Pre-War Konig 4 - 60 ??

[Original Looper 1]

Somebody told me that this is an extremely rare photo of a pre-war Konig 4-60 that Dieter and his father were working on. It appears to have an unusual 4 into 1 exhaust system and the apparatus to measure the torque is quite interesting, to say the least. Comments would be appreciated.

Regards,

Paul

[Bill Van Steenwyk]

but it is a very strong possibility for a liquid fueled rocket motor such as used in the ME-163 Komet rocket powered interceptor or similar type weapons that Adolph tried to stop the B-17 and B-24 raids over Germany with latter part of WWII.

The large "ball" on the left or front of the apparatus is probably the combustion chamber and the round long affair coming off that is the rocket nozzle or exhaust. Similar motors of this type used propellants that ignited when they came together in the combustion chamber. They were very corrosive and some pilots were burned quite badly when tanks ruptured and they were doused with it.

They might have been measuring thrust but I don't think torque was involved.

[Gene East]

I agree with Bill. It looks like a rocket engine to me

The U.S. Navy had something very similar to a 4-60 during WWII and later; called a P-500 pump.

P-500 indicated the pump would move 500 gallons of water per minute. It was used primarially to evacuate flooded compartments or for fire fighting. The engine was also used on Class F hydros and runabouts during the hey day of the 4-60.

The first one I ever saw was owned by a guy in St.Louis. I believe his name was Bill Brown. He mounted it on a D quicksilver unit and it ran quite respectably.

However, it was bad about running backwards when cranking in the pits. It took 3 men and 2 boys to keep it from sinking the boat when that happened.

[Mark75H]

Moved to appropriate forum