Kelvin Engines

[fisherman]

I wonder sometimes if anyone apreciates the trials we used to go through with engines in the past. (Reading the thread on Stuart Turners on PBO)

The first Kelvin I came across was a first war vintage single cylinder heavy duty eight. A tall machine with a 'diver's helmet' exhaust mixer on top, an immense stroke and many starting handles: we soon found out why. When it first fired it would throw the handle round and due to the cramped engine space it would hit you on the temple, whereupon you would throw the handle over the side. It was stopped by taking off the plug lead, and whoever was sent below to do so would yell out from the jolt, to get the reply: " What's wrong with you, you want to live for ever?"

Next came a 'Poppet' 12/14, petrol/TVO, which could be started turning the flywheel by hand: only found this out when I was painting the flywheel rim one day........It had a row of decompressors and you could play crazy latin-american rhythms opening them in time.

Then a 1936, 30hp Ricardo. It ran on petrol, TVO and only two of its four cylinders (due to a warped head). It was a riot of leaks, squeaks and mysterious intermittent booming noises. About every hour it would start missing and I had to dive below, change over to petrol, open the decompressor taps, and after a few moments of popping and banging and spouting flames at the deckhead it would pick up a regular beat again.
When I finally made the regular acquaintance of a diesel engine I was astonished to find it would run all day without attention.

Don't know you're born you lot......

 

[Johnjo]

Well remember swinging a single pot 7 hp i think it was! massive stroke and a even bigger piston and a right pig to start.
Well when it finally fired the sparkplug decided it was time to look for a new home and shot upwards at a great rate of knots, as i happened to be leaning over the bloody thing at the time it put a very nice parting in my hair...another couple inhces of lean on my part and it would have put a neat hole between my eyes.
Never did find the plug which if i remember correctly was quite a size in itself...

Didnt you have to pour neat petrol into the head to start them ? it was a very long time ago and the memory aint what it use to be...

 

[Chris_d]

Had a Stuart Turner when I was a kid, would run all day WOT when you got it going and did about 25mpg. It needed a different spark plug depending on its mood, champion P90 for cold starts, L10 for hot starts. Starting procedure was open fuel cock (gravity fed), hold down needle on float chamber until fuel squirted all over you out the top, full throttle, feel for the compression at 6 o'clock with the handle and pull... if you were really daring you wrapped your thumb round the handle for a better grip, but legend has it the Stuart sometimes kicked back and broke thumbs, so you had to talk to it nicely /forums/images/graemlins/smirk.gif

Parents had an old river boat with a sidevalve Morris Navigator, this had a habit of sticking valves, you took the spark plug out and you could see the valve stuck open through the hole. The procedure was to crank the engine and keep hitting the valve back down with the end of a wooden spoon and hammer until it free'd up, technical stuff /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[drewstwos]

Had a petrol/ TVO Kelvin whic was old in the 1050s must have been about circa 1920. had a massive flywheel which you cranked over to get some momentum into the engine. Thenn drop the decompressor and hopefuly it would fire. It was a sleeve valve . The sleeve did a sort of haLf rotate in the cylinder to uncover the inlet and exhaust ports in turn, It wa situated jusyt aft of the head, and you had to lean in through a small hatch in the bulkhead to swing it, It was a total loss oil system so evry hour on the hours you had to go down and give it one stroke of an oil gun/syringe or the big end would call it quits... splash lubrication. Like the other poster after installing a nice run all day very economical diesel. Coven try Climax flat twin, the Kelvin was deep sixed, without a sigh of regret for its passing.
Cheers. Drewstwos.

 

[fisherman]

I'd forgotten the sleevevalve, and that's why the 12/14 was called a poppet, being the other sort. It was a 4 cylinder, the 6/7 being a two.
Meet all your old friends here:

http://www.sky-net.org.uk/kelvin/diesel/index.html

If you click the arrow, you get to details of the old Petrol Paraffin engines

The 7/8 was a single, 2.725 litre, but the 4cyl, 29 litres 50/60 hp at 410 rpm. That's what you call an engine!

 

[joestruthers]

As a kid, I had a 22 ft boat (the Pegasus) during the fifties on Loch Lomond with a 2 cylinder Kelvin sleeve valve that started on petrol and ran on paraffin after warm up. Truly beautiful and robust little engine that was responsive and reliable. Loved to show off when coming back to he mooring on the Leven by executing a fast "three point turn" in the fairly fast current by spinning the forward / reverse wheel and transmitting full power to reverse. The clinker hull took on some water occasionally and sump was sometimes submerged in fresh water. Removing the inspection plate on he side of the engine and mopping out the oil / water with rags did the trick every time. The only real issue I ever had was a sheared starting handle - probably because I used my foot to kick start the Kelvin. Fond memories and realization that they don't make them like that any more - pity!

 

[KINGFISHER 9]

I remember a Kelvin Ricardo I had dealings with in the 50s when I were a lad ... started on petrol then switched over to paraffin. In a boat in the Scillies it was.

 

[Latestarter1]

I had a lot to do with Bergius Kelvin in the 80's when it was owned by GEC. I was very impressed with a Kelvin TASC 8 rated at 450hp on the ancient factory Froude dyno, lots of comparisons with Cummins KTA 450, then I was told TASC8 weighed four tonnes!

Now all Kelvin produce is a marinised Komatsu 23 liter badged as a Kelvin, funny twist of fate is that Komatsu 23 liter is a distant cousin of the K19. Simply the fate of another good company starved of engineering resources.

 

[NorthUp]

I had a lot to do with Bergius Kelvin in the 80's when it was owned by GEC. I was very impressed with a Kelvin TASC 8 rated at 450hp on the ancient factory Froude dyno, lots of comparisons with Cummins KTA 450, then I was told TASC8 weighed four tonnes!

Now all Kelvin produce is a marinised Komatsu 23 liter badged as a Kelvin, funny twist of fate is that Komatsu 23 liter is a distant cousin of the K19. Simply the fate of another good company starved of engineering resources.

Kelvin T had their flywheels secured to the crankshaft with steel wedges, with brass keeps and lead plugs. That left one 'engineer' red faced when the flywheel came slack after a month, he did not know the correct technique and was too arrogant to ask!

 

[oldgit]

No mention of a diesel soaked rag set alight and held next to the inlet manifold !

 

[Latestarter1]

No mention of a diesel soaked rag set alight and held next to the inlet manifold !

Are you certain you are referring to a Bergius Kelvin........Engine from P model onwards were easy starting direct injection motors, very old engines prior to P had a special Ricardo designed combustion system which allowed them to be started on gasoline then switched to running as pure diesel engine, would not be wanting to wave burning diesel soaked rag in inlet of those!

 

[Kukri]

I do have a soft spot for an E2 poppet valve 7.5 hp petrol-paraffin that I once owned and a P4 20hp diesel in a friend's boat. In a way, the reluctance to start of the earlier diesels was Kelvin policy, because they went for the lowest BMEP and lowest piston speed that they could get away with - that and no shortage of metal and you had an engine that would, once started, be most unlikely to stop of its own accord, which, considering they were essentially engineing the fishing fleet, was a good thing.

 

[paul.norton]

Back in the 60s, a 16 foot boat from the London area appeared in a local recycling yard. IIRC on its stern was the name Haven Gore - I kid you not.

It was clinker-built with a reinforced bow. There were two holes in the bow, all properly finished, about 12 inches in diameter - never found out why they were for.

The engine was a massive (for the size of the boat) Kelvin 4 cylinder with two carburettors. A couple of guys I knew bought the boat and fixed the holes but were having trouble getting the engine to run properly. Eventually they found one of the carbs was not getting any fuel - there was a purpose-made plug in the line so the engine would only run on 2 cylinders.

Paul