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JD History Question
I was reading the book 'Painted House' by John Grisham. The story was about tenant cotton farmers in Arkansas and set in 1951.
A JD tractor was mentioned in the writing frequently. Several times the tractor was mentioned in connection with its diesel chugging. After reading the book, I kept thinking, I wonder how new a tractor a tenant cotton farmer would have in 1951 and what JD would have had a diesel engine.
Don't know when and which JD models started having diesels. My uncles during the time were more prosperous than the story characters at least in that they owned their land, and they all has gas tractors.
Of course, the question is just my curiosity and is entirely incidental to the story, which I think is a very good one.
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JD History Question
Thanks. Pretty good info. I think a pretty safe conclusion is that a tenant cotton farmer wouldn't be likely to have a diesel tractor in '51 even if R-models were on the market. I wouldn't fault the author (formerly a lawyer) for this detail though. The story did describe sharecroppers with mules rather than tractors and described lives that were harder than I can imagine.
My folks grew up working the land with horses but fled Nebraska cornfields for California the middle of the depression. I'm not sure when my uncles who stayed got their tractors, but they always had them as far back as I can remember. I'm not sure any of my cousins stayed on the land, but if any did, they probably have diesels by now. I guess I'm the city kid who went back, but of course I don't have the worries of raising cash crops.
One of my ancestors is thought to be the first European to raise a cash crop in an eastern Nebraska county. It probably was done with horses. Now I have a diesel tractor for no crops. Modern life is a bit self-indulgent I guess.
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JD History Question
Kerosene, coal oil, #1 diesel, stove oil and maybe farm fuel are about the same thing. I think a diesel would run on any of them, but they wouldn't be volatile enough for a low-compression spark-ignition engine. Maybe there is a fuel that would work for both relatively high-compression gas engines or relatively low compression diesel engines, but I don't know of it.
Maybe there is anther explanation. I think that older industrial equipment often used small gas engines called pony engines to start the then hard to start diesels. Some diesel tractors probably did as well, but these were entirely independent engines.
I took a tour when I was a kid in scouts during the mid-50's. I'm trying to recall if it was IH industrial equipment or Caterpillar, or if they were the same company at the time. What I believe I saw demonstrated was a single engine that had a both gas or a diesel cycle.
I saw the equipment started on gas and then changed over to diesel, and I believe it was a single engine. However, I don't believe it was intended to be operated on gas. Some years later in university I was talking to somebody who said that the way these engine worked was that there were cavities in the head that were sealed from the cylinders by valves. When the valves were open, the compression was low enough for the engine to run on gas. He also said the engine has been used on tractors but didn't last long. The valves were never in their seats while on the gas cycle and got hot if operated on gas for awhile. Then, they'd warp and the engine would be no good for diesel.
Please keep in mind that this story is a kid's recollection and may be wildly wrong. It's just how I remember it. To make the idea work at least in theory, I guess that there would have to be a carburetor in the intake manifold, spark plugs in the cylinders and an ignition system. I don't know if the injector pump would have to be clutched.
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Well, I went to town today and ate lunch with my father in law after doing some errands and waiting for my wife. I asked my father in law about farm fuel.
He grew up in pre-WWII Southwestern Ontario. He hadn't heard of farm fuel, but thinks it's what they called coal oil as did my folks. He also said that the Fordson Tractor they had definitely had a compartmentalized gas tank (one for gas and one for coal oil). The tractor definitely had spark ignition and was started on gas then switching to coal oil when it was warmed.
Although I don't know how similar coal oil is to present day kerosene, it seems certain that spark ignition engines can run on something near #1 diesel but may not be able to start on it.
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Yes, real good information. My father in law also described something that had to be done with the four magnetos to start the Fordson. I didn't quite catch it and don't know if it was a timing or a sequencing sort of thing.
I'm trying to remember if the JD my grandfather had in the early 50’s was a single or twin. It seemed pretty new to me but then my grandfather took good care of equipment. I do remember the sound though. I'm thinking that maybe JD should get a copyright for the sound, as did Harley (or so I'm told).
Seems like too many companies were using recordings of Harleys in their commercials so Harley protected their sound. Nothing sounds quite like a reciprocating twin--even if I've never understood exactly what that is.
As a matter of curiosity, I always thought the spark on crank start cars were retarded for starting and advanced for running. I suppose it could work the other way for a low rpm tractor engine, or maybe I just never had it right in the first place. No matter, that's the sort of detail that's easy to think one thing and type another, which of course is something I do quite regularly here.
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Rubin: Thanks for the comment. It's about the first confirmation I've heard in adult life about the IH gas/diesel engines. I'm happy to know that as a kid, I seemed to have actually understood what I saw as well as the explanation that went with it.
The whole story about problems with the tractor engine was that if it ran out of diesel in the field, there was a tendency to drive it to the fuel tank on the gas cycle. The engine might then be shut down without returning it to the diesel cycle. There was a valve that extended into the cylinder for gas operation that became hot during the gas cycle since the valve was open and the head couldn't transfer heat to its seat. The valve would warp if the engine was left to cool down while in the gas cycle, and then the engine wouldn't function as a high compression diesel engine.
Of course, I believe I heard this story in a university freshman dorm, and those are places for lots of stories.
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