Tis the time of year for ye visitation of steam and diesel traction displays. Looking some up on line, it occurred to me that the average lawn mower has more oomph than that lot had in the goode olde daies.
How much would be done around a farm with 5 horse power? I just realised whilst writing this, that in the days of horse power, 5-Hp was quite a tidy investment.
I can remember a small-hold neighbour, now long dead, who had a petrol starting TVO tractor some 35 years ago. Even then it was a relic. But he also used a Victorian looking hand pump to get water out of his well.
Any idea how much horse power that old TVO represented?
I have no idea what it was but vaguely recall it as grey. But this was too long ago to be honest. The mind recalls what the memory slips into adjacent spaces. When you are busy trying to pay for your daily bread, what turns o ut to be even more valuable years later, is too far off to go back and fetc h.
Our 1941 built Fordson N type was 27 BHP, used until 1971,Dad replaced it with a grey Fergie but that was a Diesel version. Dad could not hand crank the Fordson due to a shoulder injury so I started before setting off to school in the morning and it was then left running all day,that was normal practise anyway as letting one partially cool made it a (even More of) sod to start being too hot for petrol and too cool for TVO. As I was about to leave home the purchase of a tractor with an electric start was required and with TVO supply about to cease it made sense to go for a diesel even though TVO Fergies were being sold cheap. You could/can still run TVO tractors but on one of the grades of heating oil sometimes mixed with paraffin with various opinions on what mix is best.
Think it's actually the other way round. Harry Ferguson designed the engine later used by Standard Triumph. Of course it came in a variety of sizes and power outputs.
Sooted plugs was a big problem for our little grey fergie. Farms were changing over to diesel and a small delivery of TVO was often contaminated with diesel left in the delivery lorry pipe.
Bit of a chicken and egg situation. But given Harry Ferguson designed the engine, it would be safe to assume he intended it for both. But the design
- wet liners - was more what you'd expect for a commercial unit than for a mid price car. Ie, designed to last rather longer than was common for cars of the day.
As a substitute for petrol, TVO was developed. Paraffin (kerosene) was comm only used as a domestic heating fuel and was untaxed. Paraffin has an octan e rating of zero and would damage an engine built for petrol. The manufactu re of paraffin involves the removal of aromatic hydrocarbons from what is n ow sold as heating oil. These aromatics have an octane rating, so adding so me of that otherwise waste product material back in a controlled manner int o paraffin gave TVO. The resulting octane rating of TVO was somewhere betwe en 55 and 70.
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Presumably these were side valved engines with very low compression ratios and the addition of a little petrol would activate modern paraffin for them ?
It sounds like the petrol engine only got a foothold on farms following For dson's sweep into that territory with converted automobile parts?
The more expensive diesel engine would be capable of doing much more work f or longer, something that I doubt compared when considering the initial out lay on small farms especially in the 1930's.
From what I recall of the prewar Fordson, it was extremely well thought out with the fuel tank (for instance) incorporated in the bodywork above the e ngine. Typical Henry Ford thinking.
ays. Looking some up on line, it occurred to me that the average lawn mower has more oomph than that lot had in the goode olde daies.
p was quite a tidy investment.
arting TVO tractor some 35 years ago. Even then it was a relic. But he also used a Victorian looking hand pump to get water out of his well.
Well now that we have all set off down to the good old days, batons in hand , how about soem throughput for the OP?
How much of a game changer was the 5 (or less) horsepower engine when they started to get a grip on farms?
Apparently the 5-Hp was quite a substantial motor, for its time. Anyone have any real idea?
Something from the Victorian peasant's Space Age. How the Wright engine wor ked:
The engine had no fuel pump, carburettor, or spark plugs. Nor did it have a throttle. Yet the simple motor produced 12 horsepower, an acceptable margi n above the Wrights' minimum requirement of 8 horsepower. Gasoline was grav ity fed from a small quart-and-a-half tank mounted on a strut below the upp er wing. The gasoline entered a shallow chamber next to the cylinders and m ixed with the incoming air. Heat from the crankcase vaporized the fuel-air mixture, causing it to pass through the intake manifold into the cylinders. Ignition was produced by opening and closing two contact breaker points in the combustion chamber of each cylinder via a camshaft. The initial spark f or starting the engine was generated with a coil and four dry-cell batterie s, not carried on the air-plane. A low-tension magneto driven by a 20-pound flywheel supplied electric current while the engine was running.
Small IC engines made a huge difference from the 1900's but especially after so after WW1 but not in tractor form*. Firms such as Lister and Stuart Turner made 1000's that powered pumps, generators,sawbenches, milking machines and all sorts of other machinery a situation that was still common well into the 1960's until the majority of farms had access to mains electric under the post WW2 rural electrification scheme. Some will no doubt still be in use in some really. remote places .
There were some home produced makes of two wheeled walk behind tractors that now days are more associated with the so called third world , Trusty was one well known make.
Ah yes it is all coming back to me how the evolution of the council yard maintenance squad replaced its kit over the decades. And to think we didn't even see it coming, most of us.
I clearly remember thos reciprocating scythes on a bif trolly between a pair of motor cycle sized wheels. Odd nobody thought of the modern motor mower. it must have been one hell of a circumlocution to the present Briggs and Stratton throw-away.
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