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About Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922 | View Entire Issue (Aug. 3, 1916)
THE BEE: OMAHA, THURSDAY, AUGUST 3, 1916. Farm Motor Fuel Problems Are Now Easily Solved After a man buys a tractor or an engine of any kind he must answer for himself the question, "What oil i hall I use in it? But the question, "What shall I burn?" must be decided : to a large extent before the engine is purchased. Last summer the discussion as to what fuel the tractor and farm en gine should use and what was to be : the future tractor engine fuel was almost dormant. With gasoline sell ing for at low ai 10 cents a gallon ! and many parts of the middle west and with the price of kerosene at 7 . or 8 cents, the difference in the cost ! of the two fuels was so slight that i only a few companies who already i had kerosene tractors on the market i were using kerosene for fuel. , Gasoline has doubled in price in six : months, so conditions have changed ' and the old question has again as sumed considerable importance. Dur ing one week in April the writer read newspaper atories of two men who had invented new fuels. One is a ! petroleum product, which would cost o cents per gallon or less, and the '. other is a chemical of which four ounces added to five gallons of water will, according to the inventor, make a satisfactory fuel at a cost of l'A centi per gallon. These fuels have not been thoroughly tried out and proven practical or successful. Until they are, people will continue to use the fuel they have on hand. Meanwhile engine manufacturers and experimentalists are working hard to perfect their engines to use cheaper fuels or use their present fuels more economically. The fuels which up to the present have proven the most suc cessful have been gasoline, kerosene, i benzine or benzol and alcohol. But, I due to their cost, the lasTt two are not j being commonly used in this country. Gasoline is, and will be for some time at least, the prevalent fuel for nign-speea, multi-cylinder engines, al though several tractors are now using kerosene, with from very good to in different success. The term gasoline in itself means practically nothing. It is the name given to the product of petroleum which is distilled off be tween certain temperatures in the re duction process. Since the gas en gine, the automobile and the tractor nave increased the demand for gaso line to much, this range of tempera tores has been greatly enlarged in order to get a larger supply of it. As result a much heavier and less volatile liquid is now called gasoline than when the gas engine was unheard of and gasoline was a drug on the market No two supplies of gasoline will be of exactly the same composition, be cause there is a great variety in the quality of the crude oils from Avhich they are made and the quantity of gasoline that can be obtained from them. No two crude oils will be the same. Oftentimes the oil from two wells in the same oil field will be very different in their gasoline con tent. The average yield of gasoline from American petroleum, however, is now a little below 12 per cent. Scientists and oil manufacturers are working on schemes to increase this yield. By the Rittman process it is hoped to increase this yield ot gaso line in some cases as much as our or five times. When the internal combustion en gine was first thought of, gunpowder was tried as the fuel, hut it provei! to be unsuccessful and expensive. Gasoline was next tried, because ii j was inexpensive, could be handler! easily and when vaporucd and mixed with air it formed a very explosive mixture, The success which was at tained is self-evident when one con siders how many engines are now in use. Gasoline vaporizes quite readily, especially if it is atomized, or broken into a fine spray, as is done in all present-day carburetors. Kerosene, which is the next most used motor fuel, consists of the parts of the crude petroleum which will distill off at slightly higher tempera tures than the gasoline. It is a con siderably heavier liquid than gaso line and Is not as volatile. It is a cheaper fuel than gasoline because it represents a much larger part of the crude oil, in most cases over 50 per cent, and because its satisfactory ft as an engine fuel Involved greater difficulties for the engine designers than did the use of gasoline. A kerosene engine must have some device for heating the charge before it enters the engine cylinder; other wise the fuel would not be vapor ized and would not burn. This is done by one of three ways or by, a combination of these ways. On some engines the intake pipe is arranged to draw its ajr from a jacket about the exhaust manifold. The air is heated enough by its contact with the exhaust pipe to cause it to vaporize the oil readily. On other engines the bowl of the carburetor is surrounded by a water jacket through which the engine-cooling' water circulates, keep ing the kerosene in the carburetor hot. The third tvoe of engine has the inlet pipe or mixing chamber be tween the carburetor and the engine jacketed and heated with the cooling water so it warms the mixture ol kerosene spray and air on its way from the carburetor to the .cylinder. In some engines two of these pre heating schemes are used. A kerosene engine must either have a lower compression' pressure than a gasoline engine or else must have an arrangement whereby a small amount of water can be ad. mitted to the cylinder with the kero sene. The trouble with kerosene is that it contains more heat units per gallon than do the lighter oils and it will pre-ignite at lower pressures, which will cause the engines to pound and work hard, If water is admtited its cools off the gases and prevents the trouble from pre-ignition even at gasoline engine pressures. There is considera ble difference of opinion as to just what the action of the water la. Some engineers and designers main tain that the only effect of the water is to cool the gases sufficiently to allow higher compression pressures and consequently better combustion and more power are obtained. Others maintain that the water is chemically brpken up during the explosion and actually helps with the combustion. So far as we know, there have been tio experiments which would definitely indicate which of these assumptions is correct. It is bard to tell what will be the fuel in the far-distant future. Alarm ists tell us that the supply of petro leum ,is limited and we must find a "Step by step during the past thir ty years electricity has come to be the standard in illumination," says C. E. Wagner, state agent for Delco farm lighting equipment "A little over thirty years ago electricity was Adopted as a means of lighting streets and stores. Later it was ap olied to the home, the theater, the church and finally to railway coaches and steamships, and now comes its use in suburban and rural districts to supersede the kerosene lamp and other means of lighting. "Much experimental work has been done during the last ten years with a view to the perfection of a mall power plant that would pro vide the numerous electrical conveni ences to farm and suburban homes which are removed from power or I ! ir ft transmission lines, uier live years the Domestic Engineering company iof Dayton, O., has perfected the Del co light, a power plant which is dem onstrating itselt to be very satis factory. "The Delco light consists of a sin gle cylinder air-cooled gasoline en gine for power. The electric genera tor is direct connected. With this generating plant is a specially de signed storage battery which per mits the burning of the lights and the. running of a motor from the bat tery, which is later recharged by the generating plant "To start the generating plant it is only necessary to press a button and as the engine picks up a charge of gasoline and is running on its own power the motor reverts to a gener ator and current is supplied for re charging the battery. When the bat tery is filled the engine automatical ly stops and in the morning it is only necessary to press a button Without attention to how long the engine should run, as that is taken care of automatically. The plant will run five hours on a gallon of gasoline and provides light and power for the average home for from 5 to 7 cents per day, according to the price of gasoline." IndtspataM. .vldene. of great result! to Be. Want Ad users: SB.748 more paid Want Ada tint mix months of 1S16 over same partod 1MB. No other Omaha paper on boaat ot anything near auch fltures. The BIG BULL Tractor Does Subsoil The Scientific American ayt In their issue of May 13th, 1916 : "In our lirra of April 8rd, 1916, we pvbllslMd n artlele on tha mail tractor, in which the following itatement appaara: 'In tha da fan of one tractor tha drive wheal rnna in tha furrow and undoubt- . cdly ereatci a hard pan similar to tha ahara bard pan formed by one horses'i feet and the plow share.' It now appears that tha Bull Tractor Company of Minneapolis, Minn., was at that time tha only company manufacturing a tractor of this design, and that it em phasized this exclusive feature. "They offer overwhelming evidence tha tha bull wheal raining In the furrow doaa not pack tha ground, but quite tha contrary, as tha wheel, being equipped with Ion spade lugs from 3H inches to B inches in length, acts as a aubsoilar in fact, many ownera of thee tractora state that they have dispensed with their aubaoillng device. "After reading the evidence, we are convinced that tha author of our articles was in error and we are pleased to take this op portunity of correcting the false impression that may have been created by it" See "The Bull With a Pull" i-' work at the Official Tractor Demonstration at Fremont, Neb., Aug. 7-11 Nothing could be of mora importance to the farmer than a method whoro- fer fce can increase his crop without cost to him. Bull Tractor owners tail us the Bis Bull Tractor increases their crop yield from 10 to 39 1-1. Better Do Your Fall Plowing With a "Big Bull" also your belt worV run anything from a feed grinder to a 14 or 2 6 -Inch peparator, fully equipped. Writ for three months free subscription to Monthly Tractor Bulletin full of interesting tractor news and valuable information. BULL TRACTOR COMPANY MT4 University Aye. S. E Minneapolis, Mian. NEBRASKA BULL TRACTOR CO., IOM Joaea St, Omaha. . . Dlatrlhutcre fee Nebraeka. . f . mw w.aa I Is a limit to I HmmmmnmmmmmmmkmmmmmmmmkwmnwkmmikmkWm u Of Course TURNER I I substitute tor it. There it, no doubt, but the chances are that none of us will see that limit reached. As long as new oil fields are being discovered right along, supply of oil will be obtainable. The fuel question which should re- VIEW OF CROWD WATCHING THE DEMONSTRATION. ceive attention from every engine owner is the method of buying. Con siderable money can be saved in the course of a year if a person installs an underground tank or a good steel barrel and has it filled occasionally from a tank wagon at tank wagon prices. Painted All the 3, .GIMS-ow For the Tractor Show Have Him Paint Your Next Sign TURNER The S'g" Man Fremont, Nebraska Delco Light for Farm Homes J v : . II1PB '1 W pi MS e. 7- ElectricityThe Universal Light Delco-Light is a complete power plant--compact--safe--economical Cf.nrf. by merely pressing a button. Nothing to get out of ro s order or require expert attention. Stops automatically when batteries are full Runs five hours on one gallon of gasoline. Furnishes forty to fifty lights for house and barn and provides power for churn, cream separator, pump, washing machine, vacuum sweeper, electno fan and other small machinery. Costs from 5 to 7 cents per day in the average farm home, Developed, Sold the same engineering and manufacturing abil- & Guaranteed bv ity that made Delco Cranking, Lighting and Ig- z nition for automobiles the standard of the world. Price, Complete With Batteries $250.00 Write for illustrated folaer See Delco-Light in Actual Operation at Fremont Tractor Show CHAS. E. WAGNER, Gen. Agt 1903 Farnam St, Omaha. Neb.