Generating Set Questions

[Rod Salter]

Hello all,
I should not be allowed out of the shed.

I have attended an auction near here recently

First a trip to the property for an inspection of the lots

Then bidding on line, a strange experience, and 2 more trips to drag it home

Among other things, I was the successful bidder on an old chev engine block with only 5 pistons in it at $40
This is now stripped out and will have the cylinders bored to make up the engine from the two trees with blitzs scenario



There were a few items passed in to me, having failed to reach the estimated scrap value, after some persistent negotiations I was able to collect a BIG tyre pump and a BIG battery charger for under the reserved scrap value,
I left some of the others for the scrap man or another sale.

But Seriously, The compressor is an Ingersoll-Rand with a Waukesha 4 cylinder engine.
It is a WW2 ex army Ingersoll Rand 100/125CFM compressor, quite a few of these were imported into Aust. under Lend Lease. The single axle trailer is Australian made, the compressor and engine were of US origin, the whole thing was assembled here. The wheels are the standard 18" Australian trailer wheels
Interestingly this old tyre has the original pattern
The VIK engine is the same bore & stroke as the Oliver 80 K-D tractors. The Oliver 18/27/18-28 and 80 series used the VI series Waukesha engines. Oliver used those engines from 1930 till after World War 2



The pintle ring has been repaired
The motor turns and has spark from the magneto, so with a clean of the petrol tank and carby, it should be a goer.
I will eventually make the square-ish style mudguards (like this) and paint it, I may even attach some tail lights



I would be interested in maybe changing the manifold to a tractor heater system to enable it to run on power kerosene as this unit is.



I wonder if Mike Kelly ever found another one to rat parts from? I am missing the air-cleaner

A pic from the internet. Same tread pattern

[Rod Salter]

Now the Generating set is made in Australia in 1945 by Westinghouse and Rosebery
Model E3 and is rated at 3 kva. Weight 1090 lbs.
A huge heavy unit considering the small power output
There are conflicting voltages indicated on the plates, therefore I won't actually know what it generates until I have it running.



It was seemingly stuck. I tipped a half a cup of diesel down each of the plug holes for the night
Next morning, a pry bar easily had it moving, actually I surmise the mice and mud hornets in the main generator was the cause of it being stuck, not the engine.

I have spent a day on it, firstly removing the petrol tank, this will need some serious cleaning out, with rust and dried green petrol gunk inside!
Then I serviced the starter motor, also the water pump before turning it over with the starter using an old semi flat 12 volt battery

I removed and freed up the 3 control cables, coating them with graphite/moly grease before pushing them back into the outers

The push/pull ignition switch had been replaced at some time and now was also stuck, I managed to wreck it in trying to get it free

I went into the switch collection for a replacement and found it needing a clean and the tin rivets replacing

Now here is the strangest thing, most perplexing, 5 draws and a number of clip containers of small bolts and nuts are not here!
Am I going nuts? I have lost all my nuts!
To carry 5 draws, that frequently flip upside down and scatter the contents, well I would never take them all at once like that, and then there needs to be a flat surface to put them on, and there aren’t any of those here
What about all the other containers too?
I'll chalk it to my getting shorter - short term memory and maybe they will turn up someday

The switch was eventually repaired and wired in, taking over 2 hours mostly looking for the vanished draws ect,

Rhetorically, Why would the original wires be disconnected and replacement plastic coated wires run in parallel?

Anyway I connected all the originals back


The little 6 volt engine generator was stalling the fan belt so I took it off to service it

This generator is a replacement, as the original was wired differently according to the wiring plate's diagram

These are the 3 brush type, fixed output, requiring no regulator, only a cut out

Upon disassembly I could see the armature was “polling”, in fact it was almost a tight fit in the field coils. Why? Maybe from a different generator??

After some thought, I put it in the lathe and shaved about 20 thou off, then after greasing the bearing and bush and reassembly, it now turns freely, although I suspect the shaft is bent between the bearing and the windings.
Again, how would a thick shaft be bent between so short of a length? We will never know

The original generator had a 2nd terminal for the fields to an external resistor and switch for the provision of providing a “LOW” charge if the unit was run for extended periods.

I installed an insulated new terminal to enable all the original wiring to be reconnected.

The carburettor will require a clean, and the air cleaner is missing too!

So, It turns over, it has spark. When I get a 6 volt battery I'll give it a run


Finally the questions

What is this little engine in here with the distributor upright beside the head?





Has anyone got a manual that I could arrange to get a copy of?
I cannot find any other information on the internet of this square cornered Australian generator set
Has anyone any other information?

Any information or pics of the correct air-cleaner would be nice and of course a complete air-cleaner I could buy?

Cheers rod

[rob love]

I have the same basic IR compressor setup on a CMP trailer chassis. I used to use it for sandblasting....it idled for the majority of the time, kicking in maybe 1/3 of the time to top up the tank. The setup is very heavy (around 6000 pounds I believe) and also very thirsty. It would use a full jerry can of gas every 3 hours of run time.



I installed a 2 stage 7.5 hp electric compressor a few years ago in the shop, and run a hose over to the sandblast shed, so the old trailer has not been run up in a number of years now. I was just out to check on the engine a week back to make sure it would still turn over. There was no clapper on the exhaust pipe when I first got it, which had allowed the rain into the motor, seizing it slightly. Happy to report the clapper does it's job. While a tin can would also work, it is too easy to forget to re-install.

[Paul Singleton]

The engine looks like Ford 8 or 10 hp as used in many Fords such as the model Y and Prefect or Anglia.

[Mike K]

Re the compressor, I had some nos spares , heaps of manifold gaskets , nos valves and govener and other bits. I did get onto a few other owners , a gold miner at Ballarat used them for years . My unit I passed onto a guy in Drouin years ago. The air receiver on it I didn't trust .... The MMBW had a few of them , mine was painted yellow . Seems some of them had a Ford V8 instead of the Waukesha , going by the AWM pics. The engine in mine was badly worn out with cracked block . .The magneto is a US made Bosch with a clever built in spark retard mechanism so the engine won't kick back on the crank handle ...ouch. The air passed through a cooler to the second stage. I had manuals and parts book .Engine is model XAH