A new and excellent post on underloading

Trawler speeds are easy.

nomadwilly wrote:
Once stopped the truck engine gets to go through 10 gears or so *to get the truck back up to speed * ....pedal to the metal in all gears. And even in Kansas running down the straight and almost flat road the truck will probably work harder that a typical trawler. Just rolling 18 really big tires and wheels take quite a bit of power. Truck engines work hard even though they have lots of low load and idle time.

Click to expand...

*What Eric describes is why the Ford of England Dorset diesel (the engine marinized by Lehman into the Ford Lehman 120) was such a dismal failure in it's designed purpose, to be*a truck engine.* The high loads, constant rpm changes, lugging, and high revs typical of truck service were hell on the engine, and it just couldn't take it.* I was told by a retired British fellow we met whose company specialized in servicing, repairing, and overhauling diesel engines in England that the Ford Dorset suffered all sorts of problems when it was put into a truck.* The injection pumps in particular, he said, were very high maintenance items.

It wasn't until the engine was tried in a stationary, constant-load, relatively constant rpm industrical application that it showed promise.* Which is why its use in trucks was very short lived but it's use in cranes, generators, pumps, tractors, and harvesters--- and boats--- was pretty successful.