Horsepower from Distillates

Posted by Michael Soldan on December 29, 2002 at 05:28:48 from (216.46.130.65):

We've had several discussions on this board about distillates but there are some things that come to mind that all need to understand. Ira from Pennsylvnia has reminded us all. Distillate tractors had a distillate manifold which allowed the fuel to be heated to vapour before it was sucked in on the intake stroke. The manifold also had a heat shield which encompassed the entire manifold to ensure the fuel was pre heated. Your tractor needed shutters to close to make it operate at a high temperature and that meant"HOT" on your guage. As was mentioned in our latest distillate discussion kerosene has more potential energy than gasolene. When a distillate tractor was set up correctly it could crank out more power than running on gasolene. While you may question this I heard my father say many times that the M would pull better on kerosene when it came time for fall plowing and even past the war years he would use kerosene if the fuel dealer had some available. I don't understand why it has been refered to as the poor man's fuel. During the war years gasolene was needed for the war effort and even though farmers could still get gasolene for food production International Harvester developed the lower compression engine for the task of farming. Alternate fuels is not a new concepy of today and thus calling diesel fuel the poorman's fuel has no more merit in time than calling kerosene poor man's fuel. I can still see the Farmall M pulling the three furrow drag plow a steady stream of dark smoke from the stack and the steady drone of the engine on kerosene, I'll never waver from my perspective of distillates, unfortunately they aren't available. Some tractors of the 20's and 30's were even designed to burn stove oil and used motor oil as a fuel. Basically any distillate would burn if the engine was hot enough and set up for it. I welcome your comments .....Mike in Exeter Ontario

Follow Ups:

• Re: Horsepower from Distillates Peter 08:05:32 12/29/02 (2)
  • Re: Re: Horsepower from Distillates Drain Cocks 08:27:46 12/29/02 (1)
    • Re: Re: Re: Horsepower from Distillates Steven@nd 09:38:32 12/29/02 (0)
• Re: Horsepower from Distillates Gary in west IL 07:39:45 12/29/02 (1)
  • Re: Re: Horsepower from Distillates Zonie 11:27:10 12/29/02 (0)
• Re: Horsepower from Distillates Steven@nd 06:46:50 12/29/02 (1)
  • Re: Re: Horsepower from Distillates Doug in OR 10:54:57 12/29/02 (0)

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