Engine history

[beardshave]

Been chatting with a neighbour and mentioned my Dorman 3LB before installation in my boat in '83 had been the standby generator at the laundry of the John Ratcliffe Hospital, Oxford. He tells me his JP3 was a generator on an army truck used for powering searchlights. I expect most of the marinised engines have had a previous life. Did yours? Just wondering.👍

[alan_fincher]

The Lister HA2 now in SICKLE was reputedly from a standby generator set, but I don't know whose.

 

Small correction - the very famous hospital  in Oxford is the John Radcliffe.

[Tracy D'arth]

Some of mine have been from Royal Mail vans!

[BEngo]

Being a Kelvin, mine has always been a Marine  engine.  Originally ordered for a new boat to be called Skylark,  to a Brighton address.  Tripping between the piers maybe?

 

It was not able to be delivered by the desired  date in August 1946, probably because Britain was in the midst of post war shortages.  

 

Delivered ex factory in  Oct 1946 it went to an East Devon boatyard, but I am unable to decipher the photocopied  spider scrawl that tells me exactly where or for which boat.

 

What it did after that, and where it was I have no idea.  I bought it, nearly completely  disassembled,  in 1984, from a chap in Lichfield, who had taken it in partex for a JP2. It has been in Jarrah since 1989.

 

N

[MtB]

10 minutes ago, BEngo said:

Being a Kelvin, mine has always been a Marine  engine.  Originally ordered for a new boat to be called Skylark,  to a Brighton address.  Tripping between the piers maybe?

 

Did not quite a few get installed in lighthouses? Or is that an urban myth? 

 

It strikes me that owners (or more particularly, sellers) are free to make up whatever tosh they like about the origins of their engine, in cases where there is no supporting documentation!

[BEngo]

The Kelvins used for blowing lighthouse fog horns  were standard marine engines, with the gearbox removed.

 

Any way, is not operating a lighthouse fog horn  a marine activity?

 

1 hour ago, MtB said:

 

It strikes me that owners (or more particularly, sellers) are free to make up whatever tosh they like about the origins of their engine, in cases where there is no supporting documentation!

Once upona time, if you visited Kyle St, and asked nicely they would go and dig out your engine records, provided it was a post 1908 built engine. These contain all the order details, including the accessories like prop shafting and fuel tanks,  test and set-up records, including the oil jet sizes and fuel consumption, the shipping details for the various items ordered and then a listing of the spare parts sold during the engine's life.  I have a copy of the ones for my model J.  I think these records are now in Glasgow university archives.

 

Then you could have a factory tour.  When I went round they still had the model J2 used for setting governors, the only model R2 ever built and were assembling model S and T engines.

N

 

[David Mack]

4 hours ago, MtB said:

Did not quite a few get installed in lighthouses? Or is that an urban myth? 

According to @koukouvagia's website:

 

The Northern Lighthouse Board put Kelvin twin cylinder K2 engines into 12 lighthouses to charge up the foghorns. 

Each lighthouse had three engines – two in use and one on standby.  They received relatively light use – about 500 hours per year and were regularly serviced and lovingly maintained. 

 

In the late 80s the lighthouses were automated and the Kelvins were no longer required.  Many were destroyed and one or two found their way into museums.  The Kelvin in Owl came from Langness Lighthouse on the Isle of Man.  It was taken and dumped at the Laxey Heritage centre and would, no doubt, have ended up as scrap had not Phil Trotter of RWDavis, Saul,  rescued and rebuilt it.

 

https://www.narrowboatowl.com/the-engines

[Secret Garden]

There was a guy around in 2009 when I last looked that could trace Gardner engines through their serial #

Mine was apparently used previously as a deck winch from a vessel c1947.

Long since had to sell the boat (Secret Garden) but hope it's still going strong. 

[Mike Tee]

My Petter PH2W was apparently first installed in a fishing boat - no other details, which is a shame! Blows nice smoke rings on a windless day.

[LEO]

Hi,

 

The Gardner 2LW (March1957) in my nb. was like many other 2LW's exported to South Africa, to work in various jobs in the gold mines. 'Digging' round and with the help of the Gardner website I have details of the original order when lots of them were exported to power small Hunslet rail traction engines, order dated 1956/57. It was probably repatriated about 1998,and again like many rebuilt by Walshes. Attached is a pic of the small Hunslet engines and the restored engine. It was probably and early restoration, not highly polished and it gives great service. I had this picture made into a computerised jig saw puzzle, brill if you like puzzles......Happy Days.

Edited April 6 by LEO

[matty40s]

4 hours ago, Secret Garden said:

There was a guy around in 2009 when I last looked that could trace Gardner engines through their serial #

Mine was apparently used previously as a deck winch from a vessel c1947.

Long since had to sell the boat (Secret Garden) but hope it's still going strong. 

If that's the Stowe Hill Secret Garden then yes, still going, resold by RBS in about 2018 I recall.

 

My 2L2 from 1943 was originally in an liverpool dock crane, no idea of its interim history until its installation in Old Friends in about 1996 by Duncan Penkey.

[Secret Garden]

15 hours ago, matty40s said:

If that's the Stowe Hill Secret Garden then yes, still going, resold by RBS in about 2018 I recall.

 

 

That's the one

[Ray T]

Just purely from observation on my part, during my travels for BT, the smaller telephone exchanges had Gardner or Lister engines as standby generators. These were regularly run and well maintained, with not a lot of hours on them. @cuthound will know more. I don’t know if any finished up in canal boats though.

 

Edited April 7 by Ray T

[davidg]

During my area training I went to the main exchange in Bradford. The standby generators there were big units, 6+ cylinders (didn't pay much attention to these), which started on compressed air. If they failed to start there was a donkey engine to recharge the air in the receiver which was a Lister JP2, that did attract my interest as I wondered how many more of these well maintained, low hours engines there were dotted around the phone network.

[max's son]

The person who bought Ballinger off dad fitted a Junkers engine see story here https://worcestervista.com/index.php/mechanics/renovating-ballinger/

it now has  a Doman  which I believe came from Heathrow airport.

[ditchcrawler]

4 hours ago, max's son said:

The person who bought Ballinger off dad fitted a Junkers engine see story here https://worcestervista.com/index.php/mechanics/renovating-ballinger/

it now has  a Doman  which I believe came from Heathrow airport.

A good read, thanks

[cuthound]

9 hours ago, Ray T said:

Just purely from observation on my part, during my travels for BT, the smaller telephone exchanges had Gardner or Lister engines as standby generators. These were regularly run and well maintained, with not a lot of hours on them. @cuthound will know more. I don’t know if any finished up in canal boats though.

 

 

I recall seeing many 4 cylinder Listers in small TE's, but no Gardners. I don't know of any that made it into a canal boat.

 

The medium to bigger exchanges had Blackstone, Perkins, Dorman, Cummins etc and the very largest TEs had high speed (1000 rpm or more) turbocharged Cummins, Dorman, MAN etc or low (400 rpm) or medium (600 rpm) speed engines such as WH Allen, Ruston etc. 

Edited April 7 by cuthound
phat phingers

[jonathanA]

When I worked at Preston main exchange, it had a massive Mirlees diesel. I was told it was a "submarine engine" it drove a half megawatt alternator so guess it was a big un.... you could hear and feel the rumble through the whole building when it started up. Can't remember what the donkey engine was. 

[cuthound]

49 minutes ago, jonathanA said:

When I worked at Preston main exchange, it had a massive Mirlees diesel. I was told it was a "submarine engine" it drove a half megawatt alternator so guess it was a big un.... you could hear and feel the rumble through the whole building when it started up. Can't remember what the donkey engine was. 

 

Later engines (from 1969 IIRC) were badged Mirlees Blackstone. 

[NB Esk]

My 2LB came out of the deck mounted crane aboard the Esk dredger.  Shown are before and after pictures of the restoration.

 

[TheBiscuits]

5 hours ago, NB Esk said:

Shown are before and after pictures of the restoration.

 

It must have taken you ages to get all that green paint off and hand apply the yellow and reddish brown effect ...

[GRLMK38]

On 06/04/2024 at 11:19, Secret Garden said:

There was a guy around in 2009 when I last looked that could trace Gardner engines through their serial #

Mine was apparently used previously as a deck winch from a vessel c1947.

Long since had to sell the boat (Secret Garden) but hope it's still going strong. 

 

You may be referring to Geoff at the Anson Engine Museum.  https://enginemuseum.org/

 

He provided all the original client order details and dates for my engine in return for a small donation to the museum coffers ....

[jonesthenuke]

Our Gardner 3LW came from a Smiths crawler crane. Apparently they had two engines, one for the caterpillar tracks and one for the winch, ours being the track engine. No idea what type the other engine was.

 

[ditchcrawler]

8 hours ago, TheBiscuits said:

 

It must have taken you ages to get all that green paint off and hand apply the yellow and reddish brown effect ...

Maybe it was done by a well known narrowboat engine reconditioner ?  😇 

[Binkie's Grandson]

My Perkins 3.152 was previously used as a standby generator and the guy who fitted out the boat in the early '90s told me the Borg Warner Velvet Drive came from a forklift truck