Anyone met this cold start system?

This is an extension from my bit in the Lanz Bulldog post on Tractors and more likely for some of your overseas participants.

We have a 5hp watercooled diesel made by Kelly and Lewis in Australia. Model VEB and we have the original manual. It was put on a nodding donkey pumphead on a bore (maybe tube well to you folk) in 1955 and still going strong.

It is the only one I have ever seen - even some old engine folk I've talked to don't know it and the googler doesn't either last time I checked.

From the Lanz post I found that K & L built those in Oz - which might explain the metric thread we've found on the oil pressure gauge. Never been deeper to check any other threads.

But the thought is that it may have also been produced under licence.

It has a very uncommon cold start assist. There is an insert in the intake tract one end of which is an open hole, the other a pad you soak in half diesel half petrol and insert in the intake. Then when running you reverse this and reinsert.

It rattles a bit on start but has done so since 1955 - without spanners so far.

So has anyone met this form of starting assist on anything else?

If so that might point to a source of licence. Or maybe it was K & L's own idea.

Hello Ian , first I must say that I am in no way an expert , more of an enthusiastic dabbler , that said I know of the Kelly and Lewis works almost intimately .
When a boy in the late 50's and early 60's I walked past the Kelly and Lewis pump plant in Springvale Victoria each day as I went to high school . My best mate at the time was a Polish boy whose father was an expert machinist and worked there. When something interesting was happening he would sneak us in through the tea room door and let us watch from a safe distance . Some huge pumps were cast there and equally huge shafts and impellers turned . We haunted this works for years at almost every opportunity. I knew every nook and cranny there .
After the second world war the Victorian Government in its wisdom thought its own tractor works would boost employment and the economy . The Lanz Bulldog was a popular make here and was well supported by service agents . The ravages of bombing during hostilities reduced the Lanz factory in Mannheim Germany to rubble and so parts and new tractors were unobtainable .
The KL Bulldog was meant to fill this gap . The tractors were almost clones of the original Lanz models except that the fuel tanks , pistons and other essential elements were produced from lighter materials . This '' cost saving '' measure led to many failures and a subsequent loss of confidence in the brand .

Despite the skills of Alios Murr a Lanz factory engineer who was interred during the war the Kelly and Lewis directors refused to take his advice and the project subsequently failed .Only 900 odd were ever made and Alios Murr made a subsequent career as a repair agent . The Lanz factory was rebuilt very quickly and genuine versions were available again .
Kelly and Lewis continued to produce pumps but engines were bought in from other manufacturers .
The metric thread you have found is a strong indication that the engine is either of German or Italian origin possibly a Landini . Australia is a metric country but has only been so since 1970 before this almost all domestic engineering was conducted in Imperial increments.
The starting assist you mention sounds a little like a starter igniter port , blotting paper soaked in potassium nitrate and then dried was shoved into the port to aid ignition and hence starting . Perhaps what you have was a variation on one of these systems .

Charles,

Thanks.

Seems odd that you didn't see any engine production as this one was new in 1955 - or was there another plant? The company products list was pretty diversified according to the back cover of the engine manual - from pumps to laundry, dry cleaning and textile machinery via electrical equipment and various other activities. But doesn't list tractors.

The start end of the intake insert closes the tract apart from small holes over the felt pad. It seems like the half diesel half petrol mix was a factory taming of the petrol rag over the intake that quite often wasn't to the lasting good of a diesel. When reversed the tract was fully open.

I would not be surprised at the design being licence built as the Ronaldson Tippets were licenced Gueldners - but wouldn't have a clue on whose. As far as I know the Southern Cross ones were home grown.

I should have mentioned that the tractors were cast and built at a plant in Tasmania . The KL Bulldog was finally available to the farming public in 1949 . Typical Government procrastination had seen the project stall for three years . US grants and rebuilding projects in Germany saw Lanz reach full production and the reliablity of their Bulldog saw the Australian version relegated to an also ran .

Sounds like a parallel run of the Chamberlain saga!

And we're supposed to let the government pick winners?

Charles FYI

http://forum1.aimoo.com/The_Old_Machinery_Magazine/m/OLD-MACHINERY-TALK/Kelly-and-Lewis-Engine-Register-1-1022431.html