, thanks for the content 😊
Well done Adam! Great content as always. I really like the one-on-ones with Lutz. I know its difficult to get them in person but hearing the nuances of the designs and evolution of the projects some of those folks were involved with is just a pleasure to listen to. Thank you,
Had an old boy 30 years ago show me a Farmall like that. Was pretty sweet.
We used to have an old Caterpillar D7 3t dozer with a gas pony engine to start the big diesel. Currently I have a big mid 1970s Caterpillar D9 dozer.
My first car was a old beat-up 1963 Mercedes 190D, "a neighbor gave it to me." On cold winter mornings it was a bit of a task to start it, but once going it was a great little car. I still have my official Mercedes glow plug wrench to change out the glow plugs. The wrench is great for changing spark plugs on older V8's with headers.
We had an International Farmall W400 Diesel (would be 1954 or 55), on the farm, started on Gasoline, throw the lever and after a bit of sputtering away you go on Diesel! This was 4 clyinder.
This was to get around the electric starters of those days. They couldn't turn over the high compression diesel engines. These engines had a third valve in each cylinder to reduce compression. But with lower compression a diesel won't fire so they used a gas set up until the engine warmed up then you switch to diesel. Other companies used what pony motor . Never mind he got there.
IH also had Farmall tractors back in the 30's and 40's that would run on both gasoline and Kerosene. Kerosene was very common in rural areas as it was widely used for lighting and heating and was cheaper than gas.
Another bit on the Pony motors. These were generally plumbed into the main engines cooling system so heat from the pony motor warms the main engine. There were air cooled pony motors, I've seen one on a large cable operated excavator where the pony motor is a 65 ish HP Wisconsin so you can imagine how large the diesel engine is. .
The pony exhaust was also plumbed through a tube inside the diesel intake manifold to help preheat the incoming air.
Many years ago I worked for a John Deere dealer and on the used tractor lot there was a Cat D7, which had a pony motor to start the diesel. You had to start the pony with a rope (yes, a rope), and these things were notoriously cantankerous to start. Once you had expended enough sweat and expanded your vocabulary of curse words, the thing would finally cough to life. Now, have patience, because the last thing you want to do is clutch this thing into the diesel to roll it over before the pony was thoroughly warm - you did NOT want to have to restart that pony again. Once it was nice and warm, you pulled lever gradually and it would clutch into the diesel and roll it over until (with a liberal amount of ether) it finally would start. Whew, I breaking a sweat just remembering...
Sounds like those pony motors, needed yet a smaller pony motor to get them started 😂 Great story. Work related experiences are so valuable to share
@@daveallen8824 thanks everyone for your stories on multifuel Diesel engines nice here the war stories.
Good story, but not so. D7's had no provision for starting with a rope. The 7's 8's and 9's starting engines used a crank, if, unlike most of them, there was no electric starter for the starting engine. On the D7 the crank most typically protruded straight up from the hood. The starting engines were a great idea because, if they were in any sort of shape and if the operator had even the slightest idea what he was doing, they started very easily and once they were going they heated the intake air (the starting engine exhaust pipe was routed through the intake manifold) as well the coolant. Ether was NOT necessary even at temperatures of 10 below zero. Just follow the directions and let the starting engine do its work to warm the diesel before applying fuel.
My Dad had an old Caterpillar D2 that ran on the same principle....Rope start the gas pony engine, let that warm up for a few minutes, then use it to start the diesel.
Once the diesel started, then the gas pony motor would be shut off.
Sounds like Dave Allen's dealer friends had no idea how to start a Cat properly, in combination with an old Cat that was seriously in need of maintenance.
To do firebreaks on my hobby farm I bought a very old Cat D4 with the usual rope-start pony. It had seen about 40 years use pushing rubbish around in a huge land-fill tip before I got. it. Both the pony and the diesel engine were beautifully easy to start no matter how cold it was.
Incidentally the pony turns the diesel by means of a bendix pinion on the diesel flywheel the same as a car starter motor, but there is an intermediary dog clutch so you don't turn the diesel until it is time to do so.
The pony isn't there just to turn the diesel. It shares coolant with the diesel and its exhaust is routed through the diesel intake manifold, so that it warms the diesel up, making it start easy. A common problem with very old Cats is that the water passages in the pony get clogged up with white gunk, preventing coolant flow. So the pony overheats and it takes an excessive time to warm the diesel engine up, so people think it is hard/cantankerous to start.
What a cool concept! I have never heard of this type of engine, but it makes perfect sense. I would imagine that this was pretty 'high tech' for its day. At first, I was wondering why a tractor was on Adam's channel, but it's all so clear now.
HARVESTER POWER!!! ih has always been at the top for diesel tech.
Farmall tractors are built by International Harvester. So the gas/diesel technology must have been shared throughout the company. I know of a much smaller (TD6), IH bulldozer with this style engine.
Caterpillar used pony motors, and the exhaust pipe ran through the air intake manifold to preheat the air before engine starting.
In the ‘50’s and ‘60’s, potatoes were a big crop here in north central Connecticut. Irrigation pumps sometimes were powered by gasoline Chrysler industrial engines, and one grower i know of would start them on gas and switch to diesel after warmup, simply because diesel was less expensive at the time.
Excellent
Right up there with the GMC v12
I agree David
Back in the late 70's i had a White road tractor and i bought a Southwind gasoline fueled engine coolant preheater. Worked great even after Wisconsin wintertime cold soaks and was a lot less complicated! The international engine solution seems like the most complicated solution possible to a simple problem.
This tech is new to me, and very interesting! Thanks for presenting it.
Olds should have talked to I-H.
Ha
Nice low key slam
They should have just talked to in house Detroit Diesel.
imagine a V8-6-4 gasoline/diesel engine? I'm pretty sure that gets you sent straight to engineering hell.
Kinda funny, IH had a v8 diesel that deactivated 4 cylinders at idle and light load. The DV550 iirc
Went to diesel mechanic school in 1979 and we had a number of TD24 dozers we worked on.
TD-24 IH Dozer had a big brother to this engine with 1091 CI. A lot of horsepower and torque, I think the engine was governed at 1400 RPM.
When I drove for Consolidated Freightways back in the early 90s those old Freightliner semi tractors they sent us out in were pretty crude equipment had either Cummins or Caterpillar engines and they were all equipped with ingersoll/rand air starters a company that they owned and hauled Less Than truck load freight for LTL is a special freight style of shipping instead of big full truck loads the customer would be able to ship just what a customer ordered smaller shipments but the truck lines that specialized in this genre made a fortune because they charged a premium price for this service but any way they or their founder Leland James started the company and invented the Cabover engine design Freight Liner high way Tractor I was told their were some Detroit diesels but the only ones I dealt with were Caterpillar or Cummins No power steering no A/C no upholstery your just sitting up their in that shakey noisy metal box bouncing down the road no air suspension on the older ones from the 70s on back the ones I drove were 6 speeds & 7 speeds the 6 Speeds were a real kooky shift pattern took me all day to figure it out some idiot tore the shift pattern label off the drivers door got it by mid week by Friday I was proud it was like an old friend But to get back to the Air Startters they were reliable just had to make sure your big red tank on the back of the cab never ran out of air there were no keys to these old girls you just flipped a toggle switch and heard your Air buzzer then pushed a button or what looked like a plunger with the palm of your hand and held it down until she fired
A friend of mine told me about these engines a long while back. His family had a farm, they had a collection of different tractors they used to work their farm, and they loved these engines. All of their tractors were used for working in the late spring to early fall, but only their International-Harvester tractors got used once the temperatures started to hit freezing. Their straight diesel engines were a pain to start, and once the snow fall started the gasoline tractors did not have the grunt they needed to move snow. These were cheaper and easier to maintain than diesel engines with pony engines, you didn't have the weight of that second engine when it was not in use, and the battery to start one of these was a lot cheaper than buying batteries for the straight diesel engines to start them. He did admit, the other diesel engines seemed to be more durable, and generally easier to maintain over all, but they worked best in summer.
Time 818 Note the funnel below the carb, from seeing one of these motors years ago, I recall it leads to the engine oil crankcase. Dumping gasoline into the oil would thin it out making the engine easier to crank. As the engine warms up, the gasoline evaporates.
International made a decent amount of those type of engine range in size from 4 liters up to around the 18 liter size they were a very popular power unit UD series and there is a decent amount of them around the country . They were a good engine for the time but the heads were the weak point on them as time went on and today its hard to find them with a decent head and valves and knowledge as to how to fix them . IH did offer one direct start diesel engine in 1956 but it was not a IH made engine instead they used a continental GD193 4 cylinder IH played with diesel all the way back in 1919 with Pre chamber single cylinder diesels . but the 1st direct start diesels were really the 1958 intros of the 460/560 tractors offering the d236 and d282 IHs most used diesel was the DT series mainly the DT 466 which sold over 2 million engines to the point that deere had came out with their own 466 cubic inch
1919, wow. I need to do some reading if I can find
How fascinating! I have never heard of this set up before.
I think there was a Dave's Farm video where he instructs a young girl in starting such a machine.
As a kid, I worked on a couple of stationary irrigation pump engines that were like this. The one big difference I noticed from the ones you featured is they had magneto ignition systems.
... I have heard of an antique device that required a starter shell (blank ammunition) inserted and fired that crank started the engine ...!
There might be a one cylinder diesel European tractor I've seen that starts with a shotgun shell you hit (with a hammer or whatever) (edited: Field Marshall, that might have been the green tractor I saw on CTF ON RFDTV)
P&W Wasp radials in WW2 had that.
Tractors and such with those systems are for emergency use only if the regular starter wasn't operable. Shell going off was very hard on the engines and would never last long term as the only way to fire up
.. good point I dot think it was preferred for cold starts I know bank barns were used to bump start the tractors 1ST start of the day then the hand crank was used
@@plap.
@plap. No. The Lanz Tractor company had 1 cyl diesels that the primary starting method was a blank 12 ga. shell connected to the cylinder head.
See old Dave's Farm Gas/diesel starting procedures video.
that's where i first learned of them.
Classic Tractor Fever has a video on an old McCormick-Deering WD40, you ca watch the old guy start it..
Thanks for the interesting video. Way back when I was a little kid, my dad had a Caterpillar D4 with the gasoline starter motor. Neat video.
This is new to me. I never heard of this kind of power plant.
My Super MD started the same way. It was a reliable tractor and very economical.
Back in the 70’s when I was in the Marines our vehicles ran on just about anything, mogas (slang for motor gasoline), diesel, and just about anything else that would burn.
I gotta get one of those
Very cool - thanks for the education.
This is great general overview. I have a WD9 and it’s awesome how simply complicated these engines are. It’s probably also not fair to call that F8 “starting carburetor” a carburetor. It’s barely a fuel mixer, only adjustable by the “choke”.
A pretty good explanation from a car person.
By 1960 IH had pretty much gotten away from this method of starting, ane went, like Caterpillar, and John Deere did when the "10" series tractors were introduced went to battery start, with glow plug assist. (NOT JOHN DEERE, unless it was used on the 1010 and 2010 engines)
You would be impressed if you ever run across a TD-24, or UD-24 engine with, IIRC 1087 cubic inches. The TD-25 was late enought to use battery start, BUT IH did keep the need to use glow plugs for their Diesel engines up until the introduction of the "06" Series of tractors. (Caterpillar also was a beiliever in "glow plugs' I was thoroughly impressed when, in the John Wayne movie about Red Adair, when he started a D7 with battery start!
There is nothing like the sound of a cranking engine spinning over the main engine, and then having the main engine come to life, on one, two, or three cylinders, UNTIL the others decided to join in, LOTS of black and white smoke!
The company I worked for had some engines that used a HYDRO-STARTER, which allowed you to crank the main engines as long as needed by using a smaller engine with a hydraulic pump to supply the starting 'power'.
Enjoyable presentation!
Now talk about the early Allis-Chalmers crawlers with the SEMI-OIL engine.
It's a departure from your usual topics, but that's not a complaint. I'd never heard of this engine, and was fascinated to hear about it. I would welcome other similar diversions from your normal content.
Another reason that these old engines used start on gas or a auxiliary gasoline pony motor is because starter motors and batteries were pretty weak.
There are farm tractor engines up to the 1950's that start on gasoline then switch to kerosene to run. This was done because gasoline was $$$ in the day but kerosene was less $$ .
In modern times, there are diesels that partly run on natural gas. These are found in large backup generators where diesel might be in short supply during an emergency but there is an onsite supply of natural gas.
Not just stationary gensets. 30 odd years ago I interviewed with a company pioneering the diesel/NG technology. They were (and are) selling it to vehicle operators all over the world, and had a prototype system retrofitted to a (very) old London taxi. Cool tech.
It used to be a good way to get a power boost from a diesel to add some propane into the intake when extra power was needed. It was pretty simple and operated on the principle that there was always excess air in a diesel engine cylinder.
The Bergius-Kelvin company in Scotland built marine-designated engines of this type. Very strange to initially see one and try to make sense of it :-). Great video / subject!
The most famous of these and I am somewhat familiar with and even have promotional video of is the 1949 international TD 24. Manufacturers were in a race to develop the largest bulldozer and international was the first post-war large bulldozer TD24. It started on gas and then you pushed in a lever like you said to transition over to diesel. My uncle mined coal with one of these and I was fascinated with that machine what I would watch it in operation as he would have it come to life when it transitioned to diesel it would make a noise that I can't even describe.. international td24 was the first to have planetary gears and planetary steering where you could push the lever to go left but it did not brake that side of the track it would continue turning so both tracks were supplying power all the time even when turning. That was a first and huge invention for bulldozers. Now the downside my uncle loved the machine but it also had a lot of problems. Having the extra valve and spark plug in the head you could not run extra cooling vanes for fluud to flow to keep the heads cool. They constantly cracked and was a major headache. International rushed to get this machine out but did not properly test it it almost broke the company and was one of the contributing factors for IH going under. I could go on and on about this machine but no doubt about it it is a major contributor of history for construction equipment post-world war ii. Fascinating history look it up on RUclips. TD24.
The "empty pocket" also had the Spark Plugs, as that way to keep the diesel carbon off the plugs while running on diesel.... (Many engines like Detroit 53/71 also used Spring Starters, or Inertia Starters)
Cummins didn’t use glow plugs because they really didn’t need them in larger displacement engines, cats and Detroits were the same. Cold weather starting they used a grid heater/intake heater to heat the air intake and change the density of the air.
Not totally true, the CAT 1693 had glow plugs.
The reason engines of that vintage (Cummins, Detroit) did not use glow plugs was because they were direct injection which starts far easier than the precombustion chamber design used in these Internationals and also early Cat's (up to the late 50's at least).
What a great video of a very interesting engine. Every day’s a school day.
I was 18 and was working in construction in 1972 and there was a Fiat Allis (I believe) dozer with side boom that was quite large and had a 4 cylinder gas ( I believe) engine that was used as the starter motor for the large diesel engine. I thought it was kind of cool idea.
Perkins had yet another method for firing a cold diesel. They had an injector in the manifold that squirted fuel in while being ignited by a hot element (kind of like a glow plug). It was basically a mini flamethrower that fed the cylinders with hot gases to get the diesel to ignite. Despite the engine basically ingesting diesel exhaust, there was enough oxygen left in the intake charge to allow the engine to fire.
Thermostart device. Old Yanmar diesels had it too. You turned the switch to the left instead of the right on those. That heated an element like a glow plug. This heated a thermostatically operated valve which allowed diesel to dribble in and ignite on the hot element. The ones I have use fuel from the injector return lines so not any pressure to squirt it in.
At the Maritime Gloucester Museum in Massachusetts, you can learn details about marine "semi-diesel" engines in the pre-WWI era. I'd never heard of them.
I use to run a Gallion road grader 45 years ago that had an IH gas diesel. Ours had a throttle in the carb to rev up the engine to about 2000 rpm then you would pull the diesel throttle from the off position to full throttle while pushing in the compression lever which then it would start on diesel if you were lucky. If not you shut down the diesel fuel and quickly pulled the compression release and get it going back on gas awhile longer. In the winter it would put out enough smoke to engulf a city block before hitting on all 4 cylinders. That is why I think they got rid of them due to the excessive smoke during start up.
Amazing technology for the time.
GREAT VIDEO!
Ferguson Tractors that ran on kerosene (known as TVO: Tractor Vaporizing Oil) had to be started on petrol to warm the engine sufficiently to vaporize the kerosene.
A reason those tractors had very low compression😁
That’s really neat, I didn’t know those existed. Thanks for sharing.
Very interesting and informative Adam- thank you.
More info, there are also spring wound starters , these seem to be popular in developing countries where batteries are $$$.
Bucyrus Erie operated exactly the same way. It used a Marvel Schebler tractor carburetor until you closed the compression valves. This is a perfectly sound way to start and warm up a large diesel and save wear and tear.
Similar to the Hesselman type engines developed in Sweden at about the same time.
I never knew this was a thing. thanks for the lesson
I had an International TD6 with the same starting system. As big of a caterpillar fan as I am this was a way better system!
There were ether spray devices on some early diesels that got them started. They were problematic because if they dosed in too much you could get pre ignition and a broken crankshaft. If your local climate did not run to being that cold in winter these devices were usually disconnected. A more reliable system was a blow torch on the inlet manifold then crank.
My dad had a TD9 with technology, I never saw it in action, a little before my time.
Very cool, really enjoyed this one!!! 🤜🤛
Plenty of diesels, older or modern, do not use glow plugs. They can use other starting aids such as decompression, intake grid heaters, ether injection, or just start well with direct injection with no aids. As a notable example, all of the Ram trucks with Cummins engines running around over the past 35 years do not use glow plugs. They have intake grid heaters, although they'll also often start straight away with no help.
IH did use glow plugs, but only for a short time on just a few engines, and those engines were very glow plug dependent (most infamously the D282 6-cyl). The most famous and well respected IH engines, the Melrose Park 300 and 400 series which debuted in 1971, start quite well with no starting aids. They can have ether injection systems built in if needed, but in practice ether is rarely needed.
People are used to the Mercedes and Oldsmobile diesels, which used glow plugs, so they think all of them do.
You should have thrown the Coffman starter mechanism into the mix. Although not as common as pony motors or gas/diesel engines it is still a really cool and innovative mechanism that uses what looks like a shotgun shell to crank the engine over.
On the subject of engines starting on compressed air, growing up we had some engines that were air start that acted directly on the pistons instead of using an air motor like a conventional starter motor. No clue what their lineage was, brand or anything, but I seem to recall that they had an additional lobe on the cam that would operate an air valve to push the piston down.
Fascinating. I think it was a sliding piston that lifted upwards to increase the combustion chamber area to allow this.
I was at a car show in Wilton Manors, Florida a few months ago and this man had an old Peerless 125 from 1929, and it had an inline 8 of....I can't remember the cubic inches, but to help it start it had a "start" lever that not only retarded the ignition, somehow it reduced compression. This was a gas engine, and it would win Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance if he took it there. But it was a purely gasoline engine.
Then they found out a simple can of ether would end all this complexity. Very interesting video.
Are there any shadetree mechanics or professional mechanics who say : be careful with using ether, I seem to remember years ago hearing old timers saying they only used ether rarely & if absolutely necessary and they had to get something moved, as an an engine can "get addicted" to ether.....won't start without it if you make it a habit and overdo it. And possible engine damage if ya just use too much on any given day. Any truth to that. ? I may have picked this up from guys that were drinking for all I know, it was a long time ago.
@@Sheisthedevilyouknowwho-ft9we : I've heard this too but I'd trust the word of the people who designed and built the engine over some farmer. Nearly all the diesel engine manufacturers that didn't use glow plugs have recommended using a 'starting aid' (ether) to start the engine on cold days. Older semi trucks even had an ether start button in the cab to accomplish this. If a diesel suddenly wont start without ether, it's usually a problem with injectors or something wrong with the cylinder head. Nothing to do with addiction and the same problems can happen on engines that never used ether LOL!
Or a Pony engine
@@TeeroyHammermill👍 thanks
Using either that way is risky for diesels.
Adam, A rich blend of heavily leaded gasoline and high sulfur Diesel fuel must have made for a delightful mixture of exhaust particulates for the bulldozer operator to inhale all day. 🤢
We could ask 1 but they're all dead, I'm afraid....
@@jamesonpace726
Not quite...I drove an old 13:09 TD-6 with this setup back in the 80s. Once it was running on diesel, you shut off the gasoline fuel at the tank.
in the style of David Bowie's Cat People;
"...and I've been pre-heating the engine, with gasoline!"
M35 deuce & a half truck had multi-fuel power. Runs on diesel, gasoline, kerosine, jet fuel, bunker fuel. Running on gasoline requires adding engine oil to the gasoline (for fuel system lubricity).
One of my favorite engines
I'd like to hear more about the 1963 Tempest 326 engine. My dad ordered a rare version with 8.6 to 1 compression.
A side note - there are diesels with a throttle body that uses vacuum to control the injection pump. Vacuum regulator system. A bit of a weird setup, but it works.
Some non-turbo Scania engines had that in the 60's.
How exactly does the vacuum signal tell the injection pump what do do? Like does it cut off the pump at high speed? It must be artificially generated venturi vacuum, because they have no natural manifold vacuum.
@@gregorymalchuk272 there's a vacuum operated piston on the injection pump that is taking the vacuum from the intake manifold, and the vacuum is based on the position of the throttle so the fuel is restricted based on the vacuum level.
A rancher next to us had a 118 Gallion motor grader that they maintained feed roads with. My dad worked for them quite often. I remember going with him to use it and him starting that thing up on gas and switching it over to Diesel. It was an IH 6 cylinder engine but I have no idea of the cubic inch of it. It ran good though.
I read that years ago, Cuban taxi drivers jury rigged something similar to allow the car engine to start on gas, then switch over to kerosene which was much cheaper, although it developed a lot less power.
I remember when I got my first apartment. Didn't have any gas money, but had a lot of kerosene. Warmed up my mother's Buick Roadmaster on gas, then dumped that kero into the tank. Didn't run very good, but good enough for me to move to my first place. I was about 18.
There were many engines that started with gas and switched to diesel after it started. Old John Deere comes to mind.
IH started this in the 30's I believe with the diesel version of the McCormick-Deering W40 which was the WD40, started on gasoline then switched to diesel, took 7 steps to start it. Today if you can find a Farmall Super MD-TA for a good price btter snatch it up, you'd probably have a hard time finding an old WD40.
I think I saw an old farmer on Classic Tractor Fever go through the steps to start one of those, that was really somethin'
@@Sheisthedevilyouknowwho-ft9we Yeah, I mentioned the CTF vid a few comments below, also, Pete from Just A Few Acres Farm has an MD, a 1950 I believe.
Diesel transit buses, until recently, generally used compressed air starters.
Worked with Caterpillar with a gas pony engine to help get it running.
I've seen our IH gas powered jet A tanker truck run 100s of miles on jet A. Our guy ran out of gas in the middle of nowhere servicing our Aerospatiale Llama helicopter doing drill rig support in Wyoming.
This was very handy.
Absolutely fascinating
We use old case skidsteers that dont have glowplugs, instead use intake manifold preheaters to start when cold. Ofc it's broke or weak on one, so we have to resort to using a blockheater for it.