Here is a first work version of the animated diesel engine:
http://files.filefront.com/Tomi+Engi.../fileinfo.html
It's made solely with keyframe animations at this point. We will have to test if introducing mesh animations (f.ex. coils that stretch/compress) doesn't pose problems with framerate and synchronization.
Another thing: I've made the animation only from the top of my head and based on the odd video I've seen. If people have specific knowledge of the diesel engines and can tell me how much an arm rotates, or have more reference video's, that would we great.