Commer 1957 TS3 Engine

Rootes designed two stroke horizontally opposed supercharged diesel.

[@bobw7066]

I used to work on these in the late fifties into the sixties, the timing chain in the back of the engine would stretch so much the engine would barely start, I was probably the first person in Australia to install timing a gearset to replace the chain. The gears made a clattering noise at idle but never failed as did the chain and the splines on the drive quill to the Rootes blower did not last long, we used to change them every 10,000 miles because you never knew when they would strip the splines. they were also fitted with a David Brown gearbox that worked very good.

[@marcconyard5024]

I remember going out with my dad when he drove a Commer TS3 truck. Although the truck, a three axle tray was always fully loaded that two stroke engine just slogged away without hesitation. So much potential in this design that was destroyed by the absolute fools at Chrysler.

[@machineryrescue]

Yes I agree and thanks for the visit!

[@rogereade4950]

Very neat and tidy restoration, very under rated engines, also make great marine engines, LCG

[@goldfools5445]

Great job. Awesome sound. I see Cummins are going to bring back this configuration for industrial engines.

[@wills.5762]

A wonderful engine, designed to convert diesel into noise with a few hp as a by product.

[@peterlovatt4156]

A lot of bhp compared with similar-capacity engines of that era! I wish they could bottle the sound of one working hard!

[@timduncan8450]

Looks & sounds like a beautiful restoration job!

[@MegaBoilermaker]

An extraordinary engine.

[@jlo13800]

Drop it in a snowmoble!

[@keithkuckler2551]

GMC made two stroke diesels for years, both in big trucks, and, industrial motors. I had a 435 John Deere diesel tractor that had one, that baby would really scream when you revved it up.

[@jlo13800]

So does my 8v92, but they dont real turn over that fast. most 4 jokes in dirtbike out-rev 2 strokes because they they have to faster! 4 jokes use much lighter parts and rev higher!

[@MegaBoilermaker]

I skippered a Halter built crewboat in the Persian Gulf with 3 x V16/71 GM's. You could not stay out on the workdeck when they came on song !

[@jonathanaudette2988]

The "knocker"! Three cylinders, six pistons. This is indeed a quiet example. I have foggy memories from the age of three of squatting down on the sidewalk holding my ears crying when a truck with a TS3 under load passed by.

[@dazaspc]

They have a sound of their own. I remember when I was a child that the local Garbage trucks used to have 2 stroke GM diesels. Nobody slept in on Rubbish bin day.....

[@jlo13800]

American marc OP 2 stroke OP outboard cranckcase blown, i love it much mkore power than my rotary wankle 2 stroke OMC which is not big on torque BTW

[@jlo13800]

@Rick Delair My 4 joke wankels i have a few act 2 stroke-ish, the Amarc op is a mini fairbanks mores 18 hp that acts like over 40 hp what an insane little op fairbands more it is

[@jlo13800]

I love the American marc OP 2 cycle much better and way more power than a sachs or JLO diesel, nothing beats American 2 strokes!! At drill weekend i had a yanmar 2 stroke diesel go crazy and blow smoke, nneded low ash oil and only 6hp from 300 cc 2 srtoke can do way beter than that, its got a seperate oil tnak with injection pump that dumps too muc crancase scavenged but why only 6hp?

[@jlo13800]

Your op 2 stroke makes way more power than this loop charged yanmar 2 stroke conversion. the yanmar drinks tcw3 as it runs and the oil injection is way rich and is fucked up, it surges and revs very high and hard to tame>

[@grumpystruckshop3807]

Brought up on repairing ts3 engines, i still have a blower drive shaft!!!!!!

[@jlo13800]

TS3 were roller bearing motors like a 2 stroke should be! Nissan UD was roller bearing 2 stroke i heard not sure!

[@grumpystruckshop3807]

@@jlo13800 didn t notice many roller bearings on the ones i repaired,

[@barry5787]

Lol, I remember fitting a new one to my tipper.

[@edkennedy6120]

bring them back and get rid of the common rail shite we have now.

[@VGHCX]

Have gasoline powered versions of this engine been built?

[@roguewavemichigandiving2754]

Sounds a lot like a 3 or 4 cylinder Detroit

[@robertnicholson7733]

Very different to a Detroit, uses ported exhaust rather than poppet valves, doesn't have the bark of the Detroit especially on starting. Everyone knows when my brother is going out in his boat, no muffler and the wet exhaust does nothing to quiet it down. You just can't miss it barking into life (over the bell -yes, actual metal bell and striker - of the oil pressure alarm). When it came to opposed piston two-stroke diesels, no one beat Junkers, the four crankshaft aero engines were masterpieces of design, the prototypes along with the complete Junkers works disappeared into Russia after WWII. The Napier Deltecs were inspired by the Junkers engines, Napier went to 3 crankshafts (with compromises) to get the engine the correct shape to fit into fast attack boats. They had form with the Junkers design having licensed the inline six-cylinder engine from Junkers before WWII, unfortunately WWII intervened and the Curverin assigned to history. Napier later built, perhaps the most complex piston aircraft engine ever built, the Nomad. A genuine compound engine, it used a 12 stage axial compressor as a supercharger and a two stage power recovery turbine that produced several hundred horsepower more than what was required to drive the supercharger - this power was fed to the single prop shaft via a load sharing Briers variable ratio coupling. The diesel was a low compression two-stroke loop scavenged flat twelve design and relied on the supercharger to increase the temperature to sufficient level to ignite the fuel, this required a spark ignition system to get the engine running - these were not the most unusual design elements. If you looked at a cross-section of the engine, you would see that the two cylinders were not offset but were in the same plane, the two conrods shared the same journal on the crankshaft, not knife and fork, or master and slave, but opposed with no bearing caps! There was a thin cap on the side of each rod just to stop the rods from falling off the crankshaft when it was stationary or being started - two-stroke engines of this design always have thrust down the conrod, there is never thrust on the cap - think about it - there is always positive pressure in the cylinder. Many more strange features. The engine ran and was reputedly the most fuel efficient aero engine, ever. The project was cancelled as Napier was fitting the engine into a test aircraft, it did run for many hundreds of hours on the test bed, some people were interested but the complexity (especially the Briers coupling) and probable reliability were serious concerns. Anyway, in those days everyone thought they could increase the fuel efficiency of the turbines to the same or better level of the Nomad, didn't happen! There are photos of the engine online, its appearance alone is enough to raise curiosity. Bob

[@2000freefuel]

about how many Kilograms is that configuration as displayed?

[@alanlake5220]

Runs really quiet

[@JosephCowen-ru7up]

It does for a Knocker that's the quietest one I've ever heard, can't mistake that Two Stroke sound !

[@Draxindustries1]

Looks and sounds lovely but should really be in a truck not static display..

[@kingearl2596]

Very strange, very British...

[@rogertycholiz2218]

KingEarl - Very British, very reliable & economical. It had low HP but lotsa torque.

[@jlo13800]

it runs oil injection and required low ash oil?

[@EngineEngineer]

@@jlo13800 no, none of that it has oil in the sump

[@grumpystruckshop3807]

@@jlo13800 rotella is the only oil for ts3

[@peterlovatt4156]

King Earl not really that British; cribbed from a 1937 Swiss Sulzer which had a piston supercharger!

[@joewaren508]

Big Briggs