The book "Diesel's Engines, From Conception to 1918-" by Lyle Cummins is an
excellent book and well worth the read. I got mine from Linsay's. It
describes all of the trials and tribulations of Rudolf Diesel,especially for
the big engines. His engines used crossheads just like the one in the link.


"Stan Schaefer" wrote in message
om...
Jim McGill wrote in message
...
Wow, that's what I want for Xmas. Check out the built in ladders down
into the crank case wells.

As for starting, look at the second picture. That's a heck of a big
electric motor there next to that giant gear. It just looks small
compared to all the other pieces.

I guess what amazes me is how similar it is to a small diesel. For some
reason I'd expect things to change when they get that large, but
everything, even the head studs are just scaled up (and more detailed).
Must be some kind of lathe that turned those pistons. And the mill that
faced that crank case block (which looks to be a single casting - also
pretty scary) - YEOW!!!! That finishing cutter looks like it was 12" in
diameter at least.

Awesome.

Jim

Unlikely that any of the main parts is a solid casting, they were
fabricating large diesels as far back as the '30s from flame-cut steel
sheet weldments. I've got a book on high-speed diesels from that era,
there's a picture of a guy standing in the engine block and stick
welding the crankshaft bearing supports. After all the welding was
done, the whole works went into an oven for stress relief and finish
machining was completed afterwards on the bearing and cylinder liner
areas.

Stan