Hi, I'm new to the forum. Have a bad habit of accumulating engines, too. So among my archives is a new 3.5 Mini-Petter pumpset. I uncrated it some time ago, then learned about the governor problems these have had and so I haven't yet fired it up. I'm getting close to finishing my engine shed mounting pads and i'll have a place to bolt down all sorts of stuff. One thing I hope to get running is that sweet little MP. Sounds like I'll need to tear into the governor and work on it first, something i've never done before. Do you have any tips for me?
Your suggestion for harvesting the waste heat got me thinking. I have a cistern, ten feet from the house. it's 8 feet in diameter, 25 feet deep. What would happen if i pumped it dry, lined it with spray foam insulation and made a huge Thermos bottle out of it? Could store a lot of BTU's in that much water.
Just because I thought you'd enjoy the depths of my madness. My engine shed is an old milking parlor in one end of my barn. It had a good bit of concrete poured to take the waste away from the critters as they were milked. I cleaned out Lord knows how much manure and straw, then filled the trenches with railroad ties bedded in gravel screenings under and between the individual ties. I'm building 5 pads, next to each other but not connected. Each pad will be 5' x 7', topped with 3x12 oak bridge plank. at 90 degrees to the railroad ties. So the whole sandwich will be more than a foot thick, bedded in tamped gravel. Should let me mount a lot of engines, running several at once without the vibration translating from one to the other and isolated from the building as well.
I've been taking photos, and I'll put some of them up when it's done.
Thanks.
rg