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1st December 2020, 01:37 PM #16Senior Member
- Join Date
- Apr 2010
- Location
- NSW, but near Canberra
- Posts
- 422
Many years ago I lived in the UK, and my parents owned a narrowboat on the canals. At one point I was tasked with taking a boat across the country to a show. That particular boat was powered by a "Bolinder semi-diesel", a fabulous 2 stroke, single cylinder "diesel" motor that ran on anything from straight diesel to a kero/oil mixture and, I am told, almost any flammable liquid. To start it up you had to pre-heat a combustion bulb with a blowtorch (kero powered and therefore requiring it's own preheat with metho), at which point you heaved the enormous flywheel by hand (or foot) and prayed it would fire up! Engine speed was controlled with a hit or miss regulator, and it ran at about 350rpm. My favourite feature, however, was that it had a clutch but no gearbox - reversing was done by a system that caused the piston to "bounce" backwards on a compression stroke, after which the engine would simply run backwards..... At that time it was the policy in certain manned locks on the rivers that engines must be switched off before the lock keeper would raise or lower the water. I remember a conversation in which we tried to convince the lock keeper that this was not advisable with such an engine. He overruled us and demanded we kill the motor. I then remember his outrage (and that of the people on boats behind us) as we went through the lengthy start-up sequence before we could exit the lock!
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1st December 2020 01:37 PM # ADSGoogle Adsense Advertisement
- Join Date
- Always
- Location
- Advertising world
- Posts
- Many
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1st December 2020, 02:02 PM #17
Start Ya Bastard is great.
I had a beaten up old 1959 VW Bettle (loved that car) and it had some troubles starting. A 6 Volt car in Canberras 1990's icy -10° winters had no chance. A squirt of that, run around, start it into epileptic life and off you went.
No point waiting for the heaters to warm up - they didn't work!!
Ah, luxury!
Tell you about fuel going off these days. Ive had my current beastie, a 6 litre 2001 VX HSV for 20 years now (!!) and when I get FRESH fuel from the depot in Fyshwick (an industrial estate) it flies like sheit off a chrome shovel....
The difference between that and any other discount fuel sellers 98 is dramatic. Its barely qualified as "fuel"..... The only other decent 98 is BP Ulimate.
In Sydney I used to be able to buy 110.... wow-wee that was good!
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1st December 2020, 02:13 PM #18
Get the Grappa Evan!
Another story you will think is a bit tall, but is true....
My wife is Italian. Every weekend, back in the 90's I'd go over to her grandparents on a Sunday to mow their lawn. It was a family thing, the guys did all the work and the women... talked....
Well! Mowing the lawn was my job. The mower was older than grandpop. It was a scary OH&S nightmare.
The engine looked more like it would use a lump of coal and steam than a liquid... if I had trouble starting it, which was most times... he would toddle over with his little glass of home-made grappa (a noxious and foul smelling mix of acetyline/turps and various toxins) give the bloody mower a "blessing" by pouring it STRAIGHT DOWN THE CARBY and rrriiipppp ----- up the cursed thing fired.
It is no joke.
That grappa started that anti-christ of a death trap every time.
God only knows what it did to their guts.
He lived to 90.
...
...
...
Yeah, that grappa was home made. Grapes picked every year by the whole gang. Quite a disgusting affair. In went the grapes to the crusher, spiders and all and it was all mashed to a pulp that day. He did the rest in "secret"..... underneath the house were a thousand large bottle of that stuff. A firemans wet dream!
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10th December 2020, 06:49 PM #19
I have an old Aldi chainsaw that when starting after not using it for a while, is an absolute pig of thing to start, can take over half an hour of pulling the cord before it starts. last weekend I found a simple solution to the problem......
20201205_151023.jpg
Don't even have to pull a rope to start it, push a button, squeeze the trigger & it's ready to cut.
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11th December 2020, 08:59 AM #20Senior Member
- Join Date
- Apr 2010
- Location
- NSW, but near Canberra
- Posts
- 422
These things are, within limits, really good. My son, from when he was about 10, was responsible for keeping the house stocked with firewood. We'd go "up the mountain" as a family and cut a large trailer-load of firewood, and then he and I would split it and my daughter would stack it up. My son was then responsible, on a daily basis, for keeping the house supplied. That worked really well, but sometimes we'd bring home small branches that would need to be cut in to "stove sized" pieces, so I bought him a Stihl battery powered saw for "local" resizing of firewood. It has a tiny chain, but is surprisingly powerful and quite capable of cutting a 4" or 5" piece of ironbark or yellow/white box if outright speed isn't vital. It is also quiet, so he didn't disturb us! He's now 18 and has since graduated to using my other (petrol) saws, but the little battery saw is still in use for trimming trees and firewood around the house. It is so much quicker to make a single cut or two when you don't need to worry about petrol etc.
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