OutdoorKing Repair Forum Forums Finding and Swapping Idle Chatter Single cylinder GM Detroit Diesels in Australia

Hi LRT,
I too am fascinated by this model. A Roots blower supercharged two-stroke single!

Even in the US, they are very much in the rare and collectable category these days.

There's a recent article available at https://www.pressreader.com/usa/diesel-world/20170601/281517931006940 which says that the most reliable sources put total production at less than 1000 of this model, and the production run may have been as short as 1938-1940.

The favoured webforum for the 1-71 community is www.smokstak.com , and the Oz equivalent is probably https://forums.tomm.com.au/

I'd be very doubtful that any would have been commercially imported into Oz.

Keep in mind that there were established local manufacturers of small stationary diesel engines at the start of WW2, who had been producing engines since the 1920's or earlier. Southern Cross, McDonald Imperial, Ronaldson Tippett, Kelly & Lewis, are a few that come to mind.
And there was import tariff protection for British Empire and local makers.

As well as Lister, Blackstone and Crossley small diesels were popular here, as were Blackstone, Crossley and Ruston Hornsby for larger multi-cylinder diesels.

Cylinder head view of a 1920's ~200hp Ruston Hornsby twin cylinder diesel, in its original location [at an abandoned VIC gold mine]

BTW, that's a 200L drum, to give you an idea of scale...

That pic was taken late 2000's, when the engine was looking pretty sad after the 2003 bushfires; however it has now been restored to running condition, and has its own website!

Run video; [video][/video]

Website http://ruston12h.com/