lildiesel

I've been messing about with a Gilbert .11 glow for almost a year now and even flown it in CL sport plane. A nice little engine even if tepid compared to a Medallion .09. What interests me most about this engine is the configuration. It reminds me of a Mills diesel where the venturi feeds the mixture into the cylinder sub piston induction instead of crankcase induction. Anyway, I'm thinking this would make a very interesting diesel conversion in an Old Timer way. From what I have learned researching the 'net this engine was designed and produced by Fox for A. C. Gilbert. The glowhead is apparently replaceable with a Fox .09/.10 or Cox Medallion/Tee Dee .15 head. Which leads to the question, has anybody here ever run into a non DDD source for a diesel head for the Medallion .15 or Fox .10? A "one of" head would be cost prohibitive for a goofy little idea like this, but I'd spring for something from a production run in a heartbeat. Anybody got any ideas?

I think that Glibert used these engines in RTF plastic control line planes. I vaguely remember starting and running in an engine like this for the kid down the street. It was in a jet fighter looking affair with the control horn hanging on the bottom of the wing. He was hopeless with every engine powered thing his dad bought for him. A Wen Mac Halibrand Shrike Indycar was way beyond him until I showed him how to turn his kid sister's trike upside down and use the front wheel as a starter... we ran the car in the cul de sac circle at the end of the street with all the kids and dads standing around until the tin of fuel ran out and after that the car never reappeared.

Recycled Flyer

Try A.J.Coholic -
[email protected]

For one off diesel heads his price is hard to beat!

Jim Thomerson

If you have diesel fuel handy, try it on diesel fuel. Connect the gloplug to start it and let it get warmed up. It may run fine, or not.

earlwb

I have several of these engines, But none in a airplane at this time though. I think there is a bunch of guys in California that use them for local combat competition fun.
I think it would be pretty neat to run them as a diesel engine. Maybe someone can run off a few diesel heads for us to buy.

steve111

I haven't much experience with the Gilbert but have messed around a bit with a friend's. One thing that struck me about it was that it seemed rather lightly constructed. Do you reckon it would be up to the rigours of operating as a diesel?

Recycled Flyer

Yeah, I agree that it does look lightly constructed but having never seen one in the flesh all Ican do is refer to these pics from this site

http://www.craftsmanshipmuseum.com/othereng.htm

P.S.
Here is a link to chat about that engine -
http://stunthanger.com/smf/index.php?topic=5161.0

dieselbloke

<![if gte mso 9]><xml><w:worddocument><w:view></w:view><w:browserlevel></w:browserlevel></w:worddocument></xml><![endif]><![if gte mso 9]><xml><w:latentstyles deflockedstate="false" latentstylecount="156"></w:latentstyles></xml><![endif]><![if gte mso 10]><style type="text/css"> Style Definitions */table.MsoNormalTable{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;mso-style-noshow:yes;mso-style-parent:"";mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;mso-para-margin:0in;mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;mso-pagination:widow-orphan;font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-ansi-language:#0400;mso-fareast-language:#0400;mso-bidi-language:#0400;}</style><![endif]><![if gte mso 9]><xml><o:shapedefaults v:ext="edit" spidmax="1026"></o:shapedefaults></xml><![endif]><![if gte mso 9]><xml><o:shapelayout v:ext="edit"><o:idmap v:ext="edit" data="1"></o:idmap></o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]><p class="MsoNormal">I've never really understood the compulsion to dieselize motors just for it's own sake. Some glows are rugged enough to make good diesels, most including the rather lightly constructed examples from the fifties and sixties aren&rsquo;t.

A good rule of thumb is how does the glow run on 30% nitro? If it can survive that it will probably hold together as a diesel.

I'd guess that this one won't, and what&rsquo;s the point anyway. There are lots of fine small diesels available from Ebay.

R</p>

Recycled Flyer

Iagree that spending the time and effort is a waste of time in a lot of cases but here we have an old side port design that is known to have a modest power output ( I don't think that 30% nitro would be a good test here anyway as that doesn't stress the compression enough,) and if you stick to this low expectation dictated by the design it may be OK.

Iam looking very suspiciously at the con rod though and wonder how the piston seal will hold up.

Its very telling that there is very little traffic about Gilbert diesels on the net, Ihave never heard or seen one - so I guess that some fliers have looked at it sideways before and passed it by.

The other thing is that the one piece glow heads may be hard to find and a diesel head would cure that issue once and for all!

Cheers.

dieselbloke

Actually I can't make any sense out of your argument. English isn't your first language is it?

Have you ever even run a diesel?

An integral Gilbert 11 glow head can very easily be tapped for a standard 1/4" x 32 glowplug.

R

Recycled Flyer

<style type="text/css">@font-face { font-family: "�*Ｓ 明朝";}@font-face { font-family: "�*Ｓ 明朝";}@font-face { font-family: "Cambria";}p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; }.MsoChpDefault { font-family: "Cambria","serif"; }div.WordSection1 { page: WordSection1; }</style><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="">Um, actually I am born and bred in Sydney Australia, been living there for the past 51 years, have English parents and spent 20 of those years educating myself - so I suppose that my command of English is passable. (Or perhaps you could just read some of my older posts to confirm this.)

Running a diesel, let me see, I have a PAW 19 that is 37 years young and still going strong, a PAW 15 (not as good a runner but its had a hard life), a Taipan Tyro (that I have sent to David Bourke in Sth Australia) for a new contra recently, MP Jet classic from Dave Owen in a Tomboy, MVVS 49 and 40 diesel conversions (the 49 I have purchased from a moderator here), PAW 40 (also Dave Owen) destined for a Freebird control line stunt model, a reworked Marz 2.5 that lives in a Peacemaker, and 2 Sokols (one being breathed upon right now by 'Diesel Diehard' for racing purposes.)
So, yeah you could say that I have run a diesel or two.

How about you mate?

I agree that the Gilbert head could be adapted to use a standard glow plug but have you ever done this? Expect a slight performance loss as the gas flow would be interrupted by the plug recess; this has been well documented by Cox owners over the years (the plug hole on small engines owns a relatively large percentage of the combustion dome) - so why drop power in an already mediocre engine? And if you have to muck with the head then why not go the next step?

And my 'argument' here is simply support for another member of this forum who wishes to gain information about converting this engine to diesel, that and decrying the use of 30% nitro as a test of an engine being worthy of conversion.

For example I have glow engines that would absolutely scream on 30% nitro but would they make good candidates for conversions as they stand?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="">Well, no. The piston liner seal is too loose, their timing is way too high, their transfer passages are enormous and the cranks, well I doubt they would live long enough to be of much use.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style=""></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="">So how good a test or &lsquo;rule of thumb&rsquo; is using a hot fuel in determining a successful candidate for diesel conversion? All it proves is that that particular engine can run that fuel &ndash; that&rsquo;s all!</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style=""></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="">But look, this doesn&rsquo;t help the original poster one iota; his interest is in converting this engine and he came here for help. And another poster asks the same.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style=""></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="">To date I have suggested that he contact A.J Coholic in Canada (he makes one off diesel heads very nicely, and last time I used his services it cost me about $50 AU per head,) and agreed with steve111 about the light construction being suspect for conversion, the rod especially looks like it should be replaced with a more heavy duty item. But if this conversion was to go ahead then Iwould use a milder fuel with a high ether content and larger prop (the ether having a lower calorific value than kerosene and the larger prop needing a lower compression ratio.)
</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style=""></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="">And you say, &ldquo;I've never really understood the compulsion to dieselize motors just for it's own sake?&rdquo; </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style=""></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="">I can only answer from my perspective, I love tinkering, I love talking to others that do likewise as the pool of knowledge you can tap into is very deep and the results or &lsquo;success&rsquo; of dieselizing sometimes seems to take a back seat to the joy of trying.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style=""></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="">Talk soon, Chris.</span></p>

AMB

Chris and the rest of the gang first Chris I agree with your comments, If the engine may not have the "beef" rod, crank, compression issues, why bother?? There other engines out there in the size range in the classic diesels PAW is only one of them and really top notch engines OS10FP and 10LA , TT10 that make great conversions with DDD heads, I have all three and no issues I think the OS10LA is the only one of these in current production but there must be scads out there of the TT and OS10FP, from my previous posts you guys know I have a host of the larger ones 40 and up irvine, MVVS, TT, ST with davis heads and yes classic paws and a little Letmo reproduction. Human nature is to fiddle but I prefer to go with the "no Hassel " system
I think Mr Davis stated "Benchs do not fly" Yes I have a couple of "one offs" Irvine 36, Irvine 25, that A.J Coholic made but high quality base engines martin

earlwb

I think it would be a interesting experience to try a Gilbert 11 as a diesel. But it may work fine without a special diesel head and adjustable compression. When i get around to it I'll give it a try and see what happens with one of my Gilbert engines. I was thinking that one might be able to just drill and tap for a screw to go in and maybe you could use just a screw without a contra piston to change the compression just a little bit, but I also don't know how well that might work either.
But you are correct in that the engine doesn't look very strong for this purpose. So it is probably a bad idea.
The Gilbert glow heads can be converted to a screw in glow plug easily. You actually get a slight improvement in the compression ratio as the Gilbert heads have a large recess for the glow plug element. A screw in glow plug reduces this recess void a little bit.

maxtenet

If you can make your own diesel head it is a lot of fun to dieselize anything just for kicks. I even did a baffle piston Enya .19 for the hell of it and it is a nice engine. If you have to pay $50 for someone to make a head for a $20 engine it might not be worth it. Would still be cool with those exhaust stacks, though. I have the .07 and .11 Gilberts in my collection. Mediocre performance as a glow. Piston port induction simply isn't as efficient as rotary valve.

Max

tyro185

I have are few Gilbert's myself which I bought on eBaysome years back now. I didhave one back in the early 70's in are RTF CL model and I remember filling the inside chamber ofareblown glow head with epoxy.
It did run but how well I'm struggling to remember now.