Slightly off topic but we have a 3 cylinder lister air cooled at work, it's
20hp and runs a wood chipper (american and originally petrol powered but converted by the importer). As it has become a bit old it's slow to start but performs well and doesn't burn oil.One of the reasons it is slow to start is that it is permanently coupled to the wood chipping disc via a twin vee belt, with the vee belts removed it strats within 10 seconds on the colder days.
Apart from a more powerful starter motor it looks like the best option is to fit a clutch. The obvious thing is to have an idler roller tensioning the belts but this would involve extra levers and pivots. The other would be a clutch on the chipping disc which driven via a taperloc on a ~40mm (or imperial equivalent) shaft. There is about a 2:1 reduction in the belt drive at present. So is it possible to have a ~150mm twin groove pulley taperloc with an integral dog clutch? Then the engine can be started with no load, warmed up (OK not ideal from a wear point of view) and then restarted once the clutch is engaged?
Andrew Heggie