DD 3-53 runs GREAT now! "We can do it"!

What kind of supercharger does the 53 series use? Roots, like the 71 series?

It has a gear driven blower. There are different other configurations available.

i

You could use it as the power unit for your new and improved elephant rotisserie...

Jokes aside, I could make a snowblower from it.

Yes, however I'd consider moving somewhere where it doesn't snow...

The Detroits don't really run superchargers. The roots style unit operates at barely over atmospheric pressure. It is there because without it the engine would not run. The porting in the cylinder is such that there is very little vacuum to draw in air, the easy solution is the pump on the side. Now you can set them up to run over-speed to provide some boost but it isn't recommended, for that a turbo is the better choice.

Yeah, I've read that. I never had the chance to dig into a 2-stroke diesel. My uncle's 42-foot lobsterman was designed for a 6-71, but by the time she was built, a much lighter Caterpillar V8 had become a popular choice, and he opted for that. To ballast the boat with the Cat, versus the GM, he had to put several hundred pounds of lead pigs down around the engine.

I now think that this DD is a lovely engine, very easy to work with and understand.

i

I think it would be lovely to have an engine like that, to keep for a while and learn something about diesels. And it would be so nice to be able to work on it without contorting yourself like a pretzel.

When my uncle's boat was built, he was about 65, 6'2", and weighed around

240. I was 25, 5'9" and around 155. Guess who had to crawl under the deck to maintain the damned thing, and to overhaul the petcocks for the cooling system, banging his head on deck purlins and sitting with his butt in bilgewater?

Good guess...

Yep. It is outside, right now, so i can work on it without contorting myself. (and withuot the risk of being entrapped in a trailer with this engine out of control).

sounds not fun. This is kind of why I sold my boat.

i

But I got to fish offshore 12 months/year. It was worth it, especially after I laid into a bluefin tuna. At least I didn't have to pay for the heating oi....er, the diesel fuel. d8-)

That's sure to go over well with the Chicago PETA crowd, huh?

-- "Human nature itself is evermore an advocate for liberty. There is also in human nature a resentment of injury, and indignation against wrong. A love of truth and a veneration of virtue. These amiable passions, are the latent spark. If the people are capable of understanding, seeing and feeling the differences between true and false, right and wrong, virtue and vice, to what better principle can the friends of mankind apply than to the sense of this difference?" --John Adams

Aw come on, the only reason your uncle gave you the task was so you would realize that a college education was not a bad thing after all...

I had such a "factory tour" 24 years ago, that convinced me to get higher education...

i

Oh, yeah, he did plenty of that when I was younger. In his previous boat, my job at the end of a day of fishing was to scrub the dried chum off of the gunwales. He wouldn't let me use a chisel.

Then there was hand-sanding the old varnish off of brightwork every spring, before re-varnishing. And gutting the damned bluefish in a rolling sea, while they were puking chum all over me. Sheesh.