CERLIST DIESEL
dropped only 4 percent from #2 diesel compared to gasoline. The injection pumps on production Cerlist engines most often had hardened internals to run on fuels with no lubricity, like gasoline, kerosene or JP-4. Because Cerlist was a small company with little capital, it took a while to get up to speed. When orders came, the 3-cylinder proved the most popular engine, followed by the 2-cylinders and the V4. Few V6s were sold and, as far as can be determined, no production V8s were built. In the late ‘50s, Cerlist experimented with repowering a Jeep FC-170 1-ton with a 3-cylinder and tested that truck extensively over hill and dale, likely with full cooperation from Jeep. The Cerlist closely matched the package size needed to fit in the Jeep engine doghouse and it wasn’t far off the original 226ci flathead six for net power. When Jeep needed diesels for its military XM-676 program, the Cerlist was chosen. This became the militarized Jeep Forward Control 4x4 truck designed for the United States Marine Corps and came in four variants. Production records also show a small number of civilian FC-170S built in 1963 with Cerlist diesels.
A Cerlist was tested in a Checker cab and delivered fantastic fuel economy and power comparable to the stock six. A Studebaker postal Zip Van was given a Cerlist diesel swap for tests. Beyond the M-series FCS, the USMC swapped Cerlist diesels into M-38A1 Jeeps for tests. According to some sources, a supplemental order came from the Marines for 3,000 engines and that may have been the straw that broke Cerlist’s back. The company had capitalization issues that became acute as the Jeep project was being finished up and could not meet the supplemental order.
Waukesha Engine came in to buy the company, completing that deal in June of 1963, keeping Cerf on the payroll as Sales Manager but moving production to Clinton, Iowa. During the Waukesha era, Cerlist diesels were sold mostly for stationary use. One interesting military application was a Vietnam-era portable aviation fuel dump for remote airfields. The Air Logistic Corporation used Cerlist diesels in its Boondocks Air Transportation Fuel System. The Cerlist pumped JP-4 from fuel bladders and ran off the JP-4 fuel it was pumping.
Production continued on the 2 and 3-cyl inlines and the V4 through July of 1973, when Waukesha discontinued them. The remaining spare parts were sold off in 1980 and today Cerlist parts stocks have dwindled. The exact production number of Cerlist engines has been hard to track down, but some sources list as many as 8,000 of the 3-cylinders and a combined 2,000 2-cylinders, V4s and V6s.
Loop-scavenged engines had an era but even had Cerlist survived as a company, emissions regulations would likely have doomed them, as they did the Uniflow GM engines. *Special thanks to Dennis Tollefson at the Waukesha Engine Historical Society and Ron Hackenberger