PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum - View Single Post

rwthomas1 · #6 08-30-2004, 08:05 PM

One of the main problems with using an engine from a car is how the power will be transmitted to the genset head. It is not as difficult as you would imagine but it will require some engineering. Your first option is to drive the gen head with belts. This is convienient because sheaves and belts are available in about a billion different combinations down at your local industrial power transfer supplier. Get a look at the master catalogue from Browning and you will be amazed at the options. The problem with belts is that a plain bearing crankshaft is not designed for large side loads from a big belt drive setup. It will literally pull the crank in contact with its bearings and bad things happen. The way around this is to use a flexible coupler. A machine shop can modify a flywheel or make you an adaptor to mount the coupler on the engine. The flexible coupler drives a jackshaft mounted in big pillow block bearings. The drive sheave is mounted to the jackshaft and the pillow blocks take the side load. The other option is to direct drive the gen head with the flexible coupler. I think the belt drive would be preferable as the ratios could be fine tuned to spin the gen head and the engine at their most efficient speeds. This sort of project is not all that difficult if you know how to weld and are a decent fabricator. I have built and worked on systems very similar to this for homebuilt hovercraft and they work very well with plenty more horsepower than the MB engine will provide. Regarding the control of engine speed, the simplest aftermarket cruise control would work fine and be very easy to adapt. RT