Petter three cylinder Diesel

Gentlemen,

Today I went to the Lamport Railways small rally with a friend to see Martin Percy who had very kindly rebuilt a Villiers coil for his partners son. The coil belonged to a 40's/50's Lawnmower that I had acquired for the lad and he couldn't wait to get it home to fit it. Any way whilst we were there we looked around the rally and came across a low loader Artic unit with a three cylinder Petter on its trailer, I read the history and found that the MOD has bought a pair with generators as standby sets and later on the were sold to Piano Forte and engineering company just west of the M1 junction 15 Northamptonshire, during their life they were fitted with superchargers to improve performance. I am not sure but I believe the company has recently gone and the site is being reclaimed hence these two engines came to light. All relevant bits including gantries, ladders and guarding etc have been recovered. I don't know were they will end up but got the impression it will be local. If you care to look in the usual place(address below) I took a couple of pictures.

Martin P

Gentlemen,

Could I beg your forgiveness and say it is a six cylinder not three cylinder engine.

Thank you.

Martin P

Six cylinder Petter SuperScavenge Series V Mk 1 fitted with blowers from new - sound nice when running!

We hope to have our four cylinder SS here running in the New Year, The Anson also has a four cylinder genset awaiting installation.

Paul

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Internal Fire, Museum of Power, Wales

Internal Fire Museum of Power is a Not-for-Profit company registered in the UK

Superscavenge engines, the blowers were fitted as standard as these are uniflow two strokes..

Tom

during their life they were fitted with superchargers to improve performance.

Gentlemen,

Sorry if I got it wrong, I only wrote what the history said.

Martin P

What sort of date are these Paul?

It surprises me that something as apparently simple as a blower should be bought in by Petters. Are the blowers very clever in some way?

Thanks for the photos, Martin. Thanks also for the 3 bonus cylinders ;-).

Regards, Arthur G

sound nice when running!

also has a four cylinder genset awaiting

"Arthur Griffin wrote

bought in by Petters. Are the blowers very

Plate on the blower says 1947 which would be right. The blowers are standard Root's type delivering at about 2 p.s.i. They are a fairly high precision lump and there would have been no point in Petters re-inventing the wheel so why not buy them in.

I think I'm right in saying that most manufacturers bought their blowers in from the likes of Brown-Boveri, Napier, Holmes, Wades, Buchi etc.

Paul

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Internal Fire, Museum of Power, Wales

Internal Fire Museum of Power is a Not-for-Profit company registered in the UK

bought in by Petters. Are the blowers very

Root's type delivering at about 2 p.s.i.

Petters re-inventing the wheel so why not

from the likes of Brown-Boveri, Napier,

Just a small point, Paul, that should be Roots. :-)

Tom

new - sound nice when running!

Anson also has a four cylinder genset awaiting

make the effort to go, its a brilliant place and Paul ( and his family I dare say) has put in a amazing amout of effort to get it all up and running. Steve the grease

bought in by Petters. Are the blowers very

As Paul says, no reason to invent a new unit when there are existing makers (and Patents to get around)

The compressors/blowers were used on two-strokes to get more exhaust gas out of the cylinder before the new charge of air came in. The Petter Harmonic was another engine that 'needed' a blower but used a form of tuned exhaust instead, which was covered by the Kadenacy Patents at the time and is why Petters stopped production so abruptly.

One of the strange things in Petters' history is why they went up to such large sizes of engines, and yet within a few years it was all thrown out of the door and they went back to making tiddly engines (albeit at much larger volumes) which brought them into direct competition with so many other makers.

The Superscavenge was a main propulsion/auxiliary engine which had a reasonable market from what I know, and yet it was all gone in a matter of a year or so. probably the War had something to do with it, but it still seems strange.

Peter

-- Peter & Rita Forbes snipped-for-privacy@easynet.co.uk Engine pages for preservation info:

The SS design used the Kadenacy system which was licensed by Petters from Armstrong Whitworth who held the patents. Manufacture was by Brush and they were built from 1937 through to 1948/49, not sure when the last engine was built.

Paul

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Internal Fire, Museum of Power, Wales

Internal Fire Museum of Power is a Not-for-Profit company registered in the UK

Since Celia had not seen it we visited yesterday. Although not an engine person she was most impressed. As a bonus I finally persuaded the APRC to run :-) ttfn Roland