Aftermarket Carbs

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Model T Ford Forum: Forum 2005: Aftermarket Carbs
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Stan Howe on Wednesday, November 07, 2007 - 02:11 am:

I finally had a day to spend fooling around in the shop so I started on making a display rack for some of my carburetors. I don't anywhere near what some of you do, I'm sure but have about twenty, I think. I've had some of them on display in a glass case but decided I wanted to do something else with them. I just got a couple new ones, the Griffen and the Rayfield. I have a few more but don't have them out and cleaned up. Didn't get the rack done either. Maybe tomorrow.



Here is the most interesting one I have. It is an H & N. I've not been able to find anything about it.







Here is a Griffin, it is the smallest one I have.



Here is a Rayfield, it is the biggest.


Wheeler Shebler\

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Winfield



Zenith



A group of Stromberg OF's.



U & J



Stromberg RF



Toquet



Briscoe



Air Friction



I'll post more some time when I have time to get them out.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By dave willis on Wednesday, November 07, 2007 - 05:19 am:

have you got a master[miller] carb in the bunch? they have a cool rotary throttle barrel with a slight helix that exposes a jet bar with the proper number of jets for the degree of opening.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Ted Schmidt on Wednesday, November 07, 2007 - 05:26 am:

Stan, Do you know if you have a caburetor in your collection that was used exclusively for using alcohol for fuel? Several years ago I read about a carb that burned alcohol as the Ford was dubbed the farmers car and farmers had the materials to make there own fuel and most had a still also. That was when the government started taxing the alcohol at a high rate and making it too costly for the farmer to stay legal and brought on by the big oil companies. It will be interesting to see where this goes. Ted Schmidt Stan, if you come by Miles City on your way east, give me a call, I'm in the book.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Royce Peterson on Wednesday, November 07, 2007 - 09:31 am:

Alcohol was never considered for use as motor fuel seriously in Model T days. It simply has too many drawbacks compared to gasoline.

There are some ultra radical "green" web sites that make such claims but when pressed for any historical account of such events there is none to be found that does not lead to an unsubstantiated modern source.

Royce


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Jerry VanOoteghem on Wednesday, November 07, 2007 - 10:03 am:

The Briscoe carb was also sold as the Scoe and was standard equipment on Gray automobiles. The Gray had much in common with the T which it sought to compete with, (unsuccessfully). The Gray had a common oil sump with the transmission, although it used a 3 speed sliding gear type. It had the exact same horn as a Model T. Had a two petcock oil checking. Thermosyphon. It did not use vibrator coils however. The car was of poor quality with most components woefully underdesigned, i.e. cheap, and lasted only 5 years.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Stan Howe on Wednesday, November 07, 2007 - 07:05 pm:

Dave, I've never seen one of those Miller or Master Carbs. I don't have much or the rare stuff, just what I've managed to snag off T-bay the last few years and a couple finds from auctions.

Royce, how can you say "never?" Considered by whom? By every hopeful farmer in America who read the articles in the magazines touting alcohol made by farmers as the answer to the oil barons controlling the price of fuel? I don't think so. It might not have been seriously considered by the engineers at the automobile companies or the petroleum engineers but to say that no one ever considered it seriously certainly simplifies the issue and ignores vast amounts of paper and print dedicated to the idea in the day.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Royce Peterson on Wednesday, November 07, 2007 - 07:42 pm:

Stan,

Lets put it this way. I've spent all of my life (since I learned to read LOL!) reading everything I could get my hands on about Model T's. Never once has there been mention of Henry Ford attempting to use alcohol as a fuel in a production vehicle of any kind, much less a Model T. I defy you to show us anything that indicates he or anyone else ever seriously planned to use alcohol as a fuel in a production vehicle.

Certainly he and Thomas Edison did play with alternative uses for plants and plant byproducts. The operative word is play, they did this at their vacation estate in Florida, not under the auspices of Ford Motor Company or Edison Electric Co.

To say that there was ever a plan by Ford to produce an alcohol propelled vehicle is a lie.

Currently it is still impossible to produce corn alcohol without using more energy than the alcohol yields, so there remains no viable economic reason to burn alcohol derived from corn in vehicles.

Royce


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Stan Howe on Wednesday, November 07, 2007 - 08:59 pm:

So the assumption I'm supposed to make is that you have read every farm magazine in the world ever published and that not one of them ever proposed the idea of farmers being able to run their machinery on alcohol produced from the products of their farms?

Read what I said in the above post.

Royce, how can you say "never?" Considered by whom? "By every hopeful farmer in America who read the articles in the magazines touting alcohol made by farmers as the answer to the oil barons controlling the price of fuel? I don't think so. It might not have been seriously considered by the engineers at the automobile companies or the petroleum engineers but to say that no one ever considered it seriously certainly simplifies the issue and ignores vast amounts of paper and print dedicated to the idea in the day."

I don't mind people espousing their ideas but when they make blanket statements such as "never" I find it practically my duty and obligation to point out the error of their semantics. If you are so damn sure that NO ONE EVER proposed making alcohol from farm waste products or farm crops to burn in tractors, prove it. That means that you have investigated EVERY article ever published and there was never a word written and that proposal was never made.

I did not say that Henry Ford or his engineers or any petroleum engineer investigated it. I said that there have been many articles written over the years in farm magazines putting that idea forth.

I never said that there was a plan by Ford to produce an alcohol propelled vehicle.

You, sir, are not the only one who has read and studied the Model T Ford nor are you the only person posting on this forum who has an excellent education and has the ability to read and think. I defy you to support your statement that "alcohol was NEVER considered as a fuel." Define NEVER. By whom? Support your allegations.

It must be a hell of a burden to be the absolute expert about everything no matter what is said by anyone else.

I regret posting the pictures. If I can figure out how to delete them I will.

It is no damn wonder there is virtually no participation on this forum. Every damn thing somebody puts on here that might have some interest to the average Model T guy has to be challenged by some "EXPERT" who knows more than everybody else about everything. All I did was post some damn pictues of some carburetors from my collection and somebody has to drag in their political views and start a pissing match over every statement somebody makes.

I don't give a rat's rearend about what an expert you are on alternative fuels and how much research you have done into whether it takes more energy to make a gallon of alcohol than it produces or not. I will stand by my statement that it has been a vision of the American farmer for a hundred years to take the waste crops and make fuel from them to run their machinery.

I may not know much about energy and politics but I know a lot about farming, farmers and old farm machinery. We've been on the same land since 1898, my sister and brother in law farm some 6600 acres in eastern Montana and my family has land holdings in 7 counties in eastern Montana and North Dakota. Don't tell me that there was never a farm magazine proposing that farmers could make their own alcohol fuel.

I hope you enjoy your Model T. I enjoy mine.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By dave willis on Wednesday, November 07, 2007 - 09:17 pm:

i'm no expert but i would assume there's more potential energy in cow poop than corn....


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Steve on Wednesday, November 07, 2007 - 09:19 pm:

Stan,

Please do not delete the photo's. They are very interesting!

Ninety nine percent of the forum user's appreciate the photo's and information you and other's like you offer on this site.

Also, I'm certain that ninety nine percent of the forum's user's can separate the fictional, and non-fictional "writer's".

P.S.- Thank's for the info, advice, and the picture's regarding the Ruxstell's.

Steve


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Mike Zahorik on Wednesday, November 07, 2007 - 09:27 pm:

We have quite a lot of corn here in Wisconsin and I know that my Model T burns at least 10% ethanol.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Keith Gumbinger, Kenosha, WI on Wednesday, November 07, 2007 - 11:49 pm:

Stan - Please don't delete your carburetor pictures. I find them interesting and educational and appreciate it that you took the time to post them for all of us that read this forum to see.

There are so many private collections out there that few of us ever get to see that it's great to see a private collection like yours.

I also appreciate the time you took to show and describe for us how you do a Ruckstell.

Thank you, Stan.

Fordially, Keith Gumbinger


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Jim in Wisconsin on Thursday, November 08, 2007 - 12:03 am:

There is a article in the January, 1917 issue of FORDOWNER magazine all about Henry and his experiments with alcohol. He claimed that 30 of the tractors at his Dearborn farms were alcohol driven. He said, "The substitute for gasoline is alcohol, which experiment has shown works even better than gasoline, is cleaner and more powerful". He thought there was less than a 25 year supply of petroleum left in the world.

I do not know how to scan this article. Maybe someone else has that issue and is able to do it.
It is on page 76.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Jim in Wisconsin on Thursday, November 08, 2007 - 12:13 am:

Also, Henry said, "When a large still which I have arranged for is completed I will make our own fuel right here". He said the alcohol could come from a thousand different forms of vegetation, renewed year after year, in unlimited supply.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Stan Howe on Thursday, November 08, 2007 - 12:16 am:

There you go. Just goes to prove the power of the past and the written word that documented it. Mail it to me and I will scan it and post it. 4433 Red Fox Dr.
Helena, Montana 59602


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Scott Davidson on Thursday, November 08, 2007 - 12:22 am:

Stan - Please don't delete your carburetor pictures. I personaly would like to thank you for your postings and would like to say that you bring a lot to the table.
Thank You. Scott Davidson


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Stan Howe on Thursday, November 08, 2007 - 12:35 am:

Thanks, I won't. You can't let one person ruin everybody else's fun. Like I always say, "The loudest boos come from the cheapest seats."


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Ricks - N. Ill on Thursday, November 08, 2007 - 06:56 am:

Master/Miller carbs are similar, but I'm not sure they are identical. The 1918 Dyke's called the Master a heavy fuel carb, IIRC. Don't have the book available right now. I have a Master, which is a very nice brass carb, but have no pix of it.

You might be able to make the Master info more readable by downloading it and blowing it up.

rdr


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By sethharbuck@bellsouth.net on Thursday, November 08, 2007 - 09:04 am:

Stan,

That's a fine collection of carburetors you have there. Thanks for posting the pictures of all those beauties. I'm sure you'll come up with a one-of-a-kind display device to show them off to their fullest.

Please include a vaporizer setup (Holley or Kingston or both!) in your display. The vaporizer is all the proof I need that Ford themselves was interested in hard to vaporize fuels such as ethanol.

Seth


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Royce Peterson on Thursday, November 08, 2007 - 09:40 am:

Stan,
I said this:
"Never once has there been mention of Henry Ford attempting to use alcohol as a fuel in a production vehicle of any kind, much less a Model T. I defy you to show us anything that indicates he or anyone else ever seriously planned to use alcohol as a fuel in a production vehicle."

While Henry Ford did play with various ideas that proved to not have any future, as evidenced in the Ford Owner article referenced, there was no plan to produce any Model T that ran on ethanol. This does not have any thing to do with politics of today. It is historical fact.

Can it not be possible to discuss history without you becoming infuriated?


Royce


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Gary London on Thursday, November 08, 2007 - 09:53 am:

Stan;

I personally enjoy your posts and pictures. Most of us that have been around T's and the forum awhile just sort of filter out the authoritize or argumentive comments made by a few of the self proclaimed 'life long experts' from those that simply offer what they've learned from experience or that has been passed down from the genration that drove these back in the day.

Please keep your input coming.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Stan Howe on Thursday, November 08, 2007 - 11:25 am:

Royce: "I defy you to show us anything that indicates he or anyone else ever seriously planned to use alcohol as a fuel in a production vehicle."

And I defy you to read what people post and respond to it in an intelligent manner instead of instantly trying to espouse your beliefs and political views. I will discuss HISTORY with you all day long. I also have read a million pages about Ford and other history. You are so proud of your "Education;" let me tell you right now that you are not the only one who ever walked across the dias to pick up a degree or two. I was a school administrator before I quit to go in the auction business 25 years ago. You don't get that job without a night or two of school. But I will not accept REVISIONIST history from someone who jumps right in the middle of something that was just posted for the enjoyment of the readers of a forum and highjacks the thread for the purpose of insulting every other person who has posted on that thread.

Take it however you will. We can discuss HISTORY as long as you want. But get your facts straight and don't make statements you can't back up and then try to change what you said. .

Well, I have work to do. I'm taking another day off to take some people to the museum at Deer Lodge to give them a tour instead of working on making some money to buy more Model T carbs so I can waste more time trying to teach the pig to sing.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Royce Peterson on Thursday, November 08, 2007 - 11:53 am:

Stan,

Please don't be offended so easily. You have your opinion, and I respect your right to have an opinion and any means by which you came to have that opinion.

This is an open forum, and I am also entitled to my opinion. I certainly am not trying to hijack anything, only to present the facts as I see them. Please, let's be respectful to one another.


Royce


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By George House on Thursday, November 08, 2007 - 12:22 pm:

Stan,
I have been looking for one of those U&J brass carbs for years! I've run one on my '15 depot hack and have passed modern cars on the Interstate back when the speed limit was 55 . . .. on 30 X 3 front NON SKIDS no less! Don't know why I need a 2nd U&J. I've since placed a correct Holley G and cast iron intake on the '15 and will mount the U&J on a '14 I'm building. I have found a 2nd aluminum "hi volume" updraft intake manifold suitable for a U&J. . .Wanna flip a coin?
By no means be dissuaded from your future most interesting posts on this forum. I eagerly read everything you write and have learned a lot ! . ..


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Grady Puryear on Thursday, November 08, 2007 - 12:44 pm:

There was a magazine of sorts in the Hippy 60's, I can't remember what the name was, kind of a Survival magazine for that group of folks. I only read a few, but there was a series if I remember right, that gave directions on making alcohol / gasoline out of beets and etc., I would think that most of their readers drank the product as opposed to burning it in a car. Anybody here old enough to remember the end of WW2 or the Airlift, there were still vehicles in Germany that burned coal/fire wood to make hydrogen(?) to run their vehicles. It was interesting that they were able to do that, I was interested in other things of more importance to me so did not really examine the process that carefully, any comments ?


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Robert Donald Johnson on Thursday, November 08, 2007 - 12:55 pm:

Stan,
Know anything about this carb??Ecco carb photo


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Royce Peterson on Thursday, November 08, 2007 - 01:27 pm:

Grady,

In the Deutsches Museum in Munich Germany there is a nice display devoted to Germany's last ditch attempts to power its war machine with such things as Blaugaz and ethanol made from various plant substances. If you recall they were failed attempts and Germany lost the war. I spent an entire day there in 2002, if you ever get over there it is a fascinating place. They had several cars on display that had been converted to blaugaz. I only scratched the surface in a day there.

If anyone wants to read and know the truth about Ford's experiments with alcohol as a fuel both the Benson Ford research center (at the Henry Ford) and the Ford Edison Winter Estates Museum (Fort Myers, Florida) have lots of interesting information. I spent most of a day at the Fort Myers location in 2004 and found it well worth the visit.

The Benson Ford information can be found in the Henry Ford and Sons Laboratory archives and concerns attempts to use various things to power tractors, not cars.

Royce


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Thomas J. Miller on Thursday, November 08, 2007 - 01:44 pm:

The Fukuyama Auto and Clock Museum in Japan have two restored examples of charcoal cars parked near their Henry Ford statue. (Of course they have the required Model T and Model A on display.) These vehicles utilized alternate fuels such as carbonized coconut shells to provide the fuel for combustion. In the late 30s and wartime, no potential power source was being overlooked. They also experimented with 5% gasohol to stretch their fuel supplies.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Ricks - N. Ill on Thursday, November 08, 2007 - 02:21 pm:

There are those who say a second Nuremburg Trial should have been held in New Jersey. Standard Oil built a tetraethyl lead factory in Germany in the mid-1930s, without which the Luftwaffe would have been years behind in performance.

rdr


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Stan Howe on Thursday, November 08, 2007 - 08:22 pm:

George, I have another U & J. I might be able to be talked out of it. I don't need two. Robert, I don't know what that is but I sure like it. Could be some kind of second generation U & J. Harry Lillo also has a U & J. Got it from ebay. That is where I got my second one. First one I picked out of a pile at and auction when they were selling choice. I was the high bidder at five bucks and took the carb and manifold. Good buy.

I've seen it posted that Russ Potter has over 1000 different ones. That seems like a lot to me but I've only been trying to find these for five or so years, I think he's been at it for forty or more.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Harry Lillo, Calgary on Friday, November 09, 2007 - 12:14 am:

I really shouldn't strike into this debate on ethanol based fuels, but we need to realize that the farmers who were (and may be today) running stills normally do not use hyrdrocarbon based fuels to produce the alcohol. I can recall a couple of heating sawdust piles on old sawmill sites that were used to keep the mash warm in the cold Canadian winters. Most stills in our North country were heated on a wood cook stove. Yes, it took a quite a few BTU's of energy to run the still, but that same energy kept the house warm too.
I am not an expert on ethanol based fuels, but my friends from the World Petroleum Congress tell me that sugar cane has aproximately seven times the ethanol fuel potential that corn has. I see a note above about the use of beets; I wonder if they were refering to sugar beets? Apparently sugar beets also produce many times more units of energy than can be derived from corn or wheat.
Ricks, I should get a copy of that ad for the Miller. It was the first accessory carb that I bought many years ago. It has a pretty agressive opening so I thought that it might be too big for a T. It came with a Model A intake on it.
Stan, I think I have a couple of U&J's but one has a bad float bowl. That U&J of your's sure made your T fly!


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Ricks - Surf City on Friday, November 09, 2007 - 12:35 am:

To capture that ad Harry, just right click on the picture, then save as..

Like Henry said, chopping wood warms you twice.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Ted Schmidt on Friday, November 09, 2007 - 06:05 am:

This post is in reply to Royce "rant" about the alcohol question I asked Stan about. Royce claims to be such great reader of Model T literature, but in my opinion has not learned to read yet. I recall reading many articles back in the 1970a about the alcohol carbs and the "farmers car" during the fuel crisis of that time. Unfortunatly all those articles have been lost or destroyed by a fire. Also the articles were not in the "greenie" media. Ted Schmidt


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Royce Peterson on Friday, November 09, 2007 - 09:08 am:

Ted,

I think you are remembering kerosene carbs for Model T's. Alcohol in quantities to operate a car was not an available commodity in Model T days. But kerosene was available everywhere since most people who lived outside cities had to use it for lighting their homes. It was cheap and more importantly a Model T could run on kerosene after it was warm.

Kerosene Model T carbs are out there and are indeed very interesting.

Royce


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Ricks - N. Ill on Friday, November 09, 2007 - 10:33 am:

It's interesting that gasoline was practically a waste product before the rise in popularity of the gas engine. Kerosene was the driving product of refining. Kero was used for lighting, heating, etc. . Whenever you refine to get kerosene or jet or diesel, you get gasoline, too.

By 1912, the automotive press was running articles about the decline in the grade of gas. The ratio of gas sold compared to kerosene continued to rise until well into the 1930s when diesels came into use. That's why the vaporizers and other heavy fuel carbs were developed.

The brass Ensign carb I have uses a spark plug to ignite alcohol or gasoline in the bowl area, to heat the incoming heavy fuel such as kerosene or oil well distillate.

What were the prices of alcohol, gasoline and kerosene during the T era? Remember, a magazine article is often not reality; cost per mile is.

Again, you can blow up this page to read it.

rdr


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Royce on Friday, November 09, 2007 - 11:16 am:

Ralph that is a great article, very interesting.

I don't have the computer skills to put this page up for viewing but you can click here to read what the prices of gasoline and kerosene were doing in the teens:

http://books.google.com/books?id=Ank1AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA114&dq=price+of+gasoline+in+1 915#PPA112,M1

Basically gasoline doubled in price from about 11 cents a gallon in April 1915 to January 1916 ending at about 21 cents per gallon where it essentially stayed until the late 1960's. A lot of this price increase was due to the pressure of other countries buying US oil products as the world started driving cars. Then as now oil prices were set by bids on the open market.

Meanwhile kerosene prices were around 12 cents per gallon with declining demand as more people used electricity to light their houses and quit buying kerosene. So it is easy to see why a lot of people were attempting to use kerosene as a motor fuel. It was not terribly convenient because you had to have a seperate gas supply. Also the car runs really crappy on kerosene due to the very low octane. It worked fairly well in the Fordson tractor because compression was lower and the tractor was actually designed to run on it. In the Fordson you were still required to start the tractor on gasoline then switch to kerosene after it warmed up.

Royce


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Royce on Friday, November 09, 2007 - 11:19 am:

Forgot to say you have to click on Hearings 1915 to see the document on prices.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By RICK NELSON on Saturday, November 10, 2007 - 12:01 am:

Stan ,just last weekend I watched a show on the history Chanel about moonshine and it said
“Henry Ford designed his model T’s to run on alcohol” I guess Royce never hear
how oil companies offer to buy alternative ideas ,like if you love your kids I would sell that
idea to us ,
For Royce to say Henry never considered it I very foolish of him unless he has gone back in time and asked Henry??????


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Bob Sanders on Saturday, November 10, 2007 - 12:31 am:

Couldn't resist. Check this page:
http://www.prdomain.com/companies/F/FordMotor/newsreleases/200721739127.htm

"All the world is waiting for a substitute for gasoline," Ford said in 1916. "The day is not far distant when, for every one of those barrels of gasoline, a barrel of alcohol must be substituted."

During the early days of Prohibition, he even suggested turning Michigan's idled breweries into distilleries to make denatured alcohol for fuel in cars and trucks, noted historian Ford Bryan. That went nowhere since Prohibition doomed the idea of any large-scale switch to alcohol production.

Don't think this is a "Green" site.
Bob


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Ricks - N. Ill on Saturday, November 10, 2007 - 12:52 am:

4:1 compression is not near high enough to run alcohol efficiently. A single sentence or a few in a one hour show is not to be taken as gospel. Was Cargill or ADM or another agri-business a secret sponsor of that show?

Royce's statements are absolutes and open to argument, so take a run at it another way. Find a carb in Dykes or Audels that was made to run on alcohol, and share it with us. Show us where alcohol was even used to power steam cars.

Before kerosene, whale oil was used for lamps, why not alcohol, do you suppose?

Here's what started the whole controversy: "Stan, Do you know if you have a caburetor in your collection that was used exclusively for using alcohol for fuel? Several years ago I read about a carb that burned alcohol as the Ford was dubbed the farmers car and farmers had the materials to make there own fuel and most had a still also."

OK, regardless of Stan's collection, can anybody find documentation on an alcohol fuel carburetor from the T era? I've never seen it; heavy fuel carbs were common, however.

My brother has a Fisher carburetor from the 1950s that was supposed to get 200 mpg. Looks like it had very little use. Oh, yeh, the oil companies bought the patent and buried it...

rdr


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Stan Howe on Saturday, November 10, 2007 - 01:49 am:

Nope, you're wrong, Ralph. This is what started the controversy:

"I defy you to show us anything that indicates he or anyone else ever seriously planned to use alcohol as a fuel in a production vehicle.

Certainly he and Thomas Edison did play with alternative uses for plants and plant byproducts. The operative word is play, they did this at their vacation estate in Florida, not under the auspices of Ford Motor Company or Edison Electric Co.

To say that there was ever a plan by Ford to produce an alcohol propelled vehicle is a lie."

There was no mention anywhere of anything by Ford and alcohol in any prior post. I defy anyone to say that no one ever attempted to make a successful alcohol carburetor. While they may not have been able to do it, there certainly was interest in the day and today. There are multi million dollar alcohol plants being built across America today by people who believe ethanol is a viable fuel for the future. Whether they are right or not is not the subject of this discussion not is it germain to this forum. But to say that they are the first to think of growing crops and making alcohol from them is to close one's eyes and ears and brain to the reality of history.

I have read magazine and article after article about, by and for the farmers of the 1920's and 1930's. To say that no farmer nor farm magazine ever promoted alcohol as a fuel is a lie. We forget that the automobile and its fuels were new technology of the day and that the dreams of a dreamer are often not based in fact or reality. There were, and are, those believed that alcohol was the fuel of the future and that the farmer would be able to use his straw and other crops to make fuel on his farm to power the other new technology of the day, tractors.

Anyone who thinks there was no technology buried by business interests should have met my friend Paul Lewis who developed a car in the 1930's--which is on display at the National Auto Museum in Reno, Nevada--which was far technically advanced to the other cars of the day. There is movie footage extant showing the car in use and the features it had. He had many interesting stories about being thwarted by the "Big Three" of the day. I don't think your Fisher carb ever got 200 miles to the gallon but never forget that John D was in business to sell oil and The General & Ford were in business to sell cars.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Ricks - N. Ill on Saturday, November 10, 2007 - 07:55 am:

One of the Big Three, Chrysler, had a technically advanced car in the thirties, too, and it flopped. Therefore, technical superiority is not closely related to financial success.

Blind guys describing an elephant share more knowledge in common than you two, Stan. Royce obviously implied a major manufacturer not seriously planning to use alcohol in a new production vehicle. You interpreted that line to include everybody who owned a gasoline vehicle, and some who didn't.

With a national effort to be self-sufficient with fuel, Brazil has achieved it after 30 years, with cane-based ethanol - and with major discoveries of oil under the ocean.

I believe you have lots of era books, Stan; can you find any alcohol carbs described in them?What does it take to burn alcohol efficiently in a Model T engine? I believe it takes a richer mixture; what else?

Hmmm, don't remember the source, but just found this in my files:
-------
4:09 AM 1/15/2006

By David Grant Stewart, Sr. (Davidgstewartsr) on Wednesday, February 05, 2003 - 11:06 pm:
Pan Zielinski, you're probably referring to Canada's Greenfuels home page.

Just in case the word "moonshine" isn't familiar to you, it is an American expression for the product produced by a "nielegalny producent napojow alkoholowych" by distillation of the fermented product.

I am not aware of any fundamental change being made in the Model T to accommodate ethanol so there isn't anything to show by way of pictures, but let's look at what was going on to see why this would be considered.

In America, from Drake's first oil well in Pennsylvania in 1869 until about 1900, gasoline was considered a waste byproduct and it was hauled out to sea and dumped. It was called "straight run" and was the part of petroleum coming out of the ground that had a boiling point lower than kerosene.

It was, in fact, a much higher grade of gasoline than we can buy today, something like what we would call aviation fuel.

This is something restorers of 1895-1909 American cars should take into account.

By 1910, there was a threatened fuel shortage of gasoline, in part as a result of the Model T.

Petroleum refineries added fractions of kerosene to gasoline to make up the shortfall.

This of course resulted in an inferior grade of gasoline, which is why Ford reduced the compression and horsepower of the Model T from 22 hp to 20 hp, to accommodate the inferior fuel.

By 1913, the demand for gasoline had exceeded the ability of the refineries to supply. It was about this time that Henry Ford looked into alternative fuels such as ethanol.

Many farm vehicles at this time had a dual carburetor or other provision for starting on gasoline, then switching over to kerosene as soon as the engine was warmed up. Once the Model T is started, it too can run on kerosene.

About this time, a fellow named Burton developed the first commercial process for cracking petroleum, which consisted in heating the fractions with a boiling point just above kerosene to a temperature of about 400 degrees C at a pressure of 100 pounds per square inch. (Cracking = breaking down heavier distillates into lighter ones.)

This and other developments increased the yield of gasoline sufficient to meet any demand, but it was vastly inferior to the "straight run" such that by 1920 all gasoline produced and sold in the United States was 50 octane.

The consumer demand for speed led automakers to increase the compression ratio, which in turn required better gasoline. By 1933 tetraethyl lead was sold commercially as "Ethyl" which increased the octane sufficient for the higher compression engines.

The problem with the old gasoline was that it exploded, creating an engine knock. Tetraethyl lead changed the explosion into a very fast burn, so that instead of hitting the piston downward, it pushed it downward, making a much smoother running engine.

If you have a completely original Model T, running it on ethanol may quickly dissolve the shellac that seals your carburetor float, and then dissolve the shellac that seals and insulates your magneto coil windings when it gets into the crankcase. But modern restored Model Ts generally have a good soldering job on the carburetor float, and the alcohol in the gasoline getting into the crankcase evaporates before it can do any damage to the magneto coils.

Today there are some who say that adding a quart or two of kerosene to the gas tank of a Model T will make it run better.

The Model T's catholicity of taste in fuel is one of the many amazing features that makes it truly "The Universal Car."

The first oil well in America was drilled in 1859, not 1869. Sorry for the typo. Titusville, Pennsylvania, if I remember right.
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rdr


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Royce Peterson on Saturday, November 10, 2007 - 10:48 am:

Rick,

Remember that the "History" channel is run by a bunch of Hollywood types on a mission. They say a lot of things in that documentary concerning Ford and Model T's that is simply not right or an outright fabrication. That is one big one. They are trying to make political statements, Ford was trying to make a profit. He knew through his experiments that using alcohol in a Model T was not going to be useful in his lifetime so he didn't do it.

Henry did indeed look into the possibility of using alcohol to power Fordson tractors. His idea was that the farmer could make ethanol on site from part of his corn crop to power his Fordson tractor. While the idea did sound promising the fact of the matter is that it didn't work worth a hoot when Henry tried to do it, so he dropped the idea. You can learn all about this at the Fort Myers site or from the Benson Ford materials.

Ford also worked with Harvey Firestone and Thomas Edison to make tires from various oddball materials. He tried to find plants to use as seat stuffing in cars. None of ideas those worked well either, but it kept millionaires occupied during their summer vacation.

Royce


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Chuck Sportsman on Saturday, November 10, 2007 - 11:48 am:

Alcohol (methanol) has been used as a fuel in race engines for years. Not only does the slower burn produce more horsepower but makes for a cooler running engine. My experience was to increase the carburetor jetting for alcohol. This is easily accomplished in a model T with the fuel mixture adjustment on the dash board.
In the depression era people did not drive long distances and people would use most any combustable liquid for fuel. Here in Texas I have heard many old men talk about stealing drip gas from the pipelines to fuel their cars.
Modern cars use computers to control timing, fuel mixture etc. There would have to be major programming changes in order to burn alcohol. That is the reason it is diluted with gasoline (gasohol)


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Ed Niedzielski on Monday, November 19, 2007 - 03:38 pm:

Robert J.- I would say the picture of your accessory carb and intake manifold most resembles a "U & J " setup. I have a couple of them myself but my carbs look slightly different (mind you, there is at least 5 different U & J models in that era),but have never run one yet. The model A-1 was for Model T - 1919 and prior, model A-2 was 1919-21 T's, A-3 was for right-hand drive,English provinces, Model A-4 was Ford Rajo Motor 1919-20 and the model H appears to be the firecracker carb for Model T's, but was expensive in its day with a sticker price of $18.50 ( I took this information off an original U & J sales brochure). If I can ever figure out how to email/post pictures, I will click and post a picture of my setup to this thread, as well as some pictures to the "homestead ingenuity" thread that Stan Howe started up. - Ed N (the techno dinosaur)


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