Alldays & Onions with Deutz FL912

Alldays & Onions with Deutz diesel and new paint job

At last! the Alldays & Onions 300# hammer works! The powerplant is a Deutz FL912 air-cooled diesel with a Twin-Disc clutch. I saw it start and run in the back yard of the core-drilling company that had it. Good enough. But once home, there were numerous little things that had to be set right -- sheared off mounting bolts, control panel bashed by a fork lift, alternator belt tensioner shaped all wrong and so on. Then it had to have a mount that would allow access to the oil drain plug.

Alldays hammer before new paint
Before new paint
With a lot of uncertainty about whether this was going to work or not -- whether the engine might have to come back into the shop for further tinkering -- I decided to try putting it on the little trailer I got with another, too-small engine. But this arrangement is so top-heavy that it could be dangerous when detached from the truck hitch so I added the auxilliary wheeled jacks. In place and running, they add stability, too. The trailer is a front axle from a pre-WWII car or truck with the king pins brazed (!) in place and leaf springs that are just about maxed out with the ca. 900# Deutz on board. The weird-looking exhaust arrangement is sort of the only way it could go. There is a nice fuel tank (not shown) but in the photo it just had the fuel line stuck in a gas can.

Alldays hammer with Deutz engine: gear & belt detail Numereous hacks and stumbling blocks. Got 2 "B" belts from Princess Auto that looked right but when put in place, one was slack when the other was tight. Went to the seals-and-bearings Local Guru who in turn read the numbers over the phone to the Halifax expert and determined that one was "industrial" while the other was "fractional horsepower", i.e. Not The Same. Feh. Two new belts from the Local Guru.

The 1/4" plate with the pillow block bearings and shaft that's held in place with C-clamps has guide pins for positioning so that it can be removed without disturbing the alignment of the gear & shaft. Now that I have proof of concept, I have to make some rugged dogs to to replace the C-clamps. I suppose I could weld it up but I like being able to remove the whole shaft assembly without mucking with the big ol' bolts that attach the bracket to the hammer and without disturbing the bearing alignment. The gear shaft is the shaft from the original 15HP, 400V motor, expensively modified at the machine shop to take the bearings and pulley.

Alldays hammer with Deutz engine: belt tensioner strut detail The belts are tensioned by a strut made from a truck tie-rod, including the left/right threaded turnbuckle affair. Once the engine is approximately in place and lined up and the belts on the pulleys, a couple of turns of the turnbuckle bring the belts up to tension. The engine doesn't seem to move around much while running but I guess I'll stake the off wheel so that it can't creep and mess up the pulley alignment.

So now I can get back to playing with the hammer itself instead of with engines, belts, shafts etc. I think I should fix up an automatic oiler to replace the manual give-it-a-squirt-now-and-then one. The big, clunky drawing dies could do with some serious modification. And of course I gotta get some big chunks of iron real hot and learn to use the thing. Yow! More fun.

Background on the Alldays & Onions saga:

Created: Mike Spencer -- Sun 06 Jul 2008
Updated: Fri 15 Apr 2011