Posted by Tim James on July 06, 2000 at 17:55:40:
In Reply to: diesel conversion e-mails?result of high gas prices? posted by Charlie on July 06, 2000 at 00:44:06:
My Dad worked at Hercules (White Engines) in Canton as a Machinist on the Mutt and LD departments.
They manufactured more than a couple of diesel prototypes for the big 3 and the government for special applications.
The biggest problem that they manufacturers have with diesels are that the public just isn't familiar with them. The second thing is that fuel is not as easy to locate as gasoline. They also tend to be noisier and smellier than their gasoline brothers which makes them a much harder sell. The big 3 therefore concluded that only a select few vehicles would be offered with diesel and thosae would be heavy duty or commercial applications. Lastly, the government emissions testing for diesels was very stringent and a major concern for automakers.
As for the military, my Dad routinely worked with the government inspectors and they all said that though diesels were used to a certain extent by the military, they wanted a multi fuel engines and quite simply there are more gasoline type fuels available. A diesel can't burn gasoline but a gasoline can burn various mixtures of diesel etc... with minor modifications.
Hercules not only manufactured gas and multi fuel engines, they also manufactured diesels for CAT, Ingersoll-Rand, International Harvester, etc...
During WWII they were a major manufacturer of diesel engines for submarines as well as manufacturing .45 cal acp barrels -- in addition to their normal engine production.