This is really fascinating. When my father was a boy, he worked in the oil fields of Southern Illinois/Indiana. He described to me roughly how the pumps worked:
The huge wheel had to be removed by hand every once in a while and greased up. Apparently it normally took 3-4 burly men. It was backbreaking work.
Attached to the engine through some contraption he was too young to remember or understand were a number of power transmission rods (that sound like they might have been what this article is talking about) that went out to the pumps. A single engine might power a dozen pumps and the pumps might be a mile away or so from the engine.
The oilman had to make his rounds throughout the day to each pump to make sure they were working well and keep the flow of oil coming. While out at a pump, the engine might have problems.
The "diagnostic" was to grab the rod and feel the vibrations. An experienced oilman could tell what was wrong and the nature of it by these vibrations and knew if he needed to go back, send a young worker boy (like my father) or leave it for a bit till he got back later.
Even more experienced oilmen could simply sit at the engine head and grab each rod and feel if the pumps were misbehaving and dispatch himself or a boy to go deal with it. This saved miles of walking around to the pumps each day.
It's hard to imagine an oilman, perched a bit like a spider near his engine, feeling into his web of rods for problems out in fields a mile away, but that's how it was.
A large single-piston engine, centrally located provided power they looked more or less like this http://www.stationaryengine.org/hornsby1_haddenham_2003.jpg
The huge wheel had to be removed by hand every once in a while and greased up. Apparently it normally took 3-4 burly men. It was backbreaking work.
Attached to the engine through some contraption he was too young to remember or understand were a number of power transmission rods (that sound like they might have been what this article is talking about) that went out to the pumps. A single engine might power a dozen pumps and the pumps might be a mile away or so from the engine.
The oilman had to make his rounds throughout the day to each pump to make sure they were working well and keep the flow of oil coming. While out at a pump, the engine might have problems.
The "diagnostic" was to grab the rod and feel the vibrations. An experienced oilman could tell what was wrong and the nature of it by these vibrations and knew if he needed to go back, send a young worker boy (like my father) or leave it for a bit till he got back later.
Even more experienced oilmen could simply sit at the engine head and grab each rod and feel if the pumps were misbehaving and dispatch himself or a boy to go deal with it. This saved miles of walking around to the pumps each day.
It's hard to imagine an oilman, perched a bit like a spider near his engine, feeling into his web of rods for problems out in fields a mile away, but that's how it was.