Date: Thu, 12 Dec 1996 17:15:13 -0800 (PST)
From: Mike West <mwest@cdsnet.net>
Subject: Unusual pistons & other scary stuff

 Since it's friday nite and I have no social life, not even a TV,
I thought I'd tell you about this unusual couple of days I had and 
the neat engines etc I saw.

 I had to go swap a transmission out of a ChevyTruck and put in an 
automatic. Which tells you a little about me. I'll do anything for 
money.
 
 Since the truck couldn't come to me, I had to go to it.
It's a 2 hour drive from my place and way back in the woods of Ore.

 It's a small community, has a bit of a restaurant/bar. Probably a 
population of about 5 live there. It is however the closest thing to
a town for a long ways so dozens of rugged individuals are passing 
thru or come in for a little R&R.

 The standard greeting is "hows it growing?"

 They sit around and talk about Halides and drip systems and the price
of fertilizer. Standard farm stuff. CO2 is getting to be a big thing,
whatever that means.

 One old guy in a wheel chair with mudders on it. He's a rolling 
disaster. Bruises and scratches all over this guy. 

 Seems he lives up in a cabin off the beaten path and every time he 
comes down out of there, he falls out of the wheel-chair a few times.
 Then he has to crawl around on the side-hill looking for the wheel-
chair, then get back in and try her again.

 I didn't ask how he got back up the hill as I was already laughing too hard.

 I did suggest he look into some knee and elbow pads like bikers wear.
He hadn't thought of that. He did like the idea.

 He'd come down to get a book. They have a kind of community library
in the store. Louis LaMour, if you must know, I didn't notice the title.
 
 We talked about tread patterns on wheel chairs and soft versus hard
etc. and I had to get back to work.

 About a hundred feet from where I'n working on this truck is the 
obligatory machine shop/garage. Guy named george. Makes or repairs
all kinds of stuff. Don't look to close. His name isn't george either.

 As with all jobs I need one of these a two of those that I don't have 
so I'm running back and forth to get them from george.

 Right now his entire shop is full of surplus generators and engines
from the Gulf War. Maybe fifty generators with air cooled engines and 
about ten engines out of deuce and a half trucks.

 Over against one wall is a ton or more of camouflage netting. I didn't ask. 

 He fixes up these generators and sells them to whoever. Pro'lly some
of the locals use them for house lights etc.

 The engines on these are beautiful flat fours in every size imaginable. One
looked to be at least a 2 liter and some were even 
larger. The 2liter I was told was a Lycoming. I want one.

 Now the big stuff was also nice. Turbocharged diesels, five or six 
cylinder, I don't recall. The unusual feature is that they are "Multi-
Fuel".  They will burn anything you can get thru the filter I'm told.
 Often referred to as "Peanut Oil Engines". 

 The neat item referred to in the header was the pistons out of these.
The "squish area" is in the piston head. 

 The piston has about a 4 inch thick head and there is a depression 
machined in the head about the size of a goose egg with a swirl arm
radiating out from the ball across the cylinder head.

 I will just repeat what george told me here as I have no knowledge 
of this. The fuel and air is collected into the ball depression and 
compressed to humongous pressure and the this thing burns all the way
to the bottom of the stroke like a rocket engine.
 I'll buy that part as I have nothing better to go on.

 The pressure in the cylinder reaches 3600 psi he says. 

 Under the circumstances, I just said "wow".

 I want one of those too.

 One other funny thing happened on the second day. 
Back at the restaurant for lunch or when. 
 A "Suit" walked in. Carrying a black ballistic nylon bag. It was heavy.
 
 People were easing their chairs back real casual or loosening their 
coats. 
 I'm thinking "Fed" or "book-keeper"?

 Actually, being mechanically minded my thought was "Ingram or Toshiba"?

 Turned out he was the book keeper for one of the big growers and he 
went over to a table and whipped out a lap-top.

 It was one of those adrenaline rush moments tho for  many of us.
I haven't felt that "alive" for a long time.

 west