Tuesday, April 2, 2024

From The Insomnia Files Of The Overnight... What Is It....

 

 

 No cheating, no reverse image search, no scrolling down.

 

 


 

 I will offer an answer here:

 On what day in 1781 did William Herschel view Uranus?


IF you search back to that day on this blog your will find the answer in a post.

 

 

 

29 comments:

  1. Just a wild ass guess, compressor?

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    1. I didn't do any searches, but a twin cylinder compressor was my first thought, too.

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  2. motor for a big torpeto

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  3. Well, I had no clue so I cheated. So in honor of your request all I will say is that Eric Clapton left the Yardbirds on the same day, different year...

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  4. I never let William look at my anus. That would be wrong.

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  5. I wasn't even born yet in 1781 , I don't know any William Herschel , and I am absolutely positive that he's never seen my anus.

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  6. It's in a crate, so 'new old stock.'

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  7. Little diesel engine?

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  8. I'll take a stab at naming it; "Abomination"

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  9. Precision German Engineering....

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  10. I used to work for a company that cleans mine equipment... the high pressure hydro pumps looked a lot like that. They were the easiest motors in the world to work on.

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  11. Two cylinder diesel...

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  12. I'll say two-stage compressor, low-pressure cylinders at the far end, then high-pressure (smaller) in the center, a formed metal pipe leads to a reservoir bottom front ( note the cover bolted on); one relief valve in that pipe, what may be a second one on top of the reservoir
    I doubt that 'crate' is original, maybe someone built it for ease of moving it (looks damn heavy)..

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  13. self contained torpedo engine.

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  14. It looks like some sort of diesel engine.
    Probably from a sail boat, I'd wager.

    Leigh
    Whitehall, NY

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  15. I'll give y'all 2 hints. (1) It's used by naval forces. (2) Used between about 1939 and 1945.

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  16. Steam engine for WW2 German torpedo.

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  17. Diesel was my guess as well. Let's ask Rudolph.

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  18. Looks sorta like a an old Volvo inboard boat engine.

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    Replies
    1. Well, I wasn't too far off . . Heh!

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  19. an engine from a Yugo

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  20. Here's an engine rarely seen since they were intended to be disposable. This is the 4 cylinder radial engine from a WWII German G7A torpedo. It ran on Decaline fuel (decahydronaphthalene), which was first burned using compressed air (stored in a tank onboard) as an oxidizer. The combustion byproducts were then passed through a device called a 'wet heater', which also introduced water (from a 57L storage tank) to produce superheated steam. This high pressure mixture of superheated steam and compressed air was finally sent through the engine to drive the pistons.

    Since the entire internal combustion/steam generator system was self-contained inside the hull of the torpedo, it could run underwater. The 4 cylinder, 'X' type radial engine produced up to 350 horsepower at its maximum power setting, which was enough to push the 26' (just over 7 meters) torpedo (the length of a large Uhaul moving van here in the States for comparison purposes) along at nearly 50mph while submerged.

    Interesting piece of history-and worth remembering-in my opinion.

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  21. Here's an engine rarely seen since they were intended to be disposable. This is the 4 cylinder radial engine from a WWII German G7A torpedo. It ran on Decaline fuel (decahydronaphthalene), which was first burned using compressed air (stored in a tank onboard) as an oxidizer. The combustion byproducts were then passed through a device called a 'wet heater', which also introduced water (from a 57L storage tank) to produce superheated steam. This high pressure mixture of superheated steam and compressed air was finally sent through the engine to drive the pistons.

    Since the entire internal combustion/steam generator system was self-contained inside the hull of the torpedo, it could run underwater. The 4 cylinder, 'X' type radial engine produced up to 350 horsepower at its maximum power setting, which was enough to push the 26' (just over 7 meters) torpedo (the length of a large Uhaul moving van here in the States for comparison purposes) along at nearly 50mph while submerged.

    Interesting piece of history-and worth remembering-in my opinion.

    ReplyDelete

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