There's two important facts about Lanz Bulldogs: 1st: Whatever (vaguely liquid) fuel you have at your disposal, it can use it. 2nd: No need for a horn, you can hear this tractor coming a mile away
I spent my childhood at vintage tractor shows, and early morning I loved to watch the fullas line up with the blow torches to start these bad boys. They blow the greatest smoke rings
Some bloke some thirty years ago bought a Lanz Bulldog somewhere here in Germany, and went the whole nine yards and built a shed for his new precious. On the big day of his new pride and joy coming to its new home, he reversed it into the shed, shut down the engine and noticed with bewilderment that there was a lot more light in the shed that there should be. He looked up and saw the the exhaust blows from the funnel had blown the roof tiles straight out and he needed to repair the roof. 😊
We got two in our shop right now and a friend of mine has like 20 of those. Crude machines that in the 70s you could find abandoned in barns. These days some are in the 6 digits. My Grandfather as a teenager during the mid-1940s worked with these in his apprenticeship until the end of WW2. After the war he said, they were back to one horsepower for a while...
The were also built under license all over the world. As Ursus in Poland and Pampa in South America. Exported all over the planet, too. We still "celebrate" them in Tractor Pulls. Especially fun in the dark as they throw sparks under load: ruclips.net/video/0UsBgQujxgU/видео.html
I just remember that they were effectively banned from competing in tractor pulls, as the fairly noticeable undisclosed torque figure was far higher than anyone expected.
Only in America :). But in the US they've also banned other German tractors because the gas-powered US antiques can't compete with the big diesels built by German companies in the 50s and 60s (often for south America). In Germany we pull with them: ruclips.net/video/JtUmts6YVoY/видео.html
@@vHindenburg@ von Hindenburg You should check with all the local clubs which hold the antique tractor pulls. I remember a buddy from the US telling me, he was banned from Pulling with a Deutz f6l514.
A 2 stroke engine is the simplest to build. Piston, con rod, crank, case. 4 parts. No valves, the piston covers and uncovers ports in the cylinder wall. Check out the Napier Deltic engines for 2 stroke wizardry. 18 cylinders, 36 pistons in banks of 6
You had to be careful when you let it run standing still. As the cylinder lays flat the tractor or Bulldozer will vibrate itself (even at a slow idle) into soft ground. 12gauge shot gun cartridge to start it and you had to use a blow torch to heat the head before you could start it in cold weather.
Those use to come to a festival in my town. And I've always seen this started with the flywheel, like the guy in the video, never with a shot gun cartridge.
We have the metric system, we don't know what a 12gauge is. It's called "Royale with Lead". Anyway, the Lanz is utilizing the "Irxnschmoiz" starter, known to the English speaking world as "Armstrong Patent Starter".
early ones didn´t have reverse gear at all, they were just running engine the other way. Biggest hazard of this design was that, if you are pulling heavy load up the steep hill, and engine RPM are low enought, engine can reverse and you will start to run backwards with some speed.
Another fact about the Lanz Bulldog hot bulb engine is that it can start spontaneous when the preheat lamp is used to long. unburn fuel in the combustion chamber can ignite by the preheating process when the hot bulb gets hot enough. Another fact about the bulldog is that it burned down some barns and farms by its exhaust! Soot deposits in the exhaust system begins to glow and loosen up by the exhaust gasses and temperature. Sparks and glowing soot set many buildings on fire especially when the bulldog is used as a stationary engine for belt driven threshing (long periods of load and high rpm). To prevent this sparking there is part in the silencer called "Funkenfänger" spark catcher. Another fact is that the hot bulb engine is a REAL multifuel engine. Taroil, wasteoil, diesel, sunfloweroil,crude oil and many more. Here in Germany there is a joke about the fuel for the Lanz Bulldog! That thing will work with rancid butter 🤮
Years ago, I worked for a major telco, in maintenance and installations. Our senior was almost ready to retire, having already bought his farm...and a Lanz Bulldog. Every second Friday, we'd go to the local for lunch (Newmarket Hotel in Brisbane), and my job was to get him started talking about his Bulldog, so the lunch hour would finish around three...This was easy for me, my father had owned two of them, and talked to me about them frequently, so I was always invited to these lunches. I didn't actually find out about my highly valued role for some time. Incidentally, Kelly and Lewis, Toowoomba, built a copy, possibly considering copyrights were invalid on post-war German engines, and one of ours was a KL Bulldog. I seem to remember ours were green. My father said it wasn't as good as the original, shaking its mudguards off in pretty short order
Had little to do with running Lanz Bulldog's... BUT, I have had a bit of experience working with a Field Marshall, another 2stroke single cylinder tractor & could also run backwards... If you think the piston is big, then consider the stroke that makes the bulk of that displacement... The cranks stroke will be half the length of the conrod that was partially in shot... Both tractors came with a kerosene burner to heat cylinder-head to ease cold starting. The Field Marshall had a handle that sprung out of flywheel & there was a two & a half turn groove/thread cut into outter edge to engage a decompression wheel/bevel making it easier to turn over by hand. It was also possible to start by turning over to a certain marker, undoing a plug into cylinder to which a 12gauge blank shotgun cartridge was fitted & plug replaced before striking protruding pin with hammer to "Auto-Start" it, as the manual claimed... Beast of a tractor, but I much preferred the Aussie made Chamberlan 9G! (Only tractor to enter RedEx Trials! lol) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field_Marshall commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tail_end_charlie_gnangarra_01.jpg tractors.fandom.com/wiki/Chamberlain_Industries
In the 1970's my Dad (prize winning Morris Minors) dragged me to steam rallies (big old traction engines) all over the place when I was a kid, and there was always a lot of old stationery Hit-and-miss engines and hot bulb stuff around. There would also be a big line (maybe 15?) of these old Bulldog tractors that would do tug-o'-wars etc. Love 'em. Just love 'em.
I would love you to react to a massive bus that once roamed the busy streets of Hamburg known as the Van Hool AGG 300. It is supposed to be a bit of a surprise what makes this bus so special, but it sure is a looker. I just don't know what video to submit as many of them are very short. There is one around 15 minutes, but the person entirely speaks German throughout the video. Would still love if you could give it a watch.
That protruding part in front of the engine is where you heat the hot-bulb with a blow torch before starting it, check out "Lanz bulldog tractor start up" its quite something else. The hot-bulb engine isn't working on the same principle of a modern high compression diesel, it is a type of internal combustion engine in which fuel ignites by coming in contact with a red-hot metal surface inside a bulb, followed by the introduction of air (oxygen) compressed into the hot-bulb chamber by the rising piston. There is some ignition when the fuel is introduced, but it quickly uses up the available oxygen in the bulb. Vigorous ignition takes place only when sufficient oxygen is supplied to the hot-bulb chamber on the compression stroke of the engine.
I myself have a Lanz Bulldog. Even though it’s not in proper use anymore, this thing can pull like nothing else. From every other vehicle, you would expect, it stops running in the next moment because of the low (or 0) rpm. But with the Lanz, i can pull my 8 ton grape trailer (don’t know the english term) fully loaded up a hill. Even my new tractor with 135hp struggles to go up there. That’s really insane when you think about it.
Great video Ian, Have never heard of such a thing, when I saw title of runs at 0 rpm I was like WTF, and I actually did my trade as an engine builder for many years and have never come across anything like this.
I've seen them running live at meetups and my granddad used to use them for fieldwork as a teenager, they were pretty much the standard tractor in Germany at the time, hugely popular because they were so simple and easy to maintain. Getting them started is weird though.
I recall a story of my dad. He lived in a village during the last days and shortly after the war (Germany), and one farmer had a Lanz Bulldog. He started the thing in the morning, and because starting was a bit complicated, he left it running all day, even if not in use at the moment. It was quite annoying to hear that irregular idle the whole day long...
I kind of guessed that it was a hot bulb engine when they started describing it. But I didn't really think they were considered diesels, but more some kind of precursor to the diesel. I have actually seen a hot bulb engined tractor once, it was a two-cylinder tractor, which means there were TWO bulbs to heat until they were glowing white, this was accomplished with a special blowtorch that produced two flames. The startup procedure appeared kind of sketchy, as that heat and those blowtorches had a tendency to set all kinds of things on fire during the startup procedure. But it was a simple and robust engine, so if you kept heating those bulbs it would eventually start.
Also the Super Landini or the Landini L45 is a two stroke 1cyl diesel that can go half-turn. Those machines helped developing italy for 50 years. And they could fire up THE WRONG WAY meaning running backwards, you have 4 reverse and one forward gear 😂
I've seen a National diesel in a 130' tug , large engine about 3 metres tall , no gearbox , fixed drive , if the engine was running the propeller was turning . It was air start , to go in reverse , the engineer had to stop the engine , operate hand wheels to change the camshaft orientation and then restart the engine in reverse . Had enough compressed air for about 10 starts so if docking the vessel couldn't be done in that , the anchor had to be dropped while air pressure was built up from the auxiliary engines running compressors . This was a tug built in circa 1930's .
In fact, the earliest Lanz tractors made full use of that "0 rpm" trait that the hot bulb engines can do. The earlier models don't have a reverse gear, the operator reverses by reversing the engine rotation. They do that by lowering the revs to that "0 rpm state", and timing so that when they add a bit more throttle, the engine would bounce and start to run the other way, then engaging the clutch back on... The Italians also made tractors with hot bulb engines like the Lanz. Prime example is the Landini, they made the 40HP model that had a _14 liter_ single cylinder, which eventually got replaced by the _SuperLandini_ model, which had a smaller engine, _just 12 liters..._ Still big enough that on the later rubber-tire versions the tractor's front hops up and down in idle. And you're right, the torque figures of these machine were probably quite something, as they never really rev up to 1,000 rpm, I believe the Lanz, for example, only revs up to around 700...
You should check out the scammell scarab it was a 3 wheeled lorry with a quick attach and drop off mechanism for the trailers and it was a Jack of all trades, if you can think of a job then there was probably a trailer for it.
My friend used to have a large boat with an oak hull. It had an engine similar to this engine. One time, when we started the engine, we didn’t notice that it didn’t do a full revolution. So accidentally, we reversed into a huge rock. Luckily, the oak hull was solid and the boat was fine.
Never driven nor owned one, but I remember my father telling me the designer apparently said that „a tractor cannot be monocylindrical enough“ (translated)
Factory was taken over by John Deere, so there was a brief time with a green/yellow livery. After that the John Deere models where produced and still are in Mannheim.
The bulldog is German tractor and nothing could out pull it probably because of the time between the power strokes allowed the rear wheels to maintain grip instead of spinning .The engines in large ships are 2 stroke diesels and are coupled directly to the propeller and have to run either direction so that the ship can be reversed .
A funny fact about these tractors is: If the engine is running backwards, you have as much gears for backwards as you would normally have for forwards. So i do not know how many gears they have usually but i guess it would be 4 plus reverse. That means you can shift into 4 different gears ans also, theoretically, drive as fast backwards if the engine is running backwards (but idk if the rear axle would be happy with this). Greetings from Cologne, Germany!
Hi, there were a number of different brands of tractor that were 2 stroke and can run in both directions. HSCS, Fowler, McDonald and Field Marshal all made 2 stroke engines. The HSCS that I have driven has a 10” diameter bore on it. I believe the early Lanz bulldogs had a 4 speed gear box with no reverse. Just run the engine backwards and you have 4 reverse gears. There was also a copy of the Lanz made in Australia by Kelly and Lewis called the KL Bulldog. Thanks very much for the video
I've had a Mack run backwards twice. Coming through a creek crossing with a heavy load, I was too slow on the clutch and just as it was about to stall it rolled a little backwards just as I put my foot on the clutch. It doesn't rev, probably because of the governor weights and pumps a bit of soot out of the intake. 2nd time I knew straight away what happened and just shut down. No damage either time.
ive done maintenance on a few of these, and bought three, im not a farmer, im an agricultural mechanic specialising in restoration and maintenance of vintage and antique tractors
if you idle very low, the engine wont do a full rev because diesel selfignites, and will backfire from that point, put it in gear and the tractor will stand rocking at one point. Another german tractor is famous for overtaking cars on the highway doing 110km or 66 mph
Lanz Bulldog is weird. To start you have to light the included blowtorch. Then the glow plug at the front of the engine has to be heated for about half an hour. In the meantime you can pump the oil by hand. If the glow head is red hot, the steering wheel must be removed from most Bulldogs. But don't forget to open the petrol valve. Then you can put the steering wheel on the side in the engine. You can then crank the engine with momentum, but be careful, the engine often reverses. If the engine runs on petrol and is hot enough, you can switch to diesel. If you want to switch off the engine, you just have to turn off the diesel. The Bulldog does not have an ignition key. Instead, you can simply take the steering wheel with you and nobody can start it. The Lanz Bolldog was built as a field tractor and road tractor. The fastest drive up to 40 km/h = 25 mph ! With a displacement of 10 liters (641 cubic inch) from one cylinder, the tractor has incredible power.
There where a lot of different manufactories of engines like that. Both smaller and much bigger. The biggest was used to run factories some small was used in boats or tractors. In the city Norrtalje in Sweden we have the museum Pythagoras wich was a factory building engines. In the 60's they locked the doors when they closed the factory and everything is still in there. Machinery, spareparts, almost finnished engines. I've been there and I loved it.
Gday Ian and family. Great stuff, I love vintage tractors. Plenty of Bulldogs here in Australia. These things are loved at bush sawmills, or just farms. Their pulling capacity is way above their horsepower. Unburnt low grade fuel detonates during the exhaust stroke, which gives these incredible torque. Great machines with many copies worldwide. John Deere bought them out in the 50's or 60's? They could bog themselves in soft ground by their rough idle. Never turned off 'til the work's done because too hard to restart. Love the pop pop exhaust. They had a Road version, similar to Minneapolis Moline.
One of the idiosyncrasies of certain 2 stroke engines... my old Yamaha Dt175 dirt bike would run backwards... was a fun trick to play on a friend when I was a kid... I would already have it running backwards and then offer a mate a ride and the look on their face as they let the clutch out as they took of backwards was always fun. Ha ha ha.. Cheers mate 👍
Probably before your time , when I was young a mate had a Villiers James dirt bike , kick start only . One day he turned the key and it fired and started without the kickstarter , surprised him a lot . He put it into gear and took off , backwards . Surprised him even more ;-)
@@Gordon_L I'm in my 50's but not familiar with that bike, but as a mechanic I can see the perfect little storm that would have had to be in play for that to happen... weird stuff happened with older stuff.. modern reliability and safety in todays vehicles is so much better. Cheers 👍
Actually, most (all?) diesel engines can run backwards. About 10 years ago the new bush firetrucks were found to have an issue with running backwards, as in the exhaust was in taking air and the exhaust was flowing out the intake. If they get slow enough without stalling, they can reverse direction. Shutting the trucks off and restarting (with the electric starter motor that only spins in one direction) was the immediate fix and their idle rpm was adjusted so they were less likely to do it.
@@davidstewart1799 that's why I said most, with a question mark next to all. I'm not familiar with all diesel engines, particularly older ones from before my time. As for glow plugs, most diesel engines can be started without them but they do make it a lot easier to start. Think of it as cooking a cake in an oven, and preheating the oven or not. As a rule, diesel is compressed to ignition temperature (the temperature at which catches fire on its own), this is much easier when the engine is warmed up and hot. Glow plugs just provide that ignition heat to help it along. I'm sure it may be near impossible to start some diesels without glow plugs in cold enough climates, but I live in Australia so that's not a problem here. Oh, and that firetruck from 10 years ago that ran backwards (and reverse gear drove forwards giving them 5 reverse gears), that was from my fire station and I helped clean that truck when the crew returned and we discussed the situation that occurred. It's not a common problem as most diesels idle fast enough, but this particular truck setup had issues (multiple trucks in the fleet did it).
I remember that we let a small 2 stroke bike engine run backwards. You could not kick it on backwards of course but you could put it in gear and role it backwards until it started. Sadly a motorbike with just reverse gears is not very helpful but fun. :D
If one of these Tractors pull down the gas pedal, it feels like an earthquake, for sure. I think Lanz Bulldog is now part of John Deere, since the late 50th of the last century.
Some marine diesel engines run backwards for reverse and some really old gas powered 2 stroke boat engines did the same by moving the ignition advance lever to the alternate position and starting backwards.
I seem to think I need to mention,this type or tractor was not just for towing, plowing, it was the major power plant for the whole belt " fed" ecosystem? Thresher?, wood shed? Baler and the like? So its system was beneficial for the whole farm?
That was a great video, Ian - thanks for showing it. It must have huge flywheel and/or eccentric crankshaft to smooth out the piston movement. BTW, I followed the link to the original and there's lots of other crazy stuff there like this. Just brilliant!
Very Cool machine to see in person. Just idling they seem to jump in place. When it is equipped with steel wheels it makes the ground beneath seem to bounce Too
My first thought seeing the idler was, that if it has a Ratchet Work, than the idler can go both ways. Which is genius at a low gear, because it's going to make a lot more horsepower, if the cog is not rpm but torque based. Than it can just keep using the strength to move a little bit, with high torque, and one directional only. Slowly creeping, but going with huge horsepower.
My Father ex REME told me of war time trucks that were fitted with oil filled filters for the western desert. You started with a crank handle and if they kicked back would suck the oil out the filter and start to run backwards. Then they would just rev to the moon until they blew up.
Yup, plenty of manufacturers had connections between cars and tractors. Ford and Fiat used to make tractors, There's also Lamborghini, who first started making tractors before he started to make cars, Mercedes-Benz did some for a while...
In my opinion, this can only work with a one cylinder two stroke engine. And there weren't a lot of brands using this. Most brands used the four stroke diesel or more then one cylinder.
Other vehicles with no real reverse gear, but running the motor backwards are small 2-stroke "Bubblecars" from the 50ies like the famous Messerschmidt.
Thank you so much 😎 Also I’m glad you noticed that, I wanna help promote the original channel I’m watching and always link the og video first. Sadly most other channels don’t do that
I don’t remember the truck, but there are some older 4 stroke trucks that can run the engine in reverse, and the transmission flips too, so normal it’s normal, but if the engine is fired and it accidentally reverses itself then your reverse gears become your forward gears and forward reverse
Yes I was going to say the same thing. My dad got one just to play with it but sold it on again in about 12 months after buying it, you had to take the steering wheel off to use it it on the flywheel and the blowtorch on the head for cold start. Only thing is that we were told that they were prone to run backwards and you couldn't let them run backwards otherwise they would be a runaway diesel engine because they would suck the oil from the sump instead of the controlled diesel feed. Has that been a myth or was it so on some models?
G'day I now there was a motercycle that could run backwards. You could adjust the spark timing while you rode. If you advanced the timing while at high rpm it would get a bit more power. Then if you stopped and turned off the engine. it was possable to kick start it and the early spark woukd cause the engine to counter rotate. Jump on engauge first gear and take off backwards (and crash). Some people added a side car and used this as a way to reverse the outfit.
My brother had a Velocette Thruxton that had a manual advance / retard lever on the handlebars , it was a cow to start , many kicks needed and the lever had a habit of creeping to advance a bit each kick . If you didn't keep an eye on it , you'd jump up to come down hard on the kickstarter and it would kick back and try to put your knee into your jaw . 500cc single cylinder , fishtail exhaust , beautiful looking bike . Would be worth a fortune today .
Landini Testacalda have similar build, 1 cylinder that can use every type of fuel, i think they have the same age or even older P.s. Landini testa calda is the nickname of the Super Landini and is younger (1935) respect to the Bulldog (1921) but use the same engine (Sabathé cycle)
In my city, if its summer time then drive tractors the sthe streets up and down. they are very loud and they look a bit different. it sound like old steam train or battle tank :)
There's two important facts about Lanz Bulldogs: 1st: Whatever (vaguely liquid) fuel you have at your disposal, it can use it. 2nd: No need for a horn, you can hear this tractor coming a mile away
yessss!!!!
Blows the best smoke rings
10m smoke rings? No problem. Spitting fire? Of course. Ear protection? Suggested.
Best Sound of any Traktor
This machine was so iconic in germany, that "bulldog" has become a common word for tractor in many regions of germany
I spent my childhood at vintage tractor shows, and early morning I loved to watch the fullas line up with the blow torches to start these bad boys.
They blow the greatest smoke rings
Some bloke some thirty years ago bought a Lanz Bulldog somewhere here in Germany, and went the whole nine yards and built a shed for his new precious.
On the big day of his new pride and joy coming to its new home, he reversed it into the shed, shut down the engine and noticed with bewilderment that there was a lot more light in the shed that there should be. He looked up and saw the the exhaust blows from the funnel had blown the roof tiles straight out and he needed to repair the roof. 😊
We got two in our shop right now and a friend of mine has like 20 of those. Crude machines that in the 70s you could find abandoned in barns. These days some are in the 6 digits.
My Grandfather as a teenager during the mid-1940s worked with these in his apprenticeship until the end of WW2. After the war he said, they were back to one horsepower for a while...
The were also built under license all over the world. As Ursus in Poland and Pampa in South America. Exported all over the planet, too. We still "celebrate" them in Tractor Pulls. Especially fun in the dark as they throw sparks under load: ruclips.net/video/0UsBgQujxgU/видео.html
I just remember that they were effectively banned from competing in tractor pulls, as the fairly noticeable undisclosed torque figure was far higher than anyone expected.
Only in America :). But in the US they've also banned other German tractors because the gas-powered US antiques can't compete with the big diesels built by German companies in the 50s and 60s (often for south America).
In Germany we pull with them: ruclips.net/video/JtUmts6YVoY/видео.html
@@floatingfInishtech Hrhrhr, Is there anything to read up about it? I mean it makesw for a good story for a lad crushign the competition with a Pampa.
@@vHindenburg@ von Hindenburg You should check with all the local clubs which hold the antique tractor pulls. I remember a buddy from the US telling me, he was banned from Pulling with a Deutz f6l514.
@@floatingfInishtech Well I live in Europe, Germany to be specific, there enough of these events, but Lanz Bulldogs usually are their own class.
@@vHindenburg Ach so - gut, ich auch :)
A 2 stroke engine is the simplest to build. Piston, con rod, crank, case. 4 parts. No valves, the piston covers and uncovers ports in the cylinder wall.
Check out the Napier Deltic engines for 2 stroke wizardry. 18 cylinders, 36 pistons in banks of 6
The Deltics were amazing things. Look up some of the weird Radial engines that were built over the years too.
You had to be careful when you let it run standing still. As the cylinder lays flat the tractor or Bulldozer will vibrate itself (even at a slow idle) into soft ground. 12gauge shot gun cartridge to start it and you had to use a blow torch to heat the head before you could start it in cold weather.
Did they have that? I've only seen that British thing started like that. I've only seen them started with the steering wheel.
I've seen them hurry themselves. Great vid
Those use to come to a festival in my town. And I've always seen this started with the flywheel, like the guy in the video, never with a shot gun cartridge.
Lans Bulldog never used a shotgun shell to srart it. You're thinking of a Field Marshal (British)
We have the metric system, we don't know what a 12gauge is. It's called "Royale with Lead". Anyway, the Lanz is utilizing the "Irxnschmoiz" starter, known to the English speaking world as "Armstrong Patent Starter".
Yep, modern engines might rev like crazy but old engines were torque monsters at idle
early ones didn´t have reverse gear at all, they were just running engine the other way. Biggest hazard of this design was that, if you are pulling heavy load up the steep hill, and engine RPM are low enought, engine can reverse and you will start to run backwards with some speed.
Another fact about the Lanz Bulldog hot bulb engine is that it can start spontaneous when the preheat lamp is used to long. unburn fuel in the combustion chamber can ignite by the preheating process when the hot bulb gets hot enough. Another fact about the bulldog is that it burned down some barns and farms by its exhaust! Soot deposits in the exhaust system begins to glow and loosen up by the exhaust gasses and temperature. Sparks and glowing soot set many buildings on fire especially when the bulldog is used as a stationary engine for belt driven threshing (long periods of load and high rpm). To prevent this sparking there is part in the silencer called "Funkenfänger" spark catcher. Another fact is that the hot bulb engine is a REAL multifuel engine. Taroil, wasteoil, diesel, sunfloweroil,crude oil and many more. Here in Germany there is a joke about the fuel for the Lanz Bulldog! That thing will work with rancid butter 🤮
Years ago, I worked for a major telco, in maintenance and installations. Our senior was almost ready to retire, having already bought his farm...and a Lanz Bulldog. Every second Friday, we'd go to the local for lunch (Newmarket Hotel in Brisbane), and my job was to get him started talking about his Bulldog, so the lunch hour would finish around three...This was easy for me, my father had owned two of them, and talked to me about them frequently, so I was always invited to these lunches. I didn't actually find out about my highly valued role for some time. Incidentally, Kelly and Lewis, Toowoomba, built a copy, possibly considering copyrights were invalid on post-war German engines, and one of ours was a KL Bulldog. I seem to remember ours were green. My father said it wasn't as good as the original, shaking its mudguards off in pretty short order
Had little to do with running Lanz Bulldog's...
BUT, I have had a bit of experience working with a Field Marshall, another 2stroke single cylinder tractor & could also run backwards...
If you think the piston is big, then consider the stroke that makes the bulk of that displacement...
The cranks stroke will be half the length of the conrod that was partially in shot...
Both tractors came with a kerosene burner to heat cylinder-head to ease cold starting.
The Field Marshall had a handle that sprung out of flywheel & there was a two & a half turn groove/thread cut into outter edge to engage a decompression wheel/bevel making it easier to turn over by hand.
It was also possible to start by turning over to a certain marker, undoing a plug into cylinder to which a 12gauge blank shotgun cartridge was fitted & plug replaced before striking protruding pin with hammer to "Auto-Start" it, as the manual claimed...
Beast of a tractor, but I much preferred the Aussie made Chamberlan 9G!
(Only tractor to enter RedEx Trials! lol)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field_Marshall
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tail_end_charlie_gnangarra_01.jpg
tractors.fandom.com/wiki/Chamberlain_Industries
In the 1970's my Dad (prize winning Morris Minors) dragged me to steam rallies (big old traction engines) all over the place when I was a kid, and there was always a lot of old stationery Hit-and-miss engines and hot bulb stuff around. There would also be a big line (maybe 15?) of these old Bulldog tractors that would do tug-o'-wars etc.
Love 'em. Just love 'em.
loved watching these old Bulldog Tractors as a kid at the country showgrounds.
They ran so slow that they would just bop up and down.
I would love you to react to a massive bus that once roamed the busy streets of Hamburg known as the Van Hool AGG 300. It is supposed to be a bit of a surprise what makes this bus so special, but it sure is a looker.
I just don't know what video to submit as many of them are very short.
There is one around 15 minutes, but the person entirely speaks German throughout the video. Would still love if you could give it a watch.
So funny to see this comment on this channel, living a couple of miles from the Van Hool factory :D
That protruding part in front of the engine is where you heat the hot-bulb with a blow torch before starting it, check out "Lanz bulldog tractor start up" its quite something else.
The hot-bulb engine isn't working on the same principle of a modern high compression diesel, it is a type of internal combustion engine in which fuel ignites by coming in contact with a red-hot metal surface inside a bulb, followed by the introduction of air (oxygen) compressed into the hot-bulb chamber by the rising piston. There is some ignition when the fuel is introduced, but it quickly uses up the available oxygen in the bulb. Vigorous ignition takes place only when sufficient oxygen is supplied to the hot-bulb chamber on the compression stroke of the engine.
I myself have a Lanz Bulldog. Even though it’s not in proper use anymore, this thing can pull like nothing else.
From every other vehicle, you would expect, it stops running in the next moment because of the low (or 0) rpm.
But with the Lanz, i can pull my 8 ton grape trailer (don’t know the english term) fully loaded up a hill. Even my new tractor with 135hp struggles to go up there. That’s really insane when you think about it.
Great video Ian, Have never heard of such a thing, when I saw title of runs at 0 rpm I was like WTF, and I actually did my trade as an engine builder for many years and have never come across anything like this.
Yeah its not maimstream knowledge for sure, you have to be into old stuff like tractors and stationary engines and so on to see it regularly.
I've seen them running live at meetups and my granddad used to use them for fieldwork as a teenager, they were pretty much the standard tractor in Germany at the time, hugely popular because they were so simple and easy to maintain. Getting them started is weird though.
I recall a story of my dad. He lived in a village during the last days and shortly after the war (Germany), and one farmer had a Lanz Bulldog. He started the thing in the morning, and because starting was a bit complicated, he left it running all day, even if not in use at the moment. It was quite annoying to hear that irregular idle the whole day long...
I kind of guessed that it was a hot bulb engine when they started describing it. But I didn't really think they were considered diesels, but more some kind of precursor to the diesel. I have actually seen a hot bulb engined tractor once, it was a two-cylinder tractor, which means there were TWO bulbs to heat until they were glowing white, this was accomplished with a special blowtorch that produced two flames. The startup procedure appeared kind of sketchy, as that heat and those blowtorches had a tendency to set all kinds of things on fire during the startup procedure. But it was a simple and robust engine, so if you kept heating those bulbs it would eventually start.
Also the Super Landini or the Landini L45 is a two stroke 1cyl diesel that can go half-turn. Those machines helped developing italy for 50 years. And they could fire up THE WRONG WAY meaning running backwards, you have 4 reverse and one forward gear 😂
Yeah, and they're even bigger than the Lanz, the SuperLandini had 12 liters, and the earlier 40HP had 14 liters!
I've seen a National diesel in a 130' tug , large engine about 3 metres tall , no gearbox , fixed drive , if the engine was running the propeller was turning . It was air start , to go in reverse , the engineer had to stop the engine , operate hand wheels to change the camshaft orientation and then restart the engine in reverse . Had enough compressed air for about 10 starts so if docking the vessel couldn't be done in that , the anchor had to be dropped while air pressure was built up from the auxiliary engines running compressors . This was a tug built in circa 1930's .
My uncle had one many many years ago and sold it. Funnily enough, he found 2 years ago and bought it back, because he missed it so much.
Truly appreciate the engineering. Considering anyone could have done it with basic tools 6000 years ago
In fact, the earliest Lanz tractors made full use of that "0 rpm" trait that the hot bulb engines can do. The earlier models don't have a reverse gear, the operator reverses by reversing the engine rotation. They do that by lowering the revs to that "0 rpm state", and timing so that when they add a bit more throttle, the engine would bounce and start to run the other way, then engaging the clutch back on...
The Italians also made tractors with hot bulb engines like the Lanz. Prime example is the Landini, they made the 40HP model that had a _14 liter_ single cylinder, which eventually got replaced by the _SuperLandini_ model, which had a smaller engine, _just 12 liters..._ Still big enough that on the later rubber-tire versions the tractor's front hops up and down in idle.
And you're right, the torque figures of these machine were probably quite something, as they never really rev up to 1,000 rpm, I believe the Lanz, for example, only revs up to around 700...
Yeah, reversing like that is almost like changing gears without clutch, using (don't know the termin in english) throttle ...
You should check out the scammell scarab it was a 3 wheeled lorry with a quick attach and drop off mechanism for the trailers and it was a Jack of all trades, if you can think of a job then there was probably a trailer for it.
My friend used to have a large boat with an oak hull. It had an engine similar to this engine. One time, when we started the engine, we didn’t notice that it didn’t do a full revolution. So accidentally, we reversed into a huge rock. Luckily, the oak hull was solid and the boat was fine.
Look at the Landini tractor “testa calda” (hot head) is a similar concept I think it’s even bigger end the cold start
Maybe a small fun fact: Lanz was bought by John Deere in the 50s to get into the European market :)
sad true fact. Poor Lanz. They did the same here in Australia to our Chamberlin tractor. It just disapeared quietly in the 1980s
@IWrocker 4:50min you got it!!! One gear, this is how big two stroke ship diesel engines operate. Steering forward/reverse is done by air pressure.
Never driven nor owned one, but I remember my father telling me the designer apparently said that „a tractor cannot be monocylindrical enough“ (translated)
They also had build Lanz Caterpillars for the works in the forrests. They've got chains like tanks. Gives a special sound when they passed on by...
Lanz Bulldog! German Traktor. John Deere bought the Companie in 1956. Like your Videos! Greetings from a german farmer!
Cool fact! Thank you for watching 😎👍 Glad you enjoyed
Damn that blew me away. that was very cool.
The early models didn't have reverse gear, just start it backwards.
Factory was taken over by John Deere, so there was a brief time with a green/yellow livery. After that the John Deere models where produced and still are in Mannheim.
The bulldog is German tractor and nothing could out pull it probably because of the time between the power strokes allowed the rear wheels to maintain grip instead of spinning .The engines in large ships are 2 stroke diesels and are coupled directly to the propeller and have to run either direction so that the ship can be reversed .
Yeah. In saw this Thing live 3 or 4 weeks ago. Its sooo cool. The Sound is amazing. 😄😄😄
A funny fact about these tractors is: If the engine is running backwards, you have as much gears for backwards as you would normally have for forwards.
So i do not know how many gears they have usually but i guess it would be 4 plus reverse.
That means you can shift into 4 different gears ans also, theoretically, drive as fast backwards if the engine is running backwards (but idk if the rear axle would be happy with this).
Greetings from Cologne, Germany!
you have to hear that thing in rl, best sounding machine of them all - by a mile and a half.
Lanz Bulldog! ❤ The German definition of indestructible!
Hi, there were a number of different brands of tractor that were 2 stroke and can run in both directions. HSCS, Fowler, McDonald and Field Marshal all made 2 stroke engines. The HSCS that I have driven has a 10” diameter bore on it.
I believe the early Lanz bulldogs had a 4 speed gear box with no reverse. Just run the engine backwards and you have 4 reverse gears.
There was also a copy of the Lanz made in Australia by Kelly and Lewis called the KL Bulldog.
Thanks very much for the video
That's a great video, I've seen one of these tractors twice in Australia, it's pretty unique!
I've had a Mack run backwards twice. Coming through a creek crossing with a heavy load, I was too slow on the clutch and just as it was about to stall it rolled a little backwards just as I put my foot on the clutch. It doesn't rev, probably because of the governor weights and pumps a bit of soot out of the intake. 2nd time I knew straight away what happened and just shut down. No damage either time.
ive done maintenance on a few of these, and bought three, im not a farmer, im an agricultural mechanic specialising in restoration and maintenance of vintage and antique tractors
reversing the engines is actually how the early Lanz Motor Horses like the "Mops" did it
if you idle very low, the engine wont do a full rev because diesel selfignites, and will backfire from that point, put it in gear and the tractor will stand rocking at one point. Another german tractor is famous for overtaking cars on the highway doing 110km or 66 mph
hey ian,talking about wired cars,have you ever heard about the DAF cars? only 2 gears,1 forward 1 backward and it goes 120km/h in both directions!!
Fun Fact:
Go up hill with a loaded trailer you might find yourself going down hill all of the sudden, another quirk of that particular engine design
5:00
when the tractor want to plow the field :D
little puppy behavior
LoL
Starting the thing is even weirder.
Lanz Bulldog is weird. To start you have to light the included blowtorch. Then the glow plug at the front of the engine has to be heated for about half an hour. In the meantime you can pump the oil by hand. If the glow head is red hot, the steering wheel must be removed from most Bulldogs. But don't forget to open the petrol valve. Then you can put the steering wheel on the side in the engine. You can then crank the engine with momentum, but be careful, the engine often reverses. If the engine runs on petrol and is hot enough, you can switch to diesel.
If you want to switch off the engine, you just have to turn off the diesel. The Bulldog does not have an ignition key. Instead, you can simply take the steering wheel with you and nobody can start it.
The Lanz Bolldog was built as a field tractor and road tractor. The fastest drive up to 40 km/h = 25 mph !
With a displacement of 10 liters (641 cubic inch) from one cylinder, the tractor has incredible power.
There where a lot of different manufactories of engines like that. Both smaller and much bigger. The biggest was used to run factories some small was used in boats or tractors. In the city Norrtalje in Sweden we have the museum Pythagoras wich was a factory building engines. In the 60's they locked the doors when they closed the factory and everything is still in there. Machinery, spareparts, almost finnished engines. I've been there and I loved it.
My buddy has one of those, I can remember how we pulled a fire truck out of a totally flooded lawn…. At Idle…. 🤣
Gday Ian and family. Great stuff, I love vintage tractors. Plenty of Bulldogs here in Australia. These things are loved at bush sawmills, or just farms. Their pulling capacity is way above their horsepower. Unburnt low grade fuel detonates during the exhaust stroke, which gives these incredible torque. Great machines with many copies worldwide. John Deere bought them out in the 50's or 60's? They could bog themselves in soft ground by their rough idle. Never turned off 'til the work's done because too hard to restart. Love the pop pop exhaust. They had a Road version, similar to Minneapolis Moline.
Some earlier revisions(before they painted it blue) didn't come with a reverse gear. The engine had to run backwards.
One of the idiosyncrasies of certain 2 stroke engines... my old Yamaha Dt175 dirt bike would run backwards... was a fun trick to play on a friend when I was a kid... I would already have it running backwards and then offer a mate a ride and the look on their face as they let the clutch out as they took of backwards was always fun. Ha ha ha..
Cheers mate 👍
Bultaco alpina would occasionally run backwards and surprise the shit out of you.
Probably before your time , when I was young a mate had a Villiers James dirt bike , kick start only . One day he turned the key and it fired and started without the kickstarter , surprised him a lot . He put it into gear and took off , backwards . Surprised him even more ;-)
@@keithkearns93 yes... yes it does, lol.
@@Gordon_L I'm in my 50's but not familiar with that bike, but as a mechanic I can see the perfect little storm that would have had to be in play for that to happen... weird stuff happened with older stuff.. modern reliability and safety in todays vehicles is so much better. Cheers 👍
@@mickd8188 67 here Mick , i.e. born in 1955 , I would have been 16 or so when I witnessed that .
Actually, most (all?) diesel engines can run backwards.
About 10 years ago the new bush firetrucks were found to have an issue with running backwards, as in the exhaust was in taking air and the exhaust was flowing out the intake.
If they get slow enough without stalling, they can reverse direction.
Shutting the trucks off and restarting (with the electric starter motor that only spins in one direction) was the immediate fix and their idle rpm was adjusted so they were less likely to do it.
How did they suck fuel in through the exhaust to run backwards?
@@davidstewart1799 umm, diesel engines use fuel injectors, directly into the cylinder.
Also, they don't have spark plugs.
@@35manning The early ones weren't fuel injected. Diesels also need glow plugs to start them. It heats the diesel or some of them ran on straight oil.
@@35manning I beg your pardon Emily, I just looked it up and not all diesels need glow plugs. I must be stuck in the dark ages.
@@davidstewart1799 that's why I said most, with a question mark next to all.
I'm not familiar with all diesel engines, particularly older ones from before my time.
As for glow plugs, most diesel engines can be started without them but they do make it a lot easier to start.
Think of it as cooking a cake in an oven, and preheating the oven or not.
As a rule, diesel is compressed to ignition temperature (the temperature at which catches fire on its own), this is much easier when the engine is warmed up and hot.
Glow plugs just provide that ignition heat to help it along.
I'm sure it may be near impossible to start some diesels without glow plugs in cold enough climates, but I live in Australia so that's not a problem here.
Oh, and that firetruck from 10 years ago that ran backwards (and reverse gear drove forwards giving them 5 reverse gears), that was from my fire station and I helped clean that truck when the crew returned and we discussed the situation that occurred.
It's not a common problem as most diesels idle fast enough, but this particular truck setup had issues (multiple trucks in the fleet did it).
4:18 What the bulldog doin? 😏
I remember that we let a small 2 stroke bike engine run backwards. You could not kick it on backwards of course but you could put it in gear and role it backwards until it started. Sadly a motorbike with just reverse gears is not very helpful but fun. :D
If one of these Tractors pull down the gas pedal, it feels like an earthquake, for sure.
I think Lanz Bulldog is now part of John Deere, since the late 50th of the last century.
Some marine diesel engines run backwards for reverse and some really old gas powered 2 stroke boat engines did the same by moving the ignition advance lever to the alternate position and starting backwards.
I seem to think I need to mention,this type or tractor was not just for towing, plowing, it was the major power plant for the whole belt " fed" ecosystem? Thresher?, wood shed? Baler and the like? So its system was beneficial for the whole farm?
omfg you know the lanz fucking bulldog nice bro
Wow!!! What a 🚜, love it.
G' day Ian & family hope you are all well.
Sending you much cheer & 🍻& Tequila for Pedro.🦘🐨🇦🇺❤️🇺🇸🦅❤️🇲🇽.
That was a great video, Ian - thanks for showing it. It must have huge flywheel and/or eccentric crankshaft to smooth out the piston movement. BTW, I followed the link to the original and there's lots of other crazy stuff there like this. Just brilliant!
That is real German Engineering XD 👍😉🤷
Very Cool machine to see in person. Just idling they seem to jump in place. When it is equipped with steel wheels it makes the ground beneath seem to bounce Too
Bulldog was the name for a tractor in my village. I didn't know that was a brand.
My first thought seeing the idler was, that if it has a Ratchet Work, than the idler can go both ways. Which is genius at a low gear, because it's going to make a lot more horsepower, if the cog is not rpm but torque based. Than it can just keep using the strength to move a little bit, with high torque, and one directional only. Slowly creeping, but going with huge horsepower.
Rock and roll mode
My Father ex REME told me of war time trucks that were fitted with oil filled filters for the western desert.
You started with a crank handle and if they kicked back would suck the oil out the filter and start to run backwards.
Then they would just rev to the moon until they blew up.
Novel fact: the DB on Aston Martin cars relates to David Brown who made David Brown tractors.
Yup, plenty of manufacturers had connections between cars and tractors. Ford and Fiat used to make tractors, There's also Lamborghini, who first started making tractors before he started to make cars, Mercedes-Benz did some for a while...
How cool 😎
That thing would plough the Midwest on a Saturday morning piss
I have seen one of these tractors, and you'd be surprised what you can run it on.
That piston at the back is an old one retrofitted as a counterweight.
At first eeing that hige side bump i was expecting something like a 0 rpm idle and a huge mass flywheel to help it turn over again.
My teacher had a Bulldog and challenged us to crank it on.
I was one of the few that got it running, but I had to push my entire weight into it. xD
In my opinion, this can only work with a one cylinder two stroke engine. And there weren't a lot of brands using this. Most brands used the four stroke diesel or more then one cylinder.
Other vehicles with no real reverse gear, but running the motor backwards are small 2-stroke "Bubblecars" from the 50ies like the famous Messerschmidt.
You should check out another tractor video about an old Volvo called ”Volvo Terror Traktor”, that is another insane tractor.
First thing in the description is a link to the original. That is, how it should be. Really enjoyed your video. Subbed. ♥
Thank you so much 😎
Also I’m glad you noticed that, I wanna help promote the original channel I’m watching and always link the og video first. Sadly most other channels don’t do that
Big ships have engines like that. 2-stroke diesels. It's easyer to run the engine backwards than making a gearbox to it.
I don’t remember the truck, but there are some older 4 stroke trucks that can run the engine in reverse, and the transmission flips too, so normal it’s normal, but if the engine is fired and it accidentally reverses itself then your reverse gears become your forward gears and forward reverse
Yes I was going to say the same thing. My dad got one just to play with it but sold it on again in about 12 months after buying it, you had to take the steering wheel off to use it it on the flywheel and the blowtorch on the head for cold start. Only thing is that we were told that they were prone to run backwards and you couldn't let them run backwards otherwise they would be a runaway diesel engine because they would suck the oil from the sump instead of the controlled diesel feed. Has that been a myth or was it so on some models?
Two stroke snowmobile. If you want to go back you just press a button it stops the engine and starts to rotate engine backwards.
Check out the Field Marshall Tractor with shotgun cartridge starting.
you should look at full storry on those to know why its called bulldog
G'day I now there was a motercycle that could run backwards. You could adjust the spark timing while you rode. If you advanced the timing while at high rpm it would get a bit more power. Then if you stopped and turned off the engine. it was possable to kick start it and the early spark woukd cause the engine to counter rotate. Jump on engauge first gear and take off backwards (and crash). Some people added a side car and used this as a way to reverse the outfit.
My brother had a Velocette Thruxton that had a manual advance / retard lever on the handlebars , it was a cow to start , many kicks needed and the lever had a habit of creeping to advance a bit each kick . If you didn't keep an eye on it , you'd jump up to come down hard on the kickstarter and it would kick back and try to put your knee into your jaw . 500cc single cylinder , fishtail exhaust , beautiful looking bike . Would be worth a fortune today .
Also the Landini Testacalda works with the same system
In theory, all diesel engines can run backwards... but theyll 'run away'... meaning theyll revv up uncontrollably untill detonation
Haha, as an elder German, any tractor is a bulldog to me.
Hahahahaha, up and down Ian.
In the First Bulldog-types There we're actually No gears. You Had to Reverse the Motor to Drive backwards
Landini Testacalda have similar build, 1 cylinder that can use every type of fuel, i think they have the same age or even older
P.s. Landini testa calda is the nickname of the Super Landini and is younger (1935) respect to the Bulldog (1921) but use the same engine (Sabathé cycle)
2 stroke hot bulb diesel
Older versions of the Brand got none Revers gear they used to possiblity to run the engine backwards
In my city, if its summer time then drive tractors the sthe streets up and down. they are very loud and they look a bit different. it sound like old steam train or battle tank :)