Yair . . . Over on the Dutch Machinery thread D9gDon mentions a D337 with a Rootes blower . . . which I think is a straight six. At one stage I was running a 36" dewatering pump with a Rootes blown Cat only it was a V8 with the blower in the valley. I was told it had the same pistons and liners as a D8 of the era and it had originally been fitted with a fuel torque converter. What engine would this have been and what equiment ran it? . . . it has always been a bit of a mystery to me and anyone I've asked. Cheers
The V8 was the D375 and the V12 was the D397. The V12 was used a lot in draglines in coal country. I'm not sure about the V8s applications.
That would be a D375 engine,that was before the D353/D379 (6 1/4 bore) had one in a pump house down on lake okeechobee in south fla. years ago, one of loudest engines I've ever been around inside a metal shed. I used to work for Cat dealer years ago and tuned on it a little. It was a Industrial engine and as far as I know it was never used in any mobile equipment.
Yair . . . thanks fellers. At least you blokes know about them LOL. You're dead right mechanix that thing was LOUD, we had a few complaints from residents . . . and then it did the blower drive and I couldn't get parts straight away. We had to run it to keep the job dry and with no blower it was overfueling of course and talk about smoke when she picked up prime . . . more complaints even back then. Cheers.
What is a "Fuel torque converter"?
Yair . . . Steve Frazier .Some of the early torque converters utilised the diesel fuel from the tank instead of oil as the fluid medium . . . there would be folks on here probably who could comment as to why. It was a bit of a pain, subject to leaks and what all. Most of the early Allis Chalmers had the system along with the Cats . . . when they finally got away from straight stick shift. It was a bit of a disaster on the Cats as torque converters worked better at twenty one hundred than twelve hundred revs . . . why those industrial/marine engines had them I have no idea. Cheers.
Interesting! I can imagine they would be more prone to leaking and probably increased wear as well.
Scrub Puller, You are right. A cat 337 was a straight six engine. I know they were used in DW1 Scrapers but were turbocharged there and put out 275 Horse Power.
I think they were built by Allison, Steve. Anyway Cat, IHC and Allis Chalmers used then behind a flywheel clutch. As previously stated a torque works better behind a higher reving engine. Cat's answer was the Torque Divider, A torque converter with a set of planetary gears up front. They will stall while the machine is still moving(Impeller moving Turbine stopped) and when the machine does stop moving the Impeller is still moving and the Turbine is turning backwards. Later Bob
Scrub Puller - The Cat engines with Rootes superchargers were only produced between about 1950 and 1955, when turbochargers replaced them. The early D337's were supercharged, then in 1955, the D337 supercharger was replaced with a turbocharger. The D375 V8 was used in industrial and marine applications. The U.S. Navy used quite a few D375 engines, often in twin applications with counter-rotating engines to counter prop thrust. Cat had a policy from the 1930's to about the 1980's of identifying engines by cylinder bore dimensions, and utilising the same piston/ring/liner kit in all engines with that bore size. Nowadays, Cat use individual cylinder capacity as a method of identifying the engine "family", and I believe they still follow the policy of using the same liner kits for the same bore size engines. Bob - AFAIK, the diesel torque converter was designed and patented by the Twin Disc company, and the Twin Disc company either supplied all the diesel torque converters used in all makes of tractors that used them - or the diesel torque converters were built by the tractor manufacturer under licence to the T.D. Co. The diesel torque converters were quite good - they had the advantage of warming the fuel, as the diesel was pumped around between the TC and the fuel tank. Their major problem was related to leakage, they used special carbon seals that were fragile and still prone to leakage anyway. The oil TC's were a step up in reliability and effectiveness.
Yair . . . Thanks OzDozer . Your recources and knowege are amazing!
Thanks Oz, I know a lot of the clutches were Twin Disc, wasn't sure about the torques, any I have seen looked the same, big rivited housing like a very old water tank. I did run into a D8 once that would draw all the fuel away from the fuel system. Couldn't figure it out fast and wasn't getting payed so I left them with it. That was 33 yrs ago but since, with in the last 10 yrs saw a torque under load that would pull away pump flow faster than pump could put it up. It had a cast iron seal ring missing in the back by the bearing. Under load the torque inlet pressure was down near zero and the outlet was up around spec/60 Psi. That would make you scratch your head. Thinking back that may have been the D8's problem. Later Bob
Just thought I would say that when I was a young chap I poked a few shifts into a D9 with the fuel torque, there was a single disc clutch also hooked into it, the clutch was only to be worked at low idle, you selected gear then pulled in the clutch before increasing the engine speed, the level of fuel in the tank made a marked effect on the drive, plus as the load came off the blade the tractor speeded up dramaticaly and could easily catch you out, if you worked the single plate clutch with the engine speed at high idle, I was told it would damage the plate etc, so I was on my toe's a good amount controlling the beast. On the blown engine thing their is 2 DW style outfits parked next to each other in the U.K. 1 is fitted with the Roots style blower, the other has a turbo, also just thought it might be worth the script, that I was involved in converting a D9 from the blown back end to the oil cooled (Wet) case years ago, this involved drilling and tapping etc after scrubbing out the case by hand, it was like the Devil's Coal Bin in that case, what a crap job.
Yair . . . All interesting comments fellers. The Allis Chalmers HD20/21's were interesting beasts, dry hand clutch in front of fuel torque converter then a short shaft into a two speed and reverse box. As far as I recall first gear ran fron track-spin up to about three and a half MPH and second ran from track stall up to about nine. They were real good scoop tractors. Once you got the knack of dabbing the PCU as you went through neutral you could shift them on the fly . . . when you got real good you could do a double shuffle on the hand clutch and decell and slip back into first as you came back to the cut. We used second occasionaly when pulling light open country. Just used to clatter along with R.M. on the decel and then feed it to them when they hit a bit of load. It was a bit disconcerting for folks who had never seen torque converter tractors working as they seemed to be progressing in a series of jerks, the tracks stall completely untill the revs build up enough torque to pull the tree. Cheers.
Tony - You brought up a good point, that was a very dangerous trait of the fuel converters. I can recall being told that they killed quite a number of A-C operators, who drove the early A-C dozers fitted with fuel converters. These blokes were killed when pushing big bladefuls over high benches with vertical drops, in mountainous country. The dirt would slip away from the blade as it reached the edge, and as soon as the load was off the blade, the A-C tractors with the fuel converter would take off like a rocket. If the operator wasn't deadly fast on the reflexes, and wasn't ready with his hand on the clutch lever - the tractor would be over the edge of the bench, before the operator could disengage the clutch. Numerous operators who were only used to stick-shift machines were apparently caught out in this deadly manner - before any bosses woke up to what was happening, and commenced to warn operators of the new TC machines, to be very careful in this job situation, and to ensure that they were always prepared to throw the clutch out, quickly and early.