Posted by Steve Kanavas on January 11, 2000 at 21:06:52:
In Reply to: Early Dodge Bros. Diesel---Stump the stars posted by DAvid on January 11, 2000 at 17:45:49:
My 1951 issue shop manual shows the diesel. Pictures and text, etc. Says it was in the 2.5 and 3 ton trucks, WKD and WLD. These were single axle semi tractors. Typical 40's diesel stuff, belt driven vacuum pump for the brakes and 2 speed axle, and two generators. The neat yet dumb thing as early diesels did, was to squirt the fuel through the head from one side, across the piston top, across the chamber, and into a cute little round pre combustion chamber screwed into the other side of the head.
An old guy I met years ago, now deceased, knew the history of it, but also said it wouldn't start under 40 unless you pulled the air cleaner off and held burning newspaper in the air stream as you cranked it to fake it into thinking it was 80 outside. Then it was prone to overheating and detonating itself to death.
Hope the rest of us posters can provide better details on this engine.
sak