A NOT-EXACTLY-R4 conversation.

[Patbretagne]

Good morning Forum, I am new to you and would like to try to ease a bit of info from you, if anyone in your midst has experience in the field that I am examining.
My wife Noëlle and I live in Brittany and are both nearing the end of our gainful working life. Living in the country and being very much involved with agriculture we have been collecting vintage tractors for a number of years, we have seven along with a lot of implements, a horse trap and allsorts!

A couple of weeks ago I had the chance of acquiring a Renault Tractor YL built in about 1935/6 which was for sale at a relatively low price in the centre of France. Without going into detail it is now at home and has taken our hearts to such a degree that we would almost like to bring it in and put it by the fire in the evenings!

My question is : Does anyone have any info on Renault engines of the 1930s as we are sure that this is a car engine adapted to be used in the tractor. There were only 450odd of this model made over 5 years so I cannot think that they would have gone into another engine just for the kicks.
It is a 1.5l 4 cyl petrol mag with the impression of original electrics.

My main interest at present is to find where a dynamo could be sited, the wiring all ends at where the starter normally would have been (there is a cover plate) Would a dynamo ever have been put in place of the starter on such an engine? Gear driven off the starter ring?
A photo to help you identify.
Pat

PS the engine now runs rather like a singer!

 

[malcolm]

Welcome to the forum. I did a little digging around the internet and found a list of pre-war Renault cars: http://www.renault.com/default.html?/gb/passion/collection.cfm?theme=1 (the page is also available in French by changing gb to fr).

I typed a couple of model names into google. There is a photo of the Celtaquarte engine on http://celtaquatre.com/ although it doesn't look like the right one. Should be able to dig for specifications and pictures of the other models.

Didn't some of these pre-war cars have combined starters and dynamos (dyno-start)? The dog gear on the bottom of the engine looks a lot like the drive used by the dynamo on an Austin 7. I'll mail my Austin friend to see what he makes of it.

 

[Patbretagne]

Hey, thanks, your links have brought me more info regarding the tractor, I am sure that the engine in the Celta4 was very similar to the YL tractor.
You could be right about the dynostart, need some more contact for that.
The dog-gear that you mention is in fact for the drive to the magneto, which at the time of the photo was off the engine.
Enclosed a photo of the other side of the engine,
Thanks for your help, anyone else ideas?
Pat

 

[angel]

It was surely equipped with a Dynastart,combined starter motor and dynamo which was rather common on pre-war vehicles,I think it was Renault manufacture on these engines. You should be able to find replacement parts (secondhand) or wiring diagrams fairly easy at your country.I don't have any wiring diagrams for Dynastarts unfortunately, my field is post-war classics...