) and the resulting SUPER HEATED STEAM blew the machine wide open and killed 36 people.
hmm...power from water...superheated steam...hmmm...somewhere in the midsts of my memory strikes a cord....water boils at 212 F, at sea level....180 F in denver....hmm....
so a long time ago Lou Montgomery informed me that a diesel engine runs on compression, and explained that the diesel has to get really HOT to ignite. hmm.... so he took a spall pan put some diesel in it, lit a match and dropped it into the pan of diesel. the match floated about, while lit, and finally fizzled out. this boggled me for a moment, and then he took some cardboard, lit that, let it get good and hot, and put it in the diesel, and then the diesel ignites. so then he took me to the engine that he had on display at the showgrounds. he had an electric starter mounted on it, because he was too old and tired to crank this thing over by hand any more. he handed me the crank and told me to start the engine. i cranked, and cranked, and huffed and puffed, and cranked some more, and the engine would not go. i was worn out. he then removes a plug from the top of the engine, and inserts a cloth Wick. he lights the wick, lets it burn for a moment, and then puts the plug back into the engine. he said wait for a minute for it to heat up, and i did, then he had me crank it one more time. it took off and ran smooth.
hmmm.....
diesels have to be hot to start... mine starts WITHOUT using the glow plugs.
my glow plug controller left me stranded in the middle of nowhere, and i had 8 glow plug that had been WELDED to the heads and i could not get my truck started for nothing. i finally found an old can of starting fluid, and it had but a little "puff" left in it. that saved my ass. it was dark and cold and i was in the area of 300 miles from home. the glow plug controller PROMPTLY landed in the nearest trash receptacle, and i put 8 new glow plugs in (but not without a ton of cussing), and put a relay and a switch in the circuit, and called it good. now i usually don't use the glow plugs at all when starting my truck even if i haven't driven it for a week or so. (cadillacs are so much more fun!) so i know that by compression alone there is enough heat to ignite the fuel.
hmm....
anyone ever watch what happens to a diesel when water gets into the intake, and survived to tell about it? i have. a Detroit 2 stroke, supercharged V-8 self destructed and each head came off in about 8 large chunks, because the idiot who was maintaining it didn't bother to keep water out of the fuel let alone use a water/fuel separator.
hmm....
did you know that 1 DROP of water makes about 12 CUBIC FEET of superheated steam?
that equates to the equivelant of 20736 CUBIC INCHES, anybody own an engine that large? i didn't think so.
you try crammin that much explosion into the cylinder of a diesel engine and something's gotta give. usually it's not the superheated steam that gives.
and by the way, Diesel ignites (according to the diesel mechanics that i have talked to) around 800 degrees F.
so, if just the cranking action alone is enough to compress the air in the cylinder to ignite the diesel and start my engine WITHOUT PRE-HEATING (by way of glow-plugs, or lacking the use of them) then why could we not just meter water to amounts of thousandths (1/1000, or .001) of a drop or something like that to make a diesel engine run on water?
then you would be directly using water as the fuel without having to convert it in any way. and PLEASE BE CAREFUL! HYDROLOCKED DIESEL ENGINES CAN KILL YOU!!!
