Diesel Gensets?

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Lesley brought up a good (howbeit expensive) topic. I looked in BWH and saw several manufacturers. Do any of you have any experience with any of them or any advice? Any product horror stories?

-- Rags (nobody@nowhere.org), February 22, 2002

Answers

I looked into them for Y2K,, for the money,,if you have a decent mechanic near by,, military surplus,, they have ALOT of hours on them,, but were maintaned very well,, most surplus gensets still run and work just fine,, and are capable of produce enough for a city block,, already on a trailer and such. I dont need anything near that big,, and came across a real good deal.

-- Stan (sopal@net-port.com), February 22, 2002.

Rags: I think if I was gonna do it I'd look real seriously at either a VW diesel or even a Ford diesel out of an escort or a Tempo. Those particular engines were Perkins diesels----very good quality and long lasting. Best of all they can be had for cheap. I ran into one a coupla weeks ago for $100, the complete car.

Leave the engine hooked up to the transaxle and hook the generator up directly to the wheel lugs via a pto arrangement. They make pto driven generators for farm tractors that can also be had reasonable. You should be into it for less than $2000 and that'll be alot less than buying one new, even a China type diesel. The unused wheel on the transaxle lock down so it won't turn. See my response to JOhn Hill on Lesleys thread.

-- john (natlivent@pcpros.net), February 22, 2002.


John, I am uncertain about your suggestion of retaining the transaxle and locking one wheel. Wont that mean the differential mechanism is running all the time with those little spider gears really whirring instead of just occasionally as they do in real life? The output will be twice normal axle speed too, in fact it will be just a little less than crankshaft speed. Or am I missing something?

-- john hill (john@cnd.co.nz), February 23, 2002.

John H: I don't really know for sure. I'm thinking it wouldn't be much different than running a sawmill off a rear end of a rear wheel drive vehicle, something I've seen done fairly often.

Generally high gear, coming directly outta the tranny is pretty close to a 1x1 ratio which would equal engine speed but that doesn't take into account the gearing in the diffy.

I'm thinking too the type of use is gonna be different than normal vehicle use. The load or the rpms wouldn't vary much which seems to me would be easier on the transaxle. Dunno. What do you think?

I don't know if this would make a difference but I know the tempos and escorts came with automatics also.

The VW diesels would get close to 50mpg on the highway so for estimating I figured 1 gallon per hr of fuel use.

-- john (natlivent@pcpros.net), February 23, 2002.


John, If one road wheel is locked the other revolves at twice normal speed. This is due to the action of the differential.

For a permanent installation I would advise 'locking' the differential, something than can only be done once and is easily done by welding up the internal gears! For a conventional rear wheel drive back axle just remove one half shaft and weld the internals so that the crown wheel is locked to the remaining half shaft, crude but effective.

If one is at all interested in efficiency I would suggest removing the transmission/gearbox and coupling direct to the flywheel.

I cant wait until the new hybrid Hondas find their way to the junk yards, they have a generator built right into the flywheel.

-- john hill (john@cnd.co.nz), February 23, 2002.



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