the old bulldog

[Bruce Tuncks]

We had one where I worked. It was a 4 stroke engine, single cylinder, and it had a cartridge start. You needed to rotate the engine till it was ready on a firing stroke to start it with the cartridge. ( the firing stroke is alternated with an exhaust stroke). We used to set it up for VIP's to hit the cartridge container with a hammer and thus start the engine.

One day, I set it up wrongly, on the exhaust stroke, and the VIP had to dodge the smoke-stack on its return from the ceiling. What a goof huh.   SO... attempting to start a bulldog tractor with a cartridge and the engine on the exhaust stroke caused the cartridge charge to blow right thru the engine and blow off anything attached to the exhaust system, in this case the exhaust stack.

[onetrack]

Bruce - good story, but the Lanz Bulldog was a 2 stroke, not a 4 stroke.

[Bruce Tuncks]

I'm sure it was a bulldog,onetrack. Was there another bulldog with a cartridge start? I sure remember the stack hitting the ceiling and this guy( foreign minister from SE Asia I think)  jumping aside.I also remember that it was my fault for not getting the thing on the right stroke.

[onetrack]

There were no Lanz Bulldogs built with cartridge start, they were all started with a hot bulb heated by a torch. The Field Marshall tractor used a starting cartridge.

[facthunter]

BIG Hot bulb 2 strokes were started by turning the engine to close the exhaust port  and hand firing the injector IF it went backwards you cut the fuel and timed the hand operated injection for the right place to bounce it back in the right direction. No starter needed at all.. Used i timber mills and ICE works etc. Some did less than 60 RPM and blew smoke rings hundreds of feet in the air.  Nev

[nomadpete]

Interesting stuff

 

On the subject of hot bulb engines.....

 

My father served on the searchlights on South Head during the war. He told me that his generator plant had a big hot bulb single cylinder engine. I think the start procedure was a three man effort.....

 

When the air raid siren went off, One man got out some metho and started up a kero blowtorch, then applied heat.

Then two guys would grab the spokes of the flywheel and rock it back and forth. I think there was a carefully timed splash of fuel involved at a critical moment.

 

When it finally got up to speed in the right direction, the searchlight operators could fiddle with their carbon rods to try and strike a reliable arc.

 

So the big searchlight would take quite some time to get going.

[pmccarthy]

I saw a row of Bulldogs jumping about on idle at a fair last month. I made a video but seems you can’t post videos here unless they are on YouTube.

[Old Koreelah]

On 9/5/2023 at 4:48 AM, nomadpete said:

…the searchlight operators could fiddle with their carbon rods to try and strike a reliable arc.

That brought back a nearly-forgotten memory of my teenage years upstairs in our local picture theatre. I believe I could still operate all that machinery in the dark, having done so for years.

The projectors were from the 30s but the arc boxes dated from about 55. The carbon rods, of different gauges, were manually controlled by big bakelite knobs. As the first Q marks appeared, you touched them to strike an arc, then quickly pulled them apart to acheive the optimum gap of about 7mm. At the next Q mark, you started the motor, using your right hand on the pulley to help it get under way. After watching the ten-second countdown on the metal blank in front of your projector, at the last Q mark you rammed the slider sideways to swap projectors. Then adjusted the electric motor that automatically advancing the carbon rods.
 

My offsider was known to get so engrossed in the movie that he’d allow the rods to burn so wide that he lost the arc, causing a big collective groan from the audience below.

 

Crikey that was a long time ago.

[Bruce Tuncks]

Onetrack, I think you are a better source than me....  I'm starting to think it was maybe a Field Marshall tractor....  did this have a single-cylinder 4 stroke engine?

 

[Bruce Tuncks]

Yep, Old K. There was a picture theatre in Alice Springs ( the Capitol) which was often catching fire.  It was in Hartley street just near the old school.

One time, the story was that 2 fire engines coming from different directions had a head-on at the fire. I am only repeating heresay here, but the projection box sure was blackened.

[onetrack]

Yes, the Field Marshalls were single cylinder, horizontal engines - and they were 2 stroke as well - but they were 2 stroke diesels, whereas the Lanz was a 2-stroke hot bulb ignition engine.

[Old Koreelah]

4 hours ago, Bruce Tuncks said:

Yep, Old K. There was a picture theatre in Alice Springs ( the Capitol) which was often catching fire…
 

That’s interesting. The building I worked in replaced an older picture theatre that burned down. The old projectionist described how he kept warm from the heat radiating from all the exposed electrical equipment.