1929 Otto KV 50 

You Otto Know

The engine in this story is one of the last built in the United States with a direct connection to the beginnings of internal combustion. If the name “Otto” tickles your memory a little, it’s because of Nicolaus Otto, for whom the four-stroke Otto cycle is named. The four-stroke Otto cycle is well known as a spark ignition cycle. Lesser known is that the Otto cycle is also seen on just about everything else, including compression-ignition engines. The four-stroke, constant pressure cycle credited to, patented by and named after, Dr. Rudolph Diesel is completely different and the engines that run, or in the past ran, on this cycle are actually few and far between.  You could actually say “your diesel…  isn’t” but that’s for another story.

The First Four Strokes

wwwHistory has recorded Nicolaus A. Otto (1932-1891) was the first to develop a compressed charge, four-stroke engine in 1876. A good deal of internal combustion history had passed before that point, some involving Otto and some involving others, but all contributed to make the overall learning curve more shallow for the next guy. The road to success for Otto was paved when he teamed up with Eugen Langen (1833-1895) and formed N.A. Otto & Company in 1864. They built a successful atmospheric engine that started attracting investors. With investors came money for more development, fresh engineering blood and a successful product. By 1872, N.A. Otto & Company had evolved into Gasmotoren-Fabrik Deutz AG (GFD)… the cornerstone of what is now Deutz AG.

Early on, some very famous names passed through the doors of GFD, each making a mark there, though their later successes probably made a larger mark on history. Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach, who effectively created the automobile industry, spent years at GFD. Daimler would improve the business side of the company and help direct it’s research and development. Maybach would vastly improve and simplify the atmospheric engines, GFD’s foundational product, which would be sold to the tune of about 2,638 units from 1867-1878. Ettore Bugatti would be Production Director during GFD’s short foray into car production in the early 1900s.

A new age of power came after Otto’s four-stroke engine entered the stage but Otto only got to see only a small part of it’s success. He managed to design the first electric ignition system in the 1880s but spent a good deal of that decade fighting patent battles over the four-stroke concept in court. He died in 1891 at only 59 years of age.

Made In America

In 1877, Schleicher, Schumm & Company (SSC), acquired a license to build Otto cycle engines in the United States and became one of the first large scale manufacturers of internal combustion engines here. The Schleichers were cousins of Eugen Langen and SSC became the sole manufacturers of Otto engines in America. The licensing agreement allowed SSC to benefit from every advance made at GFD so SCC stayed on the cutting edge of the technology curve.

By 1894, GFD had became the majority stockholder of SCC and it became Otto Gas Engine Works (OGEW). GFD jumped on the compression ignition bandwagon in 1897 by acquiring a license to the Diesel system. They immediately began developing a diesel in Germany and it was up and running by 1898 but, prophetically, GFD terminated their license in 1901. When the Diesel patent expired just a few years later in 1907, they jumped right in and had a diesel of their own design going by 1911. Because developments in the Cologne, Germany, factory were mirrored in the U.S., that technology soon appeared here. Historical sources list 1912 as the year H.R. Setz was appointed Chief Engineer to develop horizontal diesels at OGEW. These were largely adaptations of the existing horizontal gas and gasoline engine architecture.

By 1914, OGEW had their first diesel on the American market, the DH 50. It was a four-stroke, single cylinder horizontal using air blast injection and making 50 horsepower at 230 rpm. It was advertised as a “crude oil engine,” but one that used the diesel principle. Air blast diesels used compressed air to atomize fuel and blow it into the combustion chamber at 600-1200 psi. It was more efficient than you might imagine and that had been the route of Dr. Diesel, even though he knew in theory solid injection was better. At that time, solid injection had not yet been perfected. The most serious downside to the air blast system was the need for a complex and troublesome high-pressure air compressor.

On the plus side, air blast injection made the engine somewhat omnivorous and it could run on many different types of oil, including very heavy largely unrefined oil. Dr. Diesel, for example, even had a prototype air blast engine that ran reasonably well on coal dust. OGEW’s advertising claims were a little misleading because to run the really heavy and mostly unrefined products, the oils needed to be preheated and filtered, adding even more complexity. Because the quality and consistency of fuel in those days was so variable, an omnivorous was a plus even if it cost some efficiency and convenience. The engine could be run on lighter oils more easily, if they were available. Timing could easily be adjusted to suit the type of fuel, more advanced for the heavy stuff and less advanced for the light stuff.

The DH 50 was on the market until at least 1917, along with OGEW’s vast array of gas and gasoline engines. Many were horizontals, alongside some multi cylinder horizontals, but they had also developed multi-cylinder vertical engines, including some four-cylinder gasoline engines sold to the U.S. Navy in 1900-1901. The company was doing well, growing, and technologically advanced. Then World War 1 happened.

Trading With the Enemy

For Europe, World War I began in 1914 and though far away, the war had a profound impact on OGEW. The USA wasn’t involved at that point but we had effectively chosen sides… and it wasn’t with Germany or it’s allies. The United States government was not anxious to go to war at that point but it was a political issue. The largely German upper management at OGEW became worried that America’s ties to Britain, who was at war with Germany, would result in some kind of an extradition agreement and the arrests of German nationals working here. The President of the company, E. Ziesche, beat feet to South America and left V.P. Erich Krell in charge. Krell had became a naturalized U.S. citizen as soon as possible and, armed with a power of attorney from GFD, kept the company operational.

According to testimony before Congress by a former employee in May of 1917, OGEW management made the unfortunate choice of allowing GFD to “edit” company literature to promote a pro-German stance and to advertise in publications that pushed a pro-German attitude. One could imagine this helped put them in the crosshairs of what would happen later.

The USA declared war on Germany April 1, 1917, and it didn’t take long for the government to become officially concerned about German companies operating here. In October of 1917, the Trading With the Enemy Act was passed, giving the government broad authority to restrict trade with any country in time of war. Along with a sizable number of other German-owned or operated companies, OGEW was expropriated by the United States Government and placed under the control of a holding company under the oversight of the Alien Property Custodian, who reported to Congress.

The records of this period have mostly been lost and it isn’t exactly clear what happened at OGEW during the hostilities. Based on what little evidence exists, there was some activity, possibly even some war production and spare parts for existing engines, but the extent is unknown. There is talk the factory put out some product as early as 1920. We also see some brochures printed late in 1922 advertising the solid injected models KV and GV diesels but that’s about all we can accurately say.

A Superior Investment

Otto Gas Engine Works remained in the custody of the U.S. Government into 1923. At that point the U.S. Government put OGEW up for auction and the winning bid came from Patrick J Shouvlin (1863-1957) and the Superior Gas Engine Company of Springfield, Ohio. OGEW became the Otto Engine Works, a division of Superior. Shouvlin started Superior in 1893 and had an impressive line of engines by the early ‘20s. Superior had introduced a semi-diesel oil engine in 1920, the Model PS, but Shouvlin wanted OGEW so as to jump start a line of diesels. Owning the company gave him rights to the Deutz patents and a good deal of expertise here in the States. He also wanted access to the multi-cylinder vertical engines Otto had been building and used them as the basis for a new line of Superior engines in that style. Almost immediately, the Otto Works began building diesels, both the old horizontals and new verticals.

OGEW had begun development of solid injection diesels, so it wasn’t long before the GV and KV lines appeared. They were largely based on the DH air blast diesel OGEW had offered before the war and there is some evidence that air blast engines that left partly built in the Otto plant were converted to solid injection. The extent is unclear, but there are hints of some back and forth between GFD and Superior during the early and mid 1920s.

The KV was offered in ratings from  35 to 65 horsepower and the GV from 90 to 140 horsepower.  These engines remained in production until at least 1929. By that time, Superior had extracted all it needed from the old Otto designs. Engine design and machining processes had rapidly advanced light years after World War I, and Superior moved well past what OGEW had achieved. The MAN diesels in the WWI German submarines had rocked the industry and delivered a rapid technological forward time warp. The Otto Works remained operation in the Philly area as a division of Superior but gradually the Otto identity faded away. The last Otto plant in the Philadelphia area was closed in 1942.

SOURCES

Coolspring Power Museum
179 Coolspring Road
Coolspring, PA  15730
814-849-6883
www.coolspringpowermuseum.org

SmokStak Vintage Diesel Engine Forum
www.smokstak.com/forum/forums/vintage-diesel-and-oil-stationary-engines.60/