Crosley 4-cyl aircraft APU?

[JohnB]

Over on the Antique Automobile Club of America forum something caught my eye in the Crosley (an American minicar 1939-52) section.
He has a strange straight 4 engine. He's been told it was a APU from a "Cold War Bomber".

IIRC, the B-29 has a small APU but it wasn't an inline 4. I'd guess the B-50/C-97s had a similar setup. I don't know if the B-36 had an APU or not.

Any idea whether this thing is from an aircraft? If so, what?

[The Inspector]

the post war CROSLEYS used a brazed sheet bronze engine block and the engine was called COBRA to signify it's properties COld BRAzed, they displaced 48 C.I. and lots of them died running in 48 inch class postwar hydroplanes (they would spin up amazing RPM'S). Prewar CROSLEYS used an opposed air cooled engine, they were nasty, rudely done cheapo cars and lots of them that lost their original engines to boat racers were reborn in the early to mid 60's running Small Block Chevys as gassers. Now of course, people are tearing up the earth to find and restore them, just like another nasty cheap disposable 50's car the HENRY J. So it's possible they were used as APU's as CROSLEY was a master @ marketing, bet your grandma had a CROSLEY radio or clock in the house, or a Crosley fridge.
Might want to hang onto that 87 HYUNDAI sedan.

[Forgotten Field]

I am not an expert, but have bought and traded a number of APU's and done a lot of searching on the internet for APU information. I haven't seen any information about Crosley APU's, but that doesn't mean they didn't have them as WWII-era APU information is hard to find in general. The suppressed ignition might not have necessarily been about aircraft use- this was needed in places like radio and radar installations, and any place you didn't want electromagnetic energy interfering with what you were doing. I don't think it's an APU for an aircraft. It could have been, but I think it would have had a lot more engineering to dissipate heat than I can see in the photos. All the Lawrance, Ranger, and Homelite APU's I have had were set up with a lot of shrouds and voids around the power plants to dissipate heat. Even the turbine APU's out there today are made the same way. Heat is bad for airframe structure not made to take it. I think what you're looking at is something made for ground-based equipment.

From Wikipedia about Powel Crosley:

Crosley was involved in war production planning before December, 1941, and, like the rest of American industry, the Crosley Corporation focused on war-related products thereafter. The company made a wide variety of products. The most significant was the proximity fuze, manufactured by several companies for the military. Crosley turned out more fuzes than any other manufacturer, and made several production design innovations. The fuze is widely considered the third most important product development of the war years, ranking behind only the atomic bomb and radar.
James V. Forrestal, Secretary of the Navy said, "The proximity fuze has helped blaze the trail to Japan. Without the protection this ingenious device has given the surface ships of the Fleet, our westward push could not have been so swift and the cost in men and ships would have been immeasurably greater."
British Prime Minister Winston Churchill was quoted with "These so-called proximity fuzes, made in the United States... proved potent against the small unmanned aircraft (V-1) with which we were assailed in 1944."
Commanding General of the Third Army, George S. Patton said, "The funny fuze won the Battle of the Bulge for us. I think that when all armies get this shell we will have to devise some new method of warfare."
Also of significance were the many radio tranceivers manufactured by the Crosley Corporation, including the BC-654, which was the main component of the SCR-284 radio set. The company also manufactured portable cook stoves, B-29 gun turrets, military radios, and so called "morale receivers," which were used by civilians living in countries occupied by the Nazis to listen to Voice of America broadcasts.[7]

[shrike]

The Crosley CoBra engines were used in stationary gen-sets and pumps, so the generator use might prompt the idea of APU, in the ground power sense.

[The Inspector]

I just got a reply on line from a Jim Bollman who IS the CROSLEY guy, he tells me the engine is most likely from a THERMOKING reefer unit, but CROSLEY did make auxillary engines for various uses during the war and they were based on the CoBra block.
The quest continues...........................
If you put 'crosley engines used in aircraft' into GOOGLE and select crosley engine family tree link, you'll find some astounding crosley aircraft engine concepts including a four bank X engine of 24 cylinders

[Tiger Tim]

I think the first handful of Mooney Mites were Crosley powered but got recalled and refitted with Continentals pretty quickly.

-Tim