55KW Mclaren Type MR mark II engine / Brush generator.
Year 1948.
This is an air start unit, employing a Petter A series W2 (water cooled) engine with combined compressor unit feeding a storage bottle to 300/350 PSI.
Setting the flywheel on the power stroke injects air into cylinders 1 and then 2 giving sufficient momentum for the diesel to fire.
Firing order is 1, 2, 4, 3.
Made in Leeds, these units were produced towards the end of the Mclaren era, making traction and ploughing engines as far back as the 1870’s. They were the first in the UK to produce automotive type diesel engines in conjunction with Benz from the mid 1920’s, used in railway engines, industrial engines and for generator sets.
In the early 1940’s a large order from Russia created a massive increase in the business and it’s workforce, but by 1947 Mclaren bcame part of Brush and by 1959 the leeds operation was no more.
Recovered from the Z Hinchcliffe mill at Ingbirchworth in the 1980’s. Dry stored for over 30 years until restored during the Coronavirus Pandemic 2020.