Two Strokes Knockers etc

I wonder how a knocker motor would go if you intercooled and put a turbo on it.
I had a CE Commer with the TS3 set at 145hp, or 32 or 34 shots (cant remember exactly), 28 pump shots was the norm, the trouble was if you werent careful on long protracted pulls, like coming out of Adelaide going to melbourne past the eagle on the hill, theyd decoke themselves as knockers do and take Fire Rings out as well.
I wonder if you t & i one to get the air in to cool the pistons would it work and could you open it up further?
That something to think about.

Apparently they did toy with a turbo version, doubt it would have been inter cooled back in those days though.
(My feeling is if you pushed much more from the TS3 the rocker shaft studs would fail. I note the TS4 has the end bolts as right through, not studs as in the TS3)
The 4-cylinder then overshadowed the TS3 and development money was allocated to it.
The alternative positioning of supercharger, ancillaries etc with the 4-cylinder shows they couldn't pick one design and go with it.
But really, 3.375" bore from memory, they were stuck in the 50's
Something with a 5" bore, beefed up rocker gear, engine driven turbo and intercooler would have made serious Hp.

I've only been successful in making mine slower :'(

Thats sad, on a cool night theres nothing like a knocker at full noise with a foot of flame out the exhaust

There's a fella here in Tas a few years back that built a tractor pull tractor from a Massey Harris rear end and powered it with a Knocker motor, it was definitely turbo charged and possibly inter cooled.

I just can't remember the figures but the HP output was pretty amazing , he had done a fair bit of playing around with it getting it right and she would really sing!

I'm sure I have some photos of the tractor here somewhere but I can't lay my hands on it, the finish on the tractor in general and especially the engine was beautiful .
He lost interest with the pulling after a while and parted it back out, I'm not sure what happened to the motor. Would have been damn cool on a stand on display or in a truck.

If I can get hold of the output figures I'll post them up.

Your dead right jeffo, even if you could have changed the gearing on the supercharger and made it spin faster (like on the DETROITs) that would have made a difference.
Mine had the 2 muffler set up with the exhaust out the side, I remember being told that this was important as being 2 stroke with no valves they needed back-pressure.

Dad had a couple of them carting milk in the 70s. Could put a set of pistons in 'em in a couple of hours. One of the biggest problems he had was air compressors, he would go for days using the hand brake only. The other problem he had was starting grass fires. Saved the Toowoomba council mowing the side of the road. The last one had two mufflers with the front one hollow. A unique sound I have never heard out of any other knocker, and it was the best fire starter. Rolled up some chicken wire and jammed up the pipe, pull out every few weeks and count the carbon marbles

AHHH yes the air compressor, so easy to remove, you now know why, from memory there was 2 small discs that acted as the valves, and a funny looking sliding thing that was the govenor.
I saw one that a guy had modified using a D2 govenor worked quite well.

Your's would have been a "late" model Heof, with the unloader activating a small piston which lifted the inlet valve disc, so the compressor just free-wheeled.
The early ones had the conventional unloader valve mounted on the left chassis and once up to pressure they'd choof choof oily gunk all down the side of the chassis.
The later ones also had a very long skirt piston to try to reduce the amount of oil pumped into the system.
Yes I'd do a set of pistons/rings after school, they were dead simple to work on. Worst thing was cutting that huge gasket for each rocker cover.
We machined up a tapered sleeve as a ring compressor. Set up the rings on their pegs and just pushed the piston into the tapered sleeve on the work bench.
Then offer the sleeve/piston unit up to the engine and push the piston con rod all the way home.
Next one please. It was that quick.
We had a few different sized sleeves to suit the changing bore sizes Rootes went through.
No-one (but me) has ever mentioned the alloy exhaust manifold fitted to the first model Commers.
What a disaster that was, they'd get super hot and droop from the weight of the carboned-up flex pipe (plus the 2-massive mufflers) and the manifold would fall to bits.
Dad would pull it off, pack it with sand and try to oxy it back together with alloy filler rods and flux. Not a great success. Finally Rootes brought out a cast iron manifold.
I'm on a bit of a roll but we'd change at least one front main leaf every night, the roads were that bad. No shockers either and the theory was that they broke on the re-bound.
As a youngster with keen eyes it was my job to check for broken springs. The drivers would hate it when I'd find one, engine would spray oil from the crankcase breather all over the axle.
I think they had 9/16" BSF U-bolts too and what a rubbish thread to use on something like a U-bolt.
We did all this work out on the footpath, neighbours must have been very understanding, it never crossed my mind as a kid.

Jeffo

Slightly off topic - but I can vouche for the 'springs breaking on the re-bound' theory.

I changed hundreds of them on F700 Ford body trucks carting fuel on bad roads. They ALWAYS only broke springs when coming home empty at 70MPH.

With the rear springs - we converted them to 3 main leaves and the radius leaf - we added 2 rapper leaves. That slowed the breakage a bit. We even tried the Land Rover trick - putting a 'strap' from the chassis and under the axle. All to try and limit the amount of re-bound travel.

Macks, D series Fords and ACCO's used the exact same srping - but gave a heap less trouble because they didnt go anywhere near as fast as the F series Fords. So speed was a factor too.

Oldfulla