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LenNH
01-06-2008 06:13:46
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Re: H distillate in reply to Zach Bouchard, 01-05-2008 17:20:56
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How about the manifold? The distillate mfld. was more massive around the middle than the gas model, AND had a lever you moved to shift from "hot" for distillate to "cold" for gas. Of course, even if the tractor had originally been for distillate, manifolds had a nasty habit of burning out eventually, and were often replaced with the gas model. I don't know how many people burned distillate after WW II. During the war, farmers took whatever the dealers could get, and I understand that sometimes it was "take the distillate model or somebody else will get it."
I tried distillate just once, in my father's 10-20. What a hassle! You make sure the carb has no distillate in it (drain it), then turn on the gas cock. Start engine normally, and make sure the radiator is covered (curtain on the 10-20, cranked shutter on an H). When you are pretty sure the engine is hot enough (steam coming out the radiator cap on the 10-20, heat gauge on the high side on an H), you turned off the gas and turned on the distillate. This meant getting down from the seat, of course. As long as the tractor is working, the distillate works great.
As soon as you stop for a break, to clean out the plow, to chat with your neighbor across the fence, the engine cooled off and would begin to sputter and cough when you opened her up again. If you thought about it in time, you would pull up the curtain or close the shutter before you stopped, so the engine would remain hot enough.
Once was enough for me. I don't know if anyone ever tested a distillate engine to compare horsepower on gas or distillate/kerosene. The low compression would not have been very efficient on gas, I would think.
Anybody ever done a comparison? It might be an interesting thing to do at a pull sometime, if a distillate/kerosene engine was still available with all the original equipment.
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