Diesel engines for miniature gauge locomotives?

What kind of small Diesel engines are fitted to miniature gauge locomotives such as 5” gauge and 7 1/4” gauge?

It’s always puzzled me because small diesel car engines would probably be too big to fit inside a locomotive body for those gauges.

Thanks.

It is usually a Honda or clone small petrol engine. There are various ways to use this to drive the wheels but from experience the easiest is to use an Eaton Hydrostatic Drive to the via chains usually with a lay shaft and speed reduction. There are small diesel engines out there but they are much more expensive and I suspect too slow unless you are going for diesel mechanical. I have a friend who has a five inch gauge loco that uses a Suffolk Punch engine and friction clutch that works well with a mechanical reverse.

Edited By Ian Childs on 24/03/2018 22:33:27

I've also seen small "Diesels" fitted with a battery and electric motor. Of course they don't sound right, although I suppose you could fit a sound effects system.

John

One of our local club members has built a 'proper' diesel electric. Rather than plagiarise the article please open this link and read the whole thing.

www.tmmec.org.nz/downloads/349Feb-Mar2016.pdf

But a quote to whet your appetite.

He uses the 3 cylinder diesel engines from small Kabota tractor lawn mowers

Since then Tony has now built the second example and runs them double headed. They sound absolutely fantastic.

Also NZ uses 3' 6" guage so a larger loco when scaled to 7.25"

Pete

Edited By Doubletop on 25/03/2018 11:02:17

Edited By Doubletop on 25/03/2018 11:06:13

Edited By Doubletop on 25/03/2018 11:06:32

A lot of the little Kabota diesels drive a hydralic pump, and on lawn mowers driving anything up to half a dozen or more hydraulic motors driving the wheels(2 to 4), and the cutter blades, one each. Also a lot of mowers this size have hydraulic rams to rais and lower the cutting heads, and tip the grass catcher.

Ian S C

My brother had a French-made car powered by a Kubota diesel of negligible capacity for a while. The belt driven transmission was best considered a consumable component... not really suited to driving the length of the UK and back again. As an ex-MZ owner he probably thought it was a luxury car...

The engines themselves are almost bullet proof.

Neil

Years ago I did some repair work on a ground level 7-1/4 diesel electric that is/was running in The Hague.

My job was replacing a shaft, and a carbon brush holder on the generator.

It did have a very small diesel, and the generator was from a military aircraft, if I remember correctly. My dutch at the time was "so-so" but got a lot better thanks in part to those club members.

I'm not a diesel guy, but was impressed with it's design. Should have taken more pictures.

Maybe someone from SWZ reads this and can comment?

Neil, I think the car you are talking about was an Aixiam, a car dealer I carried out work for was an agent for them, I did quite a lot of electrical work on them, they could driven on a motorcycle licence.

They used a single cylinder Kubota engine, which as you say was bullet proof.

The problems really got bad when they introduced a battery powered van.

Yep, that;'s the one - technically a quad bike in the UK! CVT and electric windows(!)

Strangely they don't seem to be any cheaper than ordinary cars!

Edited By Neil Wyatt on 25/03/2018 16:00:27