Oh Dear

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Assassin

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After over half a century of loyal service my old Gardner engine is suffering a few issues, went to start it today and it did its usual trick of running on four cylinders and instead of the other two cylinders picking up it ran badly on one and not on the other, but the bloody thing still ran, cue some diagnostics, one injector is shot and the other is badly out of tune and not injecting properly, what do they say? bad luck runs in 3's and to cap it all the starter motor decided to give up the ghost.

Even after 50 years its on its original starter motor and injectors and apart from servicing and a little TLC its had nothing done to it and it has never broken down.

Hit the telephones time to friends, the problem with the starter motor was worn brushes and a mate sourced some for me (cheaply of course) and the starter was checked and cleaned and 50 years of muck and detritus came out and it was rebuilt and awaiting new brushes, mate sent his van round on his deliveries and I had some by mid afternoon and the com was turned down in the small lathe to remove the grooves and it was finished and installed back onto the engine. Remaining injectors were removed and it was pressure tested when I found the compression tester and it is in remarkable condition with its compression pressures at the top end of the specified range.
Another mate owns a diesel injection business and he has ordered parts and the injectors will be rebuilt on Saturday by us to get them back into tip top condition.

Not bad for a 50 year old engine which I hope will last for 100 years.
 
hi,

Very cool, real sea diesel. Do you have any idea how many hours he has been running?

NBs
 
What model of Gardner?

I recall in the 70's being shown over a boat with a pair of them, 6LX I think, and being told its possible to decompress all cylinders and hand crank it, bringing them in one by one to get it running. Is that right?

I can't make up my mind if that's feasible or not, on the one hand, if you slowly input enough energy into the flywheel getting it moving, then feels like it might be doable, but on the other hand, its a girt big lump to turn over!
 
burgundyben said:
What model of Gardner?

I recall in the 70's being shown over a boat with a pair of them, 6LX I think, and being told its possible to decompress all cylinders and hand crank it, bringing them in one by one to get it running. Is that right?

I can't make up my mind if that's feasible or not, on the one hand, if you slowly input enough energy into the flywheel getting it moving, then feels like it might be doable, but on the other hand, its a girt big lump to turn over!
Click to expand...

what a coincidence...! (Ben)


Assassin - a brilliant story and a credit to a great engine.
 
Its a 6LX and it isn't in a boat, it was bought for me by my father and as he is no longer with us it has great sentimental value to me.

There were many versions of these engines and in some scenarios they came with a individual decompression lever fitted and hand cranking capability so they could be hand cranked and fire on one cylinder with successive decompressors activated to bring each cylinder in individually, and some versions had an air start system as a back up system; they also had the ratchet mechanism fitted to prevent them kicking back and some had a wind up starting mechanism which was a huge spring which was wound up manually and then released and these were used in mining and other FLP applications where batteries and starter motors were not viable due to the legislation.

Never hand started a 6 but I have hand started a 4 cylinder version using the decompressors and it was remarkable easy so I think the 6 cylinder is feasible.

It began life in a bus and after two years the bus had an argument with a bridge in bad weather and the bus lost, after being written off the engine was removed and stored for about another two years and my father paid scrap price for it, as a child when most people were buying children tool kits I got an engine and this was mounted on a frame and we sourced many components such as a radiator and an uprated fan and it powered many things, and it has gotton me into trouble on numerous occasions. As a mechanical apprentice I designed and built an exquisite gearbox for it and built it from scratch, I cast the aluminium housing and machined it and used Whitworth bolts on every piece of it, machined every shaft and hobbed every gear, and built the most exquisite clutch assembly for it, she has run anything and everything over the years and even ran a mates cider crusher which shredded his apples when his crop was harvested.

This 4 way gearbox currently runs a 32 Kw three phase alternator on the end shaft, and a diesel pump on one side shaft, and a hydraulic pump on the other side shaft, the top shaft is spare.
 
Assassin said:
Its a 6LX and it isn't in a boat, it was bought for me by my father and as he is no longer with us it has great sentimental value to me.

There were many versions of these engines and in some scenarios they came with a individual decompression lever fitted and hand cranking capability so they could be hand cranked and fire on one cylinder with successive decompressors activated to bring each cylinder in individually, and some versions had an air start system as a back up system; they also had the ratchet mechanism fitted to prevent them kicking back and some had a wind up starting mechanism which was a huge spring which was wound up manually and then released and these were used in mining and other FLP applications where batteries and starter motors were not viable due to the legislation.

Never hand started a 6 but I have hand started a 4 cylinder version using the decompressors and it was remarkable easy so I think the 6 cylinder is feasible.

It began life in a bus and after two years the bus had an argument with a bridge in bad weather and the bus lost, after being written off the engine was removed and stored for about another two years and my father paid scrap price for it, as a child when most people were buying children tool kits I got an engine and this was mounted on a frame and we sourced many components such as a radiator and an uprated fan and it powered many things, and it has gotton me into trouble on numerous occasions. As a mechanical apprentice I designed and built an exquisite gearbox for it and built it from scratch, I cast the aluminium housing and machined it and used Whitworth bolts on every piece of it, machined every shaft and hobbed every gear, and built the most exquisite clutch assembly for it, she has run anything and everything over the years and even ran a mates cider crusher which shredded his apples when his crop was harvested.

This 4 way gearbox currently runs a 32 Kw three phase alternator on the end shaft, and a diesel pump on one side shaft, and a hydraulic pump on the other side shaft, the top shaft is spare.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the reply
That was very interesting much more so than being stuck in a bilge somewhere.
 
wonderful stuff Assassin

I know of a original full gasket set for a 6LX... or it might be an 8. Anyway if of any interest I think I took some pics a few years ago when we unearthed it at a friends house and I know he still has it.
 
Well, things took an upturn today when my mate rang and said the rebuild kit is here and off I went with injectors in hand, they were rebuilt to the usual Gardner standards of the highest standards and apart from some of his employees "taking the piss" all went well and they were rebuilt and their break pressures set accordingly, despite his workforce giving him some stick he set them up correctly first time and got their break pressures within their working range through experience of shimming injectors. They were fine tuned to their optimum setting and they are now back in the engine.

With the fuel system bled and a freshly charged set of batteries attached she was cranked up and as usual with these engines, she started first time, she had a run on a light load for an hour and warmed up nicely and stopped, the oil was drained and her filters removed and replaced, she had a drink of 6 gallons of Morris's classic SAE 30 and cranked over again and had come cooling system cleaner thrown into her, she ran for about 30 minutes and the coolant was drained and the system was flushed, new anti freeze was added; while I was at it she had a new air filter.
 
When I was a kid at a haualge firm they had an Erf with a 8 pot gerdner and it had the levers on the injector pump and I was told the driver could shut off cylinders to save fuel when running empty?

We also had 6 6 potters the first of the turbo versions and they were always in the workshop, in fact it was one fitters full time job to do nothing but keep these 6 engiens running.
 
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