Puppeteer

Author Topic: Kubota Engines Manufactured by Changfa?  (Read 14134 times)

TerryM

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 26
    • View Profile
Kubota Engines Manufactured by Changfa?
« on: March 24, 2007, 03:39:20 AM »
Check out this screen shot from the "Made in China.Com" website:



Is it common knowledge that Kubota is sourcing their one-cyl horizontal diesels from Changfa,  or is everyone else as surprised as I am?


Terry

CD in BC

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 124
    • View Profile
Re: Kubota Engines Manufactured by Changfa?
« Reply #1 on: March 24, 2007, 08:08:12 PM »
Maybe they are paying "Rice-ense fee"? ;D

Doug

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 3386
  • Why don't pictures ever work for me?
    • View Profile
    • Doug's Petteroid Stuff
Re: Kubota Engines Manufactured by Changfa?
« Reply #2 on: March 25, 2007, 12:44:14 AM »
My brother works for  Kub Engine and tractor dealer. Some of the engines they sell are made by another company ( still can't rememeber the name he said ) but it wasn't ChangFa.

Things do change......

I believe the CHinese engines are clones of the Kubota, I've still never read any proff of a German connection.

Doug
It's a Good Life, If You Don't Weaken

TerryM

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 26
    • View Profile
Re: Kubota Engines Manufactured by Changfa?
« Reply #3 on: March 25, 2007, 04:59:46 AM »
I'm inclined to agree with you, Doug.  I think that the "German designed" label is marketing hype from Harry over at uberpower.com.   It lends more credibilty to the engine than "designed in Japan".

I had the opportunity to spend a considerable amount of time in the Gulf of Tonkin on a Navy oiler in 1972 and 1973.  At night, we'd be steaming along and a light would flick on 4 or 5 thousand yards ahead of us, followed by POP .......  POP .........POP....POP..POP.POP.POP.POP as the crew lighted off the main engine.  They'd have their nets out and would routinely engage in a game of sea-chicken to force us to change course before we ran over them.  The sound of a one-cylinder diesel starting is very distinctive and has stuck with me for close to 35 years.  I recognized it instantly the first time started my 1115

The emphasis on simplicity and ruggedness over smoothness fairly screams Asian - no self-respecting German would accept a hopper-cooled engine that has to be chained down to keep it from taking a tour around the work area.

Incidently, I got a gen head installed today using an adapter plate of 3/4" mild steel my son cut out with a water jet.  We bolted it to the flywheel and then bolted a synchronous sheave with an SK hub to the adapter plate.  That drove a 7.2 KW Mecc Alte generator head up to full-load which the engine hardly noticed.  The speed dropped by maybe 30 RPM, but you could sure hear it in the exhaust note - it gets REAL sharp under load.  I've got to fit a more effective muffler on this beast otherwise the neighbors are going to show up at my front door with torches and pitch-forks.

Terry

mobile_bob

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 2940
    • View Profile
Re: Kubota Engines Manufactured by Changfa?
« Reply #4 on: March 25, 2007, 07:05:47 AM »
i don't know the origins of the engine, whether or not it is of german design or not,, or if it is a loose
interpretation on the fact that rudy diesel was a german,, so i guess all diesels are of german design?

as for walking all over the place, i don't know about your engine, but a changfa r195, will certainly not walk all over the shop
the dual countershafts do a real nice job of keeping the engine relatively calm,, which is in my estimation not a small feat for a single cylinder

if you are trying to quiet the beast ,, you might also work on the air intake system, in my opinion there is a significant amount of noise emminating from
the aircleaner.

the changfa's don't get alot of press around here, but dollar for dollar they are very hard to beat

i passed on the opportunity to pick up a 1115 changzhou, coupled with a 10kwatt head with less than 20 hours being sold by a neighbor of a widow
that didn't want it in her garage after her husband died,,, for 695 bucks!... i should have bought it.  i thought about it too long and it was gone.

the worst miss was i was 3 hours late on a 4cyl onan 12 kwatt 3 phase, with auto start and the switch gear,,, with 700 hours for 300 bucks! on craigslist
nice clean unit from a decom fire house....  and that would have been a steal for a diesel onan.

but i digress

i like the changfa

bob g
otherpower.com, microcogen.info, practicalmachinist.com
(useful forums), utterpower.com for all sorts of diy info

rcavictim

  • Certified Generator Head and Grand Master Sparky
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1827
    • View Profile
Re: Kubota Engines Manufactured by Changfa?
« Reply #5 on: March 25, 2007, 08:13:27 AM »

the worst miss was i was 3 hours late on a 4cyl onan 12 kwatt 3 phase, with auto start and the switch gear,,, with 700 hours for 300 bucks! on craigslist
nice clean unit from a decom fire house....  and that would have been a steal for a diesel onan.

but i digress

i like the changfa

bob g

Bob,

Are you serious that you need another diesel engine so badly that it causes you pain when you miss a deal?  What did you do with those twenty or so Isuzu reefer 201`s and all the other stuff you have?
-DIY 1.5L NA VW diesel genset - 9 kW 3-phase. Co-gen, dual  fuel
- 1966, Petter PJ-1, 5 kW air cooled diesel standby lighting plant
-DIY JD175A, minimum fuel research genset.
-Changfa 1115
-6 HP Launtop air cooled diesel
-Want Lister 6/1
-Large DIY VAWT nearing completion

europachris

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 145
    • View Profile
Re: Kubota Engines Manufactured by Changfa?
« Reply #6 on: March 25, 2007, 01:44:46 PM »

if you are trying to quiet the beast ,, you might also work on the air intake system, in my opinion there is a significant amount of noise i like the changfa

bob g

http://n9zes.zippyvideos.com/ is two videos of my R185 ChangFa running, one with the stock "muffler" and the other with a custom manifold/muffler setup.  The muffler is a NAPA muffler for an '87 Sentra, I recall.  I have the number of it somewhere.

I also replaced the stock oil bath filter with a Solberg intake filter/silencer for an air compressor.  They are available in a range of NPT sizes, and have a very robust wire gauze reinforced polyester element.  Price is reasonable, and it really helps quiet the intake "honk" somewhat.

Overall, I am VERY impressed with the ChangFa.  It's still nowhere near quiet, but tolerable.  It will pull a 3.5kW load at 1800 rpm and hardly grunt, and once warmed fully, the exhaust is almost clear at that load. Very smooth running, too.

Chris

fattywagonman

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 330
    • View Profile
Re: Kubota Engines Manufactured by Changfa?
« Reply #7 on: March 25, 2007, 03:27:04 PM »
The engine design originated in Germany...

I believe Farrymann  / Bukh was the original....


http://www.farymann.de/frames_englisch.htm

Look at the 43E and 43F
« Last Edit: March 25, 2007, 03:30:16 PM by fattywagonman »

TerryM

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 26
    • View Profile
Re: Kubota Engines Manufactured by Changfa?
« Reply #8 on: March 25, 2007, 04:23:23 PM »
Thanks for all the comments and suggestions, guys.  This thread is rapidly diverging in three more or less orthogonal directions:  origins of the Changfa-style engines, their tendency to "walk", and silencing.  I'm going to set the silencing topic aside for the time being - this is a topic of intense interest to me and it deserves its own thread.

With regard to Fattywagonman's comments, I can certainly see some design features of the 43E and 43F (particularly the latter) in the Changfa.  I wonder if what we're seeing here is evolution turned on its head  as the rather sophisticated German design is knocked off by the Japanese, and then further dumbed-down by the Chinese.

With regard to the "walking" of the 1115, I also have a Changfa 185 which is a sweet little engine.  I haven't even gotten if off the packing crate base, but it's reasonably stable even with one securing bolt missing.  The 1115 is another story.  This thing is just an animal  - they're *much* bigger than they look in photos you see online.  To quote Jim Lerch, who has an excellent web page of his Changfa project, "My GOD, It's a HUGE 1.2L single cylinder diesel engine!


 I've got mine mounted on skids made of two 4x6's with angle iron bridging the two - the engine bolts to the angle iron.   The first time I fired it up, it happliy did a slow motion waltz around the garage,dragging a 100 AH battery behind it.  I then built "shoes" with inner-tube rubber glued to the bottom that slid on the ends of each of the skids - that was a little better.  Yesterday, I mounted an additional 150 lbs or so of adapters, busihings, sheaves and generator on the base and that seemed to do the trick provided I had the skids aligned with the slope of the garage floor.

mobile_bob

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 2940
    • View Profile
Re: Kubota Engines Manufactured by Changfa?
« Reply #9 on: March 25, 2007, 05:40:01 PM »
Terry:

i have no experience with the big changfa's, but am surprised that it walks around as you describe

is it possible the counterbalance shafts were installed out of time?

i have a 5.5 hp non counterbalanced changfa that i can start sitting on a riser block of wood
and it will sit there and run without being bolted down, being held in place with just my hand to keep it from
tipping off the block of wood toward the heavy flywheel.

at 1.2 liter that is a large single, but i would expect it to be more manageable

anyone else got any experience with these big boys, are they unruley?

bob g
otherpower.com, microcogen.info, practicalmachinist.com
(useful forums), utterpower.com for all sorts of diy info

Biloxibad

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 43
    • View Profile
Re: Kubota Engines Manufactured by Changfa?
« Reply #10 on: March 25, 2007, 07:04:38 PM »
I have a 1125 on an st15 genhead (28 HP) It shipped with an attached fan cooled radiator, and 3 gallon fuel tank..  Louder than your Mother -in -Law , when you tell her she cant come along, but starts every time.

The first fault was the starter, a small high torque GM clone,  had to have it rewound locally so it would hold together,  ( the dealer was kind enough to cnnibalize another one in his inventory for a replacement, but it failed in short order also.)   The next failure was in the cooling system, the radiator literrally shook itself apart piece at a time,  I installed stiffeners, brazed the failed connections, but it finally was a total loss.  I stripped the radiator from the set, and built a top motor plate with a couple of 1" pipe flanges one with a dip tube attached s  to allow it to hopefully siphon cool through a automotive type radiator. It works GREA.   By Scrapping the radiator, I lost the built-in charging system, so put in a stock 15 amp 110v automotive type charger to keep the battery in top form and supply the power for the radiator fan.

The next to die was the built in fuel tank,  again it shook apart at the seams,  drenching the monster in #2. 

Once replaced with a seperate mounted gravity fed system, all has been well now for 50 + hours running time.  I still have to find a way to quiten it down, both the exhaust and intake could both use some major engineering from an ccoustic standpoint.

Performance wise it is delivering well above expectations,  it starts a 5 ton airconditioner and once running will start a 3 ton system, but not in reverse order. 

Max starting load while starting our 5 ton airconditioner is 92 amps,  It does a remarkable job delivering a consistant 65 amps while blowing some grey smoke using straight diesel.. fuel consumtion at that rate is 1.12 GPH.  At 52 amps the fuel consumtion was exactly the same with the same grey smoke,  at 19 amps consumption was .68 gph,  Running no load at 2200 RPM it consumed .41gph. 

Overall I am happy with Big BERTHA,  Feeding it with Woodgas is no problem, but I have yet to find a realistic measurement of savings , though in a one hour test I have seen diesel consumption with a 52 amp load as low as .36 GPH.   for a total savings of .66 gph over using diesel alone.  Not yet where I want to be, but enough of a savings to make me want to continue to work with the woodgas project..

Best regards

Steve


 
Metro lister6/1
Jiang Ling zx1125
ST15
Baldor 20 3 ph 3450
Baldor 10 Hp single phase 1750

TerryM

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 26
    • View Profile
Re: Kubota Engines Manufactured by Changfa?
« Reply #11 on: March 25, 2007, 08:22:57 PM »
RE Mobile_Bob's suggestion to check the timing of the counterbalance - RCAVictim (where do you guys get these handles?) suggested that I pull the sump cover off a while back and get some photos of the interior so he could compare the appearance with that of his Changfa.  I did that and posted them in a thread titled "Manufacturer of Carrol Stream Motors Single-Cyl Horizontal Diesel".  What struck me at the time that I was taking the photos is that the cut-out in the counterbalance exactly matched the shape of the rod end and they seemed to be synchronized - i.e. at the point in time that the piston was at BDC, the cut-outs were just missing the rod end.  I'm struggling a little with the explanation, but the photos posted on the other thread illustrate the point.  I suppose that they could have been a tooth or two off and I wouldn't have noticed.  Has anyone had any experience checking the relative timing of the counterbalance with the crank and can it be done without stripping the engine down to parade-rest?

Steve - Interesting to hear your experiences with an even bigger animal than the 1115.  It was pretty clear from your comments that the engine has a serious vibration issue, but you didn't say anything about its propensity to walk around when unrestrained.  Could you comment on that and also provide a brief description of the frame you've got the engine mounted on? 

Touching briefly on the topic of reducing the dB level of these engines, I've been mulling over some ideas that I'll post in a separate thread.  On the exhaust side, the hard part as I see it is figuring out how to mount the muffler so that (1) you don't have a long springy structure that destroys itself from vibration, (2) doesn't significantly increase the footprint of the gen set, and (3) doesn't require the muffler to be tucked into a space that would be better utilized for another function such as a radiator or a fuel tank.  So far, I've been designing my genset on the basis of "TLAR" (that looks about right) and I find myself routinely having to back up and change the design to work around some problem I didn't anticipate.  It sounds like N9ZES has been down this path as well as several others, so I'm hoping to get enough tips to get the design right the first time.

Cheers,
Terry

Biloxibad

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 43
    • View Profile
Re: Kubota Engines Manufactured by Changfa?
« Reply #12 on: March 26, 2007, 03:05:59 AM »
The 1125 i have is mounted to a small dual I beam frame with angles welded between the 2 ibeams.. This is sitting 28 inches off the floor on  a pair of  4x8 pine beams with a 3/4 marine plywood between them.. 

The genset is simply sitting on the plywood, no anchors and has had no tendancy to walk , creep or crawl at all.   This is in stark contrast to my Lister 6/1 which jumps around like a rabbit in heat and MUST be bolted down and concreted in, or it will try to fly. 
Metro lister6/1
Jiang Ling zx1125
ST15
Baldor 20 3 ph 3450
Baldor 10 Hp single phase 1750

TerryM

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 26
    • View Profile
Re: Kubota Engines Manufactured by Changfa?
« Reply #13 on: March 27, 2007, 02:40:36 AM »
Quote
The genset is simply sitting on the plywood, no anchors and has had no tendancy to walk , creep or crawl at all.


Wow, that's kind of disconcerting since it supports  Mobile_Bob's suggestion that I've got a counterbalance weight out of sync with the piston.  A complete tear down at this point in the engine's life isn't something I'm looking forward to.

Steve, I'm having trouble reconciling the failures you discussed in your earlier post that seem to be vibration related vs. the stability you report in this most recent post.  Is the I-beam frame the engine is mounted on fairly heavy?

Can any other 1115 owners chime in with their experiences with their engines tending to walk when not firmly attached to something heavy?

Terry

fattywagonman

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 330
    • View Profile
Re: Kubota Engines Manufactured by Changfa?
« Reply #14 on: March 29, 2007, 02:12:33 PM »
Quote
http://n9zes.zippyvideos.com/ is two videos of my R185 ChangFa running, one with the stock "muffler" and the other with a custom manifold/muffler setup.  The muffler is a NAPA muffler for an '87 Sentra, I recall.  I have the number of it somewhere.

Hi Chris,
I noticed your gen head... Who makes it and here did you get it?

Thanks John