From: Everette (194cbteng@bellsouth.net)
Date: Mon Sep 26 2005 - 15:33:00 PDT
In the mid to late 60s I had friend that had a very large Steiger brand 4wd
drive farm tractor with big Cat. diesel engine and on front was a propane
tank and in operators compartment a push button switch that when pushed
injected a stream of propane into incoming air supply. In normal operation
exhaust stack emitted a stream of black smoke, when the propane button was
pushed the sound of turbo charger changed to a higher pitch whine and the
exhaust smoke cleared up. This was designed to be used only if tractor
encountered an unexpected hard pull and only for seconds.. Drivers soon
found that a paper match wedged in beside pushbutton would keep it down,
greatly increasing pulling power, however, greatly decreasing engine life,
result of too much propane was holes burned in pistons.
I do not remember engine involved nor amount of propane, and if my memory
serves this was not a factory option..
At this same time I had a small farm tractor and a fork lift that ran on
propane, both had a device that used engine coolant to heat propane. In
cold weather they were a little hard to start but after just a few minutes
ran fine, oil was always clean and plugs would last forever. They had been
made with gasoline tank and carburetor but we did not use them. Most likey
if we had started them on gasoline and after warm up switched to propane
they would have been easier to start.
Everette
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