Lagopus;
I once saw a British Field Marshal early diesel tractor. This had a single horizontal cylinder with crosswise crankshaft. these was two methods of starting it, one was with a 12 gauge blank shell inserted into the cylinder head.
The other method was you lifted a lever which held the valve open & placed it on the rim of the flywheel which had a spiral groove cut into its periphery. A different hollow plug was now removed from the head. A piece of paper was rolled up & placed in the plug & lit. With paper burning plug was reinserted, a crank was placed in the fly wheel & turned like crazy. As the spiral groove led the lever off the flywheel, it then dropped putting it back on compression. Momentum f the flywheel would bring the piston over center "!" time, it either started or didn't. The gentleman showing it started it by this method while I was there. t fired up on his 2nd attempt. As I recall was in the 40 HP range. Very interesting tractor, not many of them in the US.
