Old Commercial Production Diesel Motorcycles
( also including Bicycles at the bottom :-)
The Royal Enfield Taurus Greaves Diesel Motorcycle
First up on this page is the Royal Enfield Diesel motorcycle. Once available with either a 325cc or 436cc single cylinder 4 stoke Greaves engine these bikes are no longer in production according to the Official Royal Enfield website. Both versions of this bike have 12 volt electrics, 4 gears, 14.5 litre tanks and 18 to 1 compression ratios. This bike is no longer in production.
Probably the most massed produced Diesel Motorcycle to date.
Royal Enfield Lombardini Diesel Motorcycle
An older Royal Enfield with Lombardini engine.
Royal Enfield Lightning Diesel 435cc with Electric Start
I'm at something of a loss regarding this machine. If anyone has any hard facts please let me know. Perhaps its one of the last Diesel Variants before production stopped at Royal Enfield. I think the engine is a Lombardini but I could be wrong.
The Lightning.
The Sooraj 325cc Diesel Motorcyle
The Sooraj Automobiles of Saharanpur in Uttar Pradeshr, a company of India, offered this Motorcycle to the world in 1992 promising 86 km per Litre of Diesel. Using the trusty Royal Enfield frame it used a Lombardini engine. Details from Car and Bike Internation Magazine. Sadly the bike is no longer in production. Just been told the tank is from a bike called the Yezdi made by Ideal Jawa of India.
LOHMANN 18cc Compression Ignition (bicycle) Engine
Ok, so this may not quite be a Diesel Motorcycle but you must admit, it runs on Diesel, amongst other things, and powers two wheeled machines.
The 18cc engine is of German manufacture and is designed to be clipped onto a bicycle. Its bore was 28mm and stroke 30mm. Made in the austerity era after WW2 it sold for the sum of £25.45 and was ideal if you needed to travel about cheaply giving its owner a reputed 300mpg!. Different sorces say the engine was produced in either 1949, 1951 or 1952. Fitted below the crank this engine drove the rear wheel by means of a roller. The interesting thing about this engine was that the compression was variable due to the fact that the 'Head' was movable by twist grip throttles. One presumes it was adjusted to what fuel was being used with the ignition taking place under compression. Apparently the engine came with a booklet carb jettings for various fuels. It could be run on either gasoline, diesel, kerosene or lamp oil. For the record compression ratio limots were between 8:1 and 125:1. The makers recommended 30:1 for starting the unit and 17:1 to run it. Top speed was said to be 16mph with the 2 stroke engine running at 6000rpm (0.8hp). It was said to be able to rev to 9000rpm (23mph).
I am grateful to Ad Langelaar for supplying the links here to four more pictures of the Lohmann engine. Pic 1, Pic 2, Pic 3, Pic 4. Thanks Ad.
Read an account of using this engine here.
