Fullagar Engines
 

I've put this in my Dropbox for anyone interested

https://www.dropbox.com/s/9ynkx5dt9c...ngine.pdf?dl=0

As someone born and bred in Stafford, I appreciate that sketch at the beginning. Stafford was once an English Electric Town (locally known as the 'Ingo.') I can still relate some parts of that sketch to my memories.

Of course, it's mostly gone now. It's mostly B&Q and Maplin and Argus and houses.

Presumably that's progress ...... (but I have my doubts.) :confused:

Well bugger me, I thought I knew a bit about diesel engines but this is a new one on me. You live and learn.

Dormans was the prime Diesel Engine factory in Stafford, right next to the secondary modern school I attended. Many of my mates went into apprenticeships there. I believe it's still going, but now under the Perkins label.

One of the few factories left in the town. :confused:

I wonder if the engines in Sudan or the Gold Coast are still running?

There are some at a power station in Australia (Can't remember where) that are allegedly runnable. One in Napier that is not (That's the one I've seen, photos in "the other place") Some in the tunnels on Gibraltar and maybe, just maybe one in Naru that was replaced but not removed.

sailed with Dormans, bloody troublesome. Perkins not much better. Fodens an absolute disaster. Gardiners were the cream of the crop, absolutely excellent and a pleasure to work on.

Not worked on one and not even seen one but from what I have read best suited to shore installations for generating purposes in pairs for redundancy reasons.
Although I have read somewhere that one ran from 1925 till 1970, no mention of breakdown time:jester:
The workings sound more like those of a scissor lift.

Put some photos of the Napier one in my gallery

Most of then appear to have been sold within the Empire. The Japanese railway obviously did not strip theirs down and copy it, I wonder why.
Could it have been fitted to an Empire flying boat? That would have put manners on the fuzzy-wuzzies.

Not quite an Empire class, but a seaplane fitted with an opposed piston engine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napier_Culverin

A bit like a LB Doxford with some of the fun removed; no spherical bearings, no mechanical fuel valves and no elastic crankshaft

Skipper on a 94 ft private yacht that had a Gardiner 8L3B main, and a 4LW auxiliary gen set which also drove a hydraulic bow thruster when required. 4LW had arrangement for a manual start where compression relief vales were closed in the firing order as the engine manually cranked. Fortunately never had to use that as both engines started easily without any need for prior warming. Didn't have to do any major maintenance but did oil changes, etc. Not particularly a down side, but do remember sufficient leaky inspection cover gaskets to keep the injunroom bilges from rusting. :)

do they still make
 

can anybody know are lister engines still made a few shipshad them for emergency fire pump start with a crank handle .remember on the docks at Grimsby @Immingham pulling trailers took a bit of eather in middle of winter plenty of smoke good days 60s

Listers were also used as lifeboat engines. I think that they were acquired by Perkins.

This sparked a memory:

On a Lloyd's Survey in Panama as 4/E, I was tasked with starting the port boat engine. The thing refused to start. I even engaged the services of Big Tony, who had been the Sierra Leone national football team goalkeeper to crank it over. The surveyor said," I'll just go and look at something else and come back in a moment", giving me a chance to think: I completely bled the fuel lines, all the way to the injectors - There was a lot of water from condensation in the fuel tank! We quickly drained the tank, replacing completely the DO. More bleeding/priming followed, ensuring fresh, dry DO arriving to the engine. When the surveyor appeared again, the engine started first time and the correct inspection form box ticked.

I subsequently wrote a report for the C/E and superintendent, recommending modifications to the fuel system and maintenance schedule. Unfortunately, I never sailed on that class of vessel again, so I don't know what changes were made. The trip of the non-starting, we had begun in winter on the US east coast (6 inches of snow on deck at St. John Newfoundland), then middle east/far east, onto Vancouver/Seattle (winter), US West coast, arriving to Panama for the transit. My own theory was the changes in temperature and humidity entrapping the moisture in the air.

Rgds.
Dave

Petters was another small engine much favoured for lifeboats and emergency compressors. Always the first engines to strip, measure and rebuild at college.

Lister and Petter were both manufacturers of small diesel engines. I learnt to drive on site dumper trucks powered by one or the other, it may have been both.

Both companies were at some time taken over by Hawker Siddeley and set up as Lister-Petter in the mid 1980s. As far as I can tell the company still exists.

Perkins Diesels is a separate company, part of Caterpillar.

Gardner LW and LX series engines could both be started by hand. The operators manual stated that they could be bumped into life by attaching a rope to the handle of the starting gear, and when at TDC on any cylinder, just pull the engine through the compression stroke without activating the decompression levers. We never tried that one, but did get a 6LX started by hand when the batteries were flat and the genny was stripped down.

Getting back to the first post, I always thought that the Fullagar engine was developed by Cammell Laird.
My 1926 Motor Ship Reference Book refers to them as 'Camellaird' and shows a drawing and a photograph of a 'Palmer-Fullagar' engine. Under the listings for engine builders, five licensees are listed :- John Brown, Camellaird, Palmer's, Rowan & Co, Smith's Dock, but no English Electric. There are two other builders, Kawasaki and Ateliers et Chantiers de Bretagne.

You are correct Chillytoes. A two stroke opposed piston engine, designed by W H Fullagar. In fact, the first all-welded vessel was the 620T coaster m.v. FULLAGAR built at Cammell Laird in Birkenhead in 1920. THe vessel was fitted with a Fullagar engine which proved unsatisfactory and was replaced with a steam engine. I believe the only remaining engine is in Napier, NZ, in a power plant.

Rgds.
Dave

It didn't have much success at sea but seemed do a bit better with stationary applications.

Over 100 were built for stationary power generation, mainly by English Electric and apparently performed well. I think the issue with the marine version had to do with the guiding of the top piston and its connecting rod. Probably not insoluble but it got a bad reputation and it was done for - bit like the AZ vaccine in Europe?:wink:

Ze feelthee Eenglish eat ze parsnip et manger pas de chaval, ow can zeer vaccine work avec pas de garlic. Vee will nevere take ze English medicine until ze Duc Wellingtons ne utilee plus le statue nu de l'Empereur Napoleon comme le 'at stand.

(My sister-in-law did rather admit that her countrymen might well have had a taken a purely xenophobic reaction to it. Perhaps an affiliation with le Maison Francais d'Oxford could have been pretended).

Excellent example of thread drift; Fullagar engines > AZ vaccines:wink:

Leave my mate Varley alone. At his age he's not sure what day of the week it is let alone what Forum he's posting to. As for thread drift, " Brexit Means Whitworth."

That is the problem with dykes. Your tiny dribble of anti Oxford commentary and there's a flood.

(I was going to work-in a reciprocal dislike pointing at SEMT but I was late for my game of GO).

Not wanting to be pedantic but a person can hardly complain about thread drift if he himself introduced the topic.

Does anyone agree with me that an armful of Pfizer-Biontec would have benefited Mr W H Fullagar.

them old Leyland bus engines (the 600's) you needed whitworth, BSF and AF spanners to rebuild one.
Never had the experience of a fulager though did work on the reconditioning of an English Electric Diesel many moons back.

Guilty as charged :pint:

It's not a hanging offence.
But what is a hanged, drawn and quartering offence is to put a Fullagar or Doxford or H&W Opposed Piston engine in a ship. And I am unanimous on that.

Did Cammel Laird not look at the Fullagar engine, the Opposition and the Market and say let's cut our losses?

Most of my significant "experiences "were with Doxfords. I didn't think too much about them at the time 'cos i just assumed that's the it was and had to be. However, 50 years on and having time to reflect, my most frequent thought is something along the lines of:Bloody hell, did that really happen

The bit below is written on the assumption that I am granted a thread drift exemption certificate;
Way back in 1913ish Hugo Junkers and AG Weser in Germany built a "double Doxford" before the Doxford had even been thought of.
There were three units in each engine of a twin screw installation and each unit consisted of two cylinders, one above the other with two pistons in each. The bottom piston on the lower cylinder was connected to the upper piston of the upper cylinder and the upper piston of the lower cylinder was connected to the lower piston of the upper cylinder. Glad you all got that:applause:
The cylinder bore was 400mm and the engine was 8.4 metres high! Each engine was supposed to develop 1000bhp @ 120 rpm but it was a complete failure and the technical press of the time considered it to be the biggest failure in the history of marine engineering.:cloud: The owners refused to accept the vessel until the engines were replaced with steam engines and and Scotch boilers .
Despite this total failure, Hugo Junkers went on to design a large number of very successful opposed piston aero engines which gave the RAF so much trouble during WWII

As you say, Tim, looking back with 20/20 hindsight, the biggest "failure" were maybe materials, tolerances and lube oils. I suppose IF a Doxford, B&W, Fullagar or even Junkers Weser were built today, they would probably be more successful.

Remember the change in cylinder lube oil to counter-affect acid rain during first manouevres, the discovery of anaerobic crankcase bacteria, etc. etc.

I looked at a MAN B&W generator set installed on a power barge in Puerto Quetzal, Guatemala. The cranshaft had sheared - The RCA found an inclusion had initiated the crack. The inclusion was below 2 microns which is the limit for detection. Even today, nothing is perfect! ........I never forget the Yanmars which were numbers 1 through 5 off the production line!.......Bit of a brown underpants job when taking the log.

Regards,
Dave

No.5 went south, BTW! Piston excursion.

The Napier Fullagar Engine
 

The Fullagar Engine at the Faraday Centre in Napier has just had a major maintenance programme completed. This engine is not functional in terms of being internal combustion powered - but it is operating driven by a 3 phase electric motor which rotates the engine so that visitors to the centre can see all of the internal components operating as they would if it was under power.

Happy to provide photos etc to anyone interested - and even happier to receive any more information about the Fullagar engines that we could put on display at the centre.

Greetings GordonHart and welcome to SH. Bon voyage.

Thanks, Gordon, for the tip! Hopefully it will generate interest in the younger visitors.

Rgds.
Dave

and pray what is wrong with H&W built Burmeister and Wain injuns? Cut my teeth on those :smoking::jester:

H&W B&W, Big man you're safe enough now but 50 - 40 years ago you would probably have gotten a good kicking in any dockside pub. Eccentrically eccentric. In the name of all that's holy tell no one else.

BTW did Harlands build VT2BF at the same time as OP engines or was there a clean break?

B&W VT2BF engines overlapped for a few months when the opposed piston type were abandoned. Neither engine could be considered as H&W's finest idea.