Fairbanks Morse again

Greg K

Well-known Member
A few days ago I posted about seeing a large engine on a generator. I got some pics of it today and some of other ones in the building. I think the large on was a 7/14 cylinder, opposed piston design. The others I believe are diesels and of 2,3,4 cylinder variations. One of those was just used last year!
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Nope. I didn't know they had one, now I will have to go see. These are in a small town power plant(backup generators) and have obviously been there a LONG time.
 
I think my neighboring town had a couple of those in a power plant when I was a kid. Seems to me they scrapped them out a decade or so ago.
 
We had a big six cylinder we worked on when I was in trade school. It had a generator on it. There were two smaller gas powered generators next to it that we would start then send the current thru the generator on the big six cylinder and that would start it. The oil filter on the big six was the size of a water heater. Max RPM 625.
 
Our Ruritan Club was given a FM 2 cylinder, 2-stroke cycle Diesel Model 32 E 12, HP 120, 360 RPM the other year from an antique engine club that was laid down. Moved it in Nov, built a new pad and shed, and had it running at our Labor Day event - Silk Hope near Siler City NC. I understand that it used to run all week at a flour mill. Started by compressed air, it does make some noise!
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I meant at the Old Thresher grounds at McMillan Park. They have a big engine and generator in there. It seems to me that it looks just like it.
Maybe my memory is is little off.....
 
They've got a bunch of BIG old power units at Mt. Pleasant, some steam, some diesel, all configurations. Really neat. One's a huge Allis Chalmers.
 
We have four simliar to them in our city power plant and I think they will burn 3 different types of fuel.
 
They have an enterprise straight 12 diesel in the power plant at where I retired from the Air Force. It is compressed air started and drives a 4160 volt generator. This generator is used to power the operations floor only of my former unit. They also have 2 India made v8 diesel generators to power the rest of the building.

Leonard
 
We're making new crankshafts for new 9 cylinder F-M opposed engines right now...We make cranks for GE, EMD, and ALCO locomotives & power units, and sometimes see the F-M's.

The F-M cranks are so much different than the normal stuff..they look like they were designed by an artist rather than an engineer. Or maybe an engineer with artistic flair. They seem to be not as "stout" as the other cranksafts; more "elegant" in their design.

In a world where many things are over-designed, perhaps these were optimized for best use of material? Hard to say; the original design is from the 1950's.
 
This FM was moved into the town park after no longer used in Farmersville, Texas (home of Audie Murphy, WWII decorated hero & movie star) city power plant. No, not him in picture. Man to show relative size of engine/generator.
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Sad to see the one sitting outside, not under
cover. They can go to ruin quickly. Like old
railroad steam engines. one generation preserves
them..the next places no value on them and says,
"Let's scrap that rusty trash"!
 
In 1962 while in college I operated a municipal diesel-electric plant with a max out-put of about 800 KW. (hope my decimal is right) It had a 2, a 3 and a 6 cylinder diesel powered units for generation, of the same vintage as the 2 cylinder pictured here. The holes in the flywheel allowed you to rotate the piston with a long bar, to the proper position so that when compressed air was applied to the intake, the engine would rotate and start. There was also a opposed piston engine, started with air, like the one pictured. I believe that this engine was two cycle, had a blower on it and was used a lot for propulsion in ship-board operations. All these engines were Fairbanks Morse.
 
At the Mine that I used to work at in Death Valley, California they had six, 12 cylinder inline Diesels, each hooked up to a generator that produced 4160 Volts @ 1000 Amps. One of my jobs was to do the oil & filter changes on these monsters. Each engine used 100 gallons of oil which had to be hand pumped into the engine.
 

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