Wood piston in working engine

[edholly]

Anyone come across a wood piston in a working engine ?

A good mate of mine when doing his apprenticeship swears the college had an engine given to them and they ran it before stripping it, and it ran ok. When they stripped it they found a piston made of hardwood !

He thinks it was an A model Ford engine and it was around 1958.

 

[abby]

Oak was often used as a "get you home " solution for a knackered piston during WW2 when spares were almost impossible to get in the UK , having said that , fuel was almost impossible to get too so I don't suppose the wooden parts got that much use ! I have seen an ad in an old magazine for aluminium caps which were fixed on to wood pistons.
Oak was also used for bearings in large machines and the first propellor shafts of ships ran in lignum vitae bearings.

 

[deverett]

... Oak was also used for bearings in large machines and the first propellor shafts of ships ran in lignum vitae bearings.

I sailed in British built ships of the 1950s that had lignum vitae stern tube bearings - sea water lubricated and they lasted for years.

Dave
The Emerald Isle

 

[Mechanicboy]

I sailed in British built ships of the 1950s that had lignum vitae stern tube bearings - sea water lubricated and they lasted for years.

Dave
The Emerald Isle

Lignum vitae is hard and durable, and is also the densest wood traded (density: 1.23 g/cm3), it will easily sink in water. On the Janka Scale of Hardness, which measures hardness of woods, lignum vitae ranks highest of the trade woods, with a Janka hardness of 4500 lbf (compared with African Blackwood at 2940 lbf, Hickory at 1820 lbf, red oak at 1290 lbf, Yellow Pine at 690 lbf, and Balsa at 325 lbf).
Lignum vitae is also one of the numerous hard, dense woods loosely referred to as ironwood.

The lignum vitae is self-lubricating wood since it has natural oil. John Harrison used the lignum vitae as gear wheel in his marine chronometer to last long life, also the marine chronometer at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich is still in use.

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[kf2qd]

Had a friend years ago, he has since passed on, who was a mechanic. Telling of buying a car when he was a teen that ran okay, but over time developed a knock. Tore it down and found a wooden piston with a steel top that was held on by 4 carriage bolts.The top of the wooden piston had turned to carbon and resulted in a slight space between the steel cap and the wood piston.By the time he discovered the problem that cylinder was pretty well shot.

 

[edholly]

Blimey, that's amazing. I believed my mate but never thought wood pistons would be used as much as they obviously were in hard times to keep things going.

And I bet I am in the majority in this lack of knowledge !

 

[kadora]

One old guy told me that after WW2 mechanics used to replace worn out crankshaft bearings for trousers leahter belt. ??????????

 

[Cogsy]

My dad told me stories of getting a hole in the top of a piston on a V8 on the farm and simply removing both pistons/rods from that journal and wrapping the journal in leather so as not to lose oil pressure, then putting it back together as a V6. He says it worked fairly well to keep you going until you had the time/money to fix it properly.

 

[mcostello]

Heard an old timer that was in Arizona and His car developed a bad rod bearing. He pulled the oil pan and replaced the bearing with a piece of leather belt from His pants.I don't remember how many miles He got out of it. After changing it several times He realized that if He would punch the oil holes in it He would get 100 miles out of it. Told of going into stores and buying all the leather belts they had. Made it to Lancaster, Ohio. Appx 1800 miles. I would of just went to a junk yard and put a used set of rod bearings in it, or swapped out the engine.