50 HP blackstone air starting

[Harry Bloomfield]

Snap, I just dropped in to suggest that very place :-)

[lexieklund]

ed the air start by charging two old refrigeration cylinder to about 300 PS I and this is rapidly discharged into the engine via its changed valve timi ng system which motors the engine round until it reaches about 50 rpm at wh ich time I turn on the fuel and change it over to the running configuration , it usually starts with little trouble. It has one flywheel and one cylind er and will run all day on a gallon of diesel.

out 6 cubic feet each. I have not had any problems and the cylinders can be charged by the compression of the engine for re-starting. The pressurised part holds pressure very well and I have been asked to demonstrate the engi ne running at a local rally. The air just gets the huge flywheel up to spee d which gets it over one compression.

told me I must get the pressure vessels certified and I am not able to run it in public unless I have new cylinders and pipes etc. etc.

even get it done in time. As this engine was imported back from the desert , by me in the seventies and after this experience I doubt if any others wo uld have done this, it may be that it is one of very few in UK. I was told by Blackstone that nearly all the production of this engine went abroad an d I have never even seen another.

le to start it using any other method. The story of this engine is told on my website.

in the old engines section.

gen cylinder which are rated at 20 times this pressure. does anyone know if it would be OK to use two of these instead?

[George]

ed the air start by charging two old refrigeration cylinder to about 300 PS I and this is rapidly discharged into the engine via its changed valve timi ng system which motors the engine round until it reaches about 50 rpm at wh ich time I turn on the fuel and change it over to the running configuration , it usually starts with little trouble. It has one flywheel and one cylind er and will run all day on a gallon of diesel.

out 6 cubic feet each. I have not had any problems and the cylinders can be charged by the compression of the engine for re-starting. The pressurised part holds pressure very well and I have been asked to demonstrate the engi ne running at a local rally. The air just gets the huge flywheel up to spee d which gets it over one compression.

told me I must get the pressure vessels certified and I am not able to run it in public unless I have new cylinders and pipes etc. etc.

even get it done in time. As this engine was imported back from the desert , by me in the seventies and after this experience I doubt if any others wo uld have done this, it may be that it is one of very few in UK. I was told by Blackstone that nearly all the production of this engine went abroad an d I have never even seen another.

le to start it using any other method. The story of this engine is told on my website.

in the old engines section.

gen cylinder which are rated at 20 times this pressure. does anyone know if it would be OK to use two of these instead?

It is now the 22 May and we had our exhibition. In the end I used a small petrol engine rated at 5.5 HP and stepped down the speed a lot via a couple of 18 inch belt pulleys then I used a dog clutch from something else to un couple the small engine and stepped the speed down to that of the starting requirement of the Blackstone, I used two very loose belts to allow me to s tart the 5.5 HP engine as the driving pulleys just rotated without transmit ting much drive.

A strong push with a barring rod started the flywheel rotating, as there wa s a certain amount of drag and I then tightened the final belt drive with a lever pushing a roller to tension the belts. with the little engine revved up the Blackstone gradually got up to speed and when the belts stopped sli pping it was going round at just about the correct speed to start when I dr opped the exhaust lifter and turned on the fuel. As it fired up, I un-linke d the dog clutch and shut down the donkey engine. The Blackstone was then running freely and everyone was impressed !

The situation demanded that I did this about 6 times during the day and it was allowed to run for about half an hour. There was no cooling at all an d it was a very warm day and soon a lot of oil spray started to come out of the exhaust pipe. The engine was no-where near boiling, but it was distin ctly warmer than I have had it before. Is the oil spray ( which became a p roblem as it was blowing about) due to the fact that the cylinder head was not very much higher at all than the rest of the engine as it was standing facing down an incline, or was it due to a hotter engine, or insufficient l oad, (none!) or due to worn rings or something else I have not thought of?

I am going to post this - with a few pictures showing what I did to avoid a ir starting on my website but it will take a few days to get round to it.

Any comments anyone? It was a lot of effort to get this all going and I w as tired out when it was all over. I do not think I shall go to all this tr ouble again, but who knows. Who knows though, there were a lot of very inte rested enthusiasts who like to watch, but I would have been tempted to sell it all by the end of the day! Regards George.

[John Rumm]

[snip]

Let us have a link when you do... look forward to that.

Alas no, not really my area.

[KJ]

Hi. I have this black stone engine with me, which is not operational. Can anybody please provide me insights on this and if anybody could help me restoring it.Thank you.

Regards, Kunal. India.

[Chris Bacon]

Wow. Another resurrected "Homeownershub" thing. There seems to be some info available from an internet search, e.g. for "blackstone 50hp diesel engine". Looks quite interesting.