Thursday, February 20, 2014

Diesel Invention


An electromagnetic bomb, or e-bomb, is a weapon designed to take advantage of this dependency. But instead of simply cutting off power in an area, an e-bomb would actually destroy most machines that use electricity. Generators would be useless, cars wouldn't run, and there would be no chance of making a phone call. In a matter of seconds, a big enough e-bomb could thrust an entire city back 200 years or cripple a military unit.

For no reason I thought of this yesterday.  A residual effect of a nuclear blast, and certainly for a purpose built e-bomb, is rendering everything electric useless.  But, what if you had a diesel car-with an old-style hand crank starter?  Once started, no electricity required to drive your Mercedes.  No radio, headlamps, or turn signal of course, but you'd own the streets.  What am I missing?


PS - you'll need a hand crank fuel siphon to get diesel fuel out of abandoned tanks.



14 comments:

OldTexan said...

"Glow plugs", you need some way to get heat into the cylinder for the first ignition until the pressure inside the piston can build up enough heat for combustion. I also think that any diesel engine you might encounter has an electric fuel pump and most will have a mini-computer to regulate fuel-air mix.

The elector magnetic disruption should not affect old style, non computer gasoline engines or older diesel stuff made before the 1970's when all of the pollution controls were mandated.

Wabano said...

Spray ether for minus 40 starting...actually, all Bombardier Muskeg tractors had one can built in...and no electrical whatsoever except headlights.

molonlabe28 said...

I like books and guns.

And I dislike phones and television.

I also have cattle, crops and well.

What are we waiting on?

Anonymous said...

Many surplus US Mill vehicles are hardened against EMP.
A CUCV will run on filtered used crankcase oil veg oil dsl, transmission fluid etc...
gov-liquidation is the placer to shop. I love accelerating past a "Smart Car" and belching a little black smoke from my "alt fuel" 24 MPG 3/4 4wd CUCV.
RAK

Igor said...

Gee, does that mean my 1955 BMW 500 with a magnito ignition would not start, with kick starter?

Anonymous said...

New cars/trucks have
a) electric fuel pumps
b) electric shutoffs for diesel to stop fuel flow when you turn off engine(or it would just keep running)
c) glow plugs or intake heaters to start.
I think you have as good a chance with diesel as gas if it happens...which is poor at best.

Dien Cai Dau

iri said...

Pfft...I'll just get a horse. They are almost as good as a dog, they mow your lawn when the Honda don't start, they fertilize your garden and don't give a good GD about no EMP.

Revernd Idaho Spud said...

Starting fluid will work when glow plugs are bad. I have a little Massey 35 diesel. Hook a trailer to it and presto, public transportation. Just bought 4 Yamaha and Honda three wheelers. Have two running. I'm not sure if the ignition systems in older cycles would be affected or not.

iri said...

"What am I missing?"

The ability to keep it. It's you against 150 million car jackers. I don't like the odds.

Anonymous said...

EMP won't affect everything electric. Big old analog hardware won't be damaged by the voltage spike. It's really only a danger to electronics. You car's alternator will work just fine- the electronic fuel injection, not so much. Anything with electronics and wires connecting them are in danger. The wires act like an antenna to pick up the pulse and send that spike into the sensitive stuff. Burn one transistor and the thing is dead, but things with no transistors will survive.

Now go find modern machines with no transistors. Good luck.

Anything well shielded OR disconnected has a chance of surviving. Think like how we used to unplug things when there was a a thunderstorm. It's the same thing. If you have any warning, disconnect everything. I know, slim chance. Car computers are pretty well shielded but the wires going to them are not. The car's metal body might be enough, but it's unlikely. You home's wiring will be just fine but all the modern stuff plugged into it will be burned out. A good UPS or voltage protector *might* be enough.

Ages ago I worked with machines that had RS232 ports and wires running 50 to 100 feet to a computer. The wires were tied right to steel pipes overhead. We had a near lightening hit and the computer controlled machines worked just fine, but all the RS232 ports were dead, including the one in the desk computer. The spike was induced in the wires very effectively by being tied to long steel pipes.

If it's possible, have one old carburated vehicle, if possible, with points instead of electronic ignition tucked away. It will work after an EMP. Anything pre-EFI should survive it, no transistors to burn out.

AWM

Anonymous said...

Well at least I'll have a nice, manicured lawn.
olds-mo-william

Billll said...

Somehow the idea of hand cranking a 14:1 engine jest doesn't appeal to me any more. Reference the Mad Max movie in which the diesel tractor used a compressed air motor to start it which ran off air compressed by hand. Much more appealing.

I suppose a small air reservoir would be fitted, charged from a small compressor mounted to the motor so you wouldn't have to hand pump it every time.

Anonymous said...

My 73 Ford Bronco will be the belle of the ball. Not that she's not already. -Anymouse

Anonymous said...

Le sigh.

More of the EMP scare bullshit.

In order for a nuclear device to knock out electrical circuits, it has to be really close to the circuit -- i.e. so close that the explosion will destroy the object, rendering the EM thing moot.

For a nuke to wipe out all the electrical circuits in a city the size of, say, Los Angeles, it would either have to be no higher than a few hundred feet above the city -- see the above comment -- or else be so big that it couldn't be carried aloft by any launch system in existence.

A "suitcase" nuke (such as hasn't yet been made, btw) might wipe out the circuits in a radius of about three city blocks outside the immediate blast area. Might.

The problem with an EMP, even a large one, is that it's inherently very fragile -- it can be stopped by concrete walls or steel shutters, degrades in strength VERY quickly (disproportionately in terms of strength v. distance), cannot go around the curvature of the Earth, and so on.

To summarize: most of the fearful talk about EMP is bullshit, and all the scrambling towards "remedies" is fueled by people who want to sell you said remedies or who have a vested interest in keeping you in a perpetual state of alarm (see Mencken's statement thereon).

Feel free to discuss the physics with Uncle Mike, who should have said something before now.

Kim

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