[AT] Canola to diesel; now skiing and icecream

[Herbert Metz]

Ron
Don't know whether your next to last sentence was serious of joking; won't
ask.
But it did remind me that many decades ago, people occasionally jacked up
one rear wheel on a Ford Model A or whatever, threw it in gear, and used
that as power source for making home made icecream in an old hand crank
freezer.   Memory is vague as to whether they attached a pulley to the hand
crank(?), and whether this pulley was turned by direct contact with rear
wheel or by belt in contact with rear wheel(?) or by belt in contact with a
pulley secured to disc of rear wheel(?).  This last method was used by the
local sky club for powering our ski tow on a nice slope north of Morrison,
ILL (early 70's).  One of our members did a good job splicing the tow rope.
Herb

> [Original Message]
> From: <RonMyers at wildblue.net>
> To: Antique tractor email discussion group <at at lists.antique-tractor.com>
> Date: 2/5/2007 8:36:28 PM
> Subject: RE: [AT] Canola to diesel
>
> Boy am I learning a lot here I was surprised to find that after all these
> years that there are so many different ways to make a diesel fire.
>
> I have been into model airplanes for years and still have a 1938 McCoy
> 0.60 engine.  It originally had a champion spark plug and points that ran
> off the front of the crankshaft next to the propeller.  it used a small
> coil and battery to maintain spark. it ran on on gasoline in those early
> days.
>
> It now has a glow plug and runs on Alcohol.  You need to use a battery to
> get the plug hot for starting but the firingg of the engine will keep it
> hot.
>
> A friend had a small diesel model airplane engine but couldn't get it to
run.
>
> It had a screw on top of the head to increase the compression for firing. 
> We could not get enough speed to start it by just flipping the the prop so
> i put my flywheel off my marine engine on it and we used the rear wheel of
> his car to start it. Put it up against the turning wheel and turn screw
> down until it started.
>
> The real hard part was trying to keep up with the car until it started????
>
> One can learn a lot playing with small engines like these.
>
> Ron
>