[Vwdiesel] Seeking experience or data on Petter stationary diesels

[slatersfb at aol.com]

Really cool find. 20 HP single cylinder will sound terrific and maybe supply you with emergency power. Cool.
What you want is some rust solvent like PB Blaster or Liquid Wrench in that cylinder. Diesel oil & ATF will take a long time to work. If you can reach piston, a sharp rap on top  with a woodon pole will shock the rust & speed penetration. Rock flywheel back & forth; not vigouously, but repeatedly. Changes in temperature also help. Nothing drastic - you don't want to crack anything.
 
Bob in NY
 
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-----Original Message-----
From: Area31 Research Facility <stephensrw at stn.net>
To: vwdiesel at vwfans.com
Sent: Mon, 13 Jun 2005 00:06:15 -0400
Subject: [Vwdiesel] Seeking experience or data on Petter stationary diesels


After looking for a unit just like this for many years, just the other day I
found a single cylinder air cooled diesel genset made by Petbow in England
(model VK4 79R), hidden in a friend's huge collection of scrapyard
treasures.  I believe the engine is a British made vintage Petter but am not
having much luck finding info. It has a huge massive single flywheel.  It
direct drives an 1800 RPM alternator that is 110 volts, 60 Hz and has output
fuse protection of 100 amps.  That would be about 11 kW and would require
about 20 HP to drive.  I'm therefore guessing I have an engine in the 15+ HP
range.  I really have no clue as to what year this plant could have been
built but it may be as old as 1950's.  The entire plant was exposed to the
elements for many years and is badly rusted.  Fortunately the engine was
left to sit in the position that had both intake and exhaust valves closed!

The piston appears to be frozen as the crankshaft will not budge.  I'm
letting it soak now with diesel fuel and ATF in the cylinder.  I'm going to
try to put up to 200 PSI compressd air into the cylinder tomorrow through
the air inlet port.  That will provide in the neighborhood of up to 1000+
lbs force pushing down directly on the piston.  If nothing else it will
accelerate the penetration into the rings of the solvent.  I might have to
soak this baby for months from what I'm reading on the subject of freeing
seized pistons on old engine restoration sites.

If anyone has experience with these and could help me with info I'd
appreciate it.  I really want to rebuild the engine as necessay and use this
plant.  I can send photos by request.

FYI, a Petter is a higher speed (~1500 RPM), low speed diesel and is the
other famous stationary engine from England along with the well known really
slow speed Listers (650 RPM) which are quite similar.

For topic qualification know that I drove my 1991 TD Jetta to and home again
on the trip where I found this vintage generator which is itself a diesel!
;)

thanx,
Rob

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