Doble steam car

It was based on components salvaged from a wrecked White Motor Company steamer, driving a new engine of the Doble brothers' own design.

Abner moved to Massachusetts in 1910 to attend MIT, but dropped out after just one semester to work with his brothers on their steam cars.

The Model B also protected the interior of the boiler from the common steam vehicle nuisances of corrosion and scale by mixing engine oil with feedwater.

While the Model B did not possess the convenience of an internal combustion engined vehicle, it attracted the attention of contemporary automobile trade magazines with the improvements it displayed over previous steam cars.

It also possessed no clutch or transmission, which were superfluous due to the substantial torque produced by steam engines from 0 rpm.

John Doble also constructed a flash boiler with rectangular casing in which atomized kerosene fuel was ignited with a spark plug, in a carburetor-type venturi and used forced draft provided by an electrically driven fan.

The steam-raising part of the boiler was partitioned off by a wall of heat-resisting material jacketed with planished steel from a smaller compartment in which were similar grids of tubes for feedwater heating.

The layout of the chassis put the boiler at the front end of the car under the hood, the engine and the rear axle forming an integrated unit.

The even weight distribution and low center of gravity contributed much to the ride and handling of all Doble cars.

The only defect sometimes noted throughout the Doble car era was less than perfect braking, which was common in automobiles of all types before 1930.

Typically, a car of 1920s only had two rear-mounted mechanical drum brakes, although those fitted to Dobles were of larger than usual proportions.

Dobles achieved reliability by eliminating most of the mechanical items that tended to malfunction in conventional automobiles: they had no clutch, no transmission, no distributor, and no points.

Later Doble steam cars often achieved several hundred thousand miles of use before a major mechanical service was necessary[5] The Doble Detroit caused a sensation at the 1917 New York Motor Show and over 5,000 deposits were received for the car, with deliveries scheduled to begin in early 1918.

However, the Doble brothers had not entirely worked out various design and manufacturing issues, and although the car received good notices and several thousand advance orders were placed, very few were actually built, estimates ranging from 11 to as many as 80.

They managed to solve most of the remaining engineering problems and added even more innovations which increased the cars' acceleration and reliability.

The venturi was placed horizontally at the top of the vertical boiler barrel and oriented in such a way as to avoid direct contact with the monotube while inducing a swirl motion to the gases.

It was thus a counterflow design with water entering the lower end of the coiled monotube and progressing upward toward the burner, which meant that the hottest gases gave superheat to the steam at the top of the coil whilst the cooler gases preheated oncoming the feedwater at the bottom.

A piston valve incorporating transfer ports was fitted between each high-pressure and low-pressure cylinder in an arrangement similar to Vauclain's balanced compound system used on a number of railway locomotives around 1900.

[14] The main new feature was the boiler which formed the basis of later developments from 1930 onwards after the Doble company folded.

[16] Doble numbered all his engines sequentially: The 1924 model Doble Series E steam car could run for 1,500 miles (2,400 km) before its 24-gallon water tank needed to be refilled; even in freezing weather, it could be started from cold and move off within 30 seconds, and once fully warmed could be relied upon to reach speeds in excess of 90 miles per hour (140 km/h).

The first model E was sold in 1924, and Doble Steam Motors continued to manufacture steam-powered cars for the next seven years.

The first was the price: the chassis alone sold for $9,500, and adding a body virtually doubled that figure, making the car a luxury item in the 1920s.

The other problem was Abner Doble himself, who was said to be such a perfectionist that he was seldom willing to stop tinkering and actually release an automobile for sale.

Doble made two further steam engines, designated models G and H. These were larger units and used experimentally in several buses.

They undertook further development work with Abner Doble and created an interurban car, a railcar, and a steam aircraft.

Abner first went to New Zealand in March 1930,[26] where he worked for A & G Price Limited on the development of steam buses, while from 1932 to 1933 Warren was in Germany managing a contract for Henschel & Son of Kassel, who went on to build a variety of steam applications including a speedboat, cars, railcars, buses, and trucks.

Several shunting locomotives (switchers) and an undetermined number of railcars were fitted with Doble/Sentinel machinery for sale to customers in Britain, France, Peru, and Paraguay.

The project was for a low-weight car built around a unique "torque box" chassis based on an aeronautical wing section.

The Doble Ultimax steam unit was developed as one of two possible power plants, the other being an original design of two-stroke internal combustion engine.